Very slow disk access on a fresh daily install - Inspiron 8200 DELLLaptop.

[Mischa]

Sivan Green Wrote: 
> Hey People,
> 
> I was wondering if any "official" (by dev people) tests were made
> for installing on dell laptops - I have installed using a daily from
> about 4 days ago, on my dell inspiron 8200; everything seems to work
> perfectly, including the touchpad, the best screen reolution
> subtracting the modprobe snd-oss-pcm thingy which needs be done
> manually and the fight over preparing it for pptp cable broadband
> access.
> 
> The highlight of this test is , an amazingly slow disk access, in
> which disk access can be audioably traced to a single read/write each
> every half a second , that's awful strange, and it breaks gnome to
> practically unusable - namely, given firefox disk activity for example
> it's barely firing up, GUI tend to respond very slowly. Might this be
> a problem with cpu scaling frequency applet? Or some specific IDE
> controller bug with the one this laptop is using?
> The cpu freq monitor applet constantly switches between 1.2 to 1.8Ghz
> of operation - although I have disabled in bios setup freq scaling
> when on AC power, to enable it to run full speed when plugged in.
> (e.g. 1.8GHz)
> 
> System Config:
> ---------------------
> DELL INSPIRON 8200
> 1.8Ghz Intel Mobile Pentium IV
> 256MB DDR 233MHz
> GeForece 4 32MB vga controller
> 40Gigs hitachi HD , 7200RPM ATA100
> 15" SXGA lcd screen
> intel AC'97 sound card
> softmodem by conexcent
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Best Regards,
> Sivan Green
i had same problem on my insp 8200, here is how to fix it:

install hdparm:
sudo apt-get install hdparm

check you disk speed with:
sudo hdparm -t /dev/hda        
(if hda is your drive ofcourse, you may have to install hdparm :):
it will be between 2 and 10 meg %)

shut down your hald deamon:
sudo /etc/init.d/hald stop

check you disk speed again:
sudo hdparm -t /dev/hda

25 mb/sec......wohhooo
and the problem goes away.

he will not auto detect a cd in the cdrom drive, but who cares.

to make it go away forever you could do a:
sudo chmod -x /etc/dbus-1/event.d/hal
but i never tried this, because i did a dist-upgrade to hoary, where
the 
problem disappeared also.

have fun :)

mischa


-- 
Mischa