[plug] hdparm troubles

[Bernd Felsche]

On Saturday 17 July 2004 13:28, Steve Boak wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 12:24 pm, Craig Foster wrote:
> [...]
>
> > What motherboard do you have?
>
> The motherboard is a Via EPAI-V C3 mini-itx with a Via Eden 533MHz
> processor, VIA8601A northbridge and VT8231 Southbridge chipsets.

Just for you, I've just assembled a system with EPIA V C3 at 1GHz;
and 512MB -- gross overkill but components were on the shelf except
for the mainboard which was cheaper than the Eden.

I've booted with SuSE Linux's 7.3 kernel; a firewall system
now moved to a new-ish drive...

clutch:~ # uname -a
Linux clutch 2.4.16-4GB #1 Wed Dec 19 09:08:41 GMT 2001 i686 unknown

clutch:~ # hdparm /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 32 (on)
 I/O support  =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 nowerr       =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 16708/16/63, sectors = 16841664, start = 0

Those are the default settings detected at boot-up. I've not forced
any parameters. Just let the drivers do their thing.

clutch:/proc/ide # cat via
----------VIA BusMastering IDE Configuration----------------
Driver Version:                     3.29
South Bridge:                       VIA vt8231
Revision:                           ISA 0x10 IDE 0x6
Highest DMA rate:                   UDMA100
BM-DMA base:                        0xe000
PCI clock:                          33MHz
Master Read  Cycle IRDY:            0ws
Master Write Cycle IRDY:            0ws
BM IDE Status Register Read Retry:  yes
Max DRDY Pulse Width:               No limit
-----------------------Primary IDE-------Secondary IDE------
Read DMA FIFO flush:          yes                 yes
End Sector FIFO flush:         no                  no
Prefetch Buffer:              yes                 yes
Post Write Buffer:            yes                 yes
Enabled:                      yes                  no
Simplex only:                  no                  no
Cable Type:                   80w                 40w
-------------------drive0----drive1----drive2----drive3-----
Transfer Mode:       UDMA       PIO       PIO       PIO
Address Setup:       30ns     120ns     120ns     120ns
Cmd Active:          90ns      90ns     480ns     480ns
Cmd Recovery:        30ns      30ns     480ns     480ns
Data Active:         90ns     330ns     330ns     330ns
Data Recovery:       30ns     270ns     270ns     270ns
Cycle Time:          30ns     600ns     600ns     600ns
Transfer Rate:   66.0MB/s   3.3MB/s   3.3MB/s   3.3MB/s

clutch:/proc/ide/ide0/hda # cat model
ST38410A

Now the tests on an "idle" system:

clutch:~ # hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.35 seconds = 94.81 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.18 seconds = 20.13 MB/sec
clutch:~ # hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.21 seconds =105.79 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.16 seconds = 20.25 MB/sec
clutch:~ # hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.25 seconds =102.40 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.16 seconds = 20.25 MB/sec

i.e. It looks like DMA works. Indeed more automagically than with
the EPIA-M I tested earlier.

-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
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