[Bug 601986] Re: Disk driver problems on Toshiba NB305Netbook

[jim_charlton]

Very interesting observations Kyle.
First of all, I used a bootable USB memory stick (8 Gigs) with the Ubuntu installation disk image on it to install Ubuntu.  Since then, I update using the internet.  I am unsure about how this would differ from using a USB to IDE adapter to install.

The interesting part is your observation about the SHIFT key.  I am
currently running Ubuntu Lucid 2.6.32-26-generic (10.04.1 LTS) with
bootchart installed.  With bootchart installed, the boot process is
fast.  I use hibernate instead of suspend (as I have described
elsewhere) and I find that hibernation works fine and that reloading the
resume image takes less than 15 seconds.

If I remove bootchart, then the boot process runs for 6 seconds, then
hangs for about 25 seconds, gives a few lines of output and then hangs
for many minutes, typically 5 to 7 minutes before finally booting.
Resuming from hibernation (loading the disk image) shows the same long
delays.

If I simply hold down the LEFT SHIFT key after selecting the OS in the
grub menu and hitting enter, there seemed to be some effect on the boot
time.  But even better was to depress the LEFT SHIFT after about 6
seconds had passed (or if you had it depressed from the beginning,
release and press and hold again).  This seemed to bring the boot time
down to a normal boot time.  Rapidly tapping the left shift key also
worked.  Tapping the LEFT SHIFT key during the resume from hibernation
also seemed to work the same magic! :-)  Pretty amazing.

I had understood that holding the LEFT SHIFT key during boot was used to
bring up the GRUB menu which may be necessary if you are booting a
single OS where (I am told) the menu does not display.  But I did not
think that that key did anything else.

I tried the same thing with the "a" key and the ALT key.  The "a" key
did not give the same effect.  The ALT key seemed to work but the system
seemed to be very confused after it booted and I could not get it to
shut down properly and had to simply shut it off.

I wondered if tapping or holding a key down simply loaded one processor
down and worked like my infinite loop program... and perhaps the way
bootchart has an effect.  But If I check CPU use when tapping or holding
the SHIFT key, I don't see much difference in the CPU load.

So, I would say that you have made a very interesting observation Kyle,
but I in the dark about what it means.

The bottom line seems to be that tapping and intermittently holding the
left SHIFT key during boot brings the boot process down to a normal
time.  Also works for resume from hibernation.

I tried the latest Maverick kernel (linux-
image-2.6.36-020636rc7-generic_2.6.36-020636rc7.201010070908_i386.deb)
by just installing the image and booting to it.  I did not upgrade the
entire machine.  Without bootchart, the machine hung during boot, but
tapping the left SHIFT key made it boot up pretty quickly (tried only
once).

-- 
Disk driver problems on Toshiba NB305Netbook
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/601986
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