[ubuntu-za] Slow boot hard drive issue

Charl Wentzel charl.wentzel at vodamail.co.za
Fri Jan 20 21:52:39 UTC 2012


Hi Wesley

Thanks for the suggestions, but still no luck.  See my comments below.

> There is a known issue with some SATA drives using ACPI mode in some
> systems. It may be worth a try disabling acpi for one boot to test if
> this is the case: 
> In grub press 'e' to (temporarily) edit the boot line, and add to the
> Kernel line: "acpi=off"

I tried this but no success.  It also created other issues such as 
low screen resolution.

> Failing that, try a different data cable if you have one. No jokes. 
> Don't dismiss faulty cabling.

This is going to be slightly more diffucult on a laptop, since there
are not SATA cables.  I did however ensure that the HD is inserted 
properly and that the connectors are clean.

> Also in your pc BIOS option for the drive, try toggling the drive 
> mode AHCI mode to IDE. Be aware that if you do and boot fails, reboot 
> and change the option back.

No difference.  I also did a BIOS upgrade just in case, but no
difference in boot time.

However, with all the fiddling there was some changes in my syslog.  It
no longer get a hard drive timeout and only connects the hard drive
once.  However, the whole 71 sec delay is now where I used to have 13
sec delay.  Here's the new extract:

Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.139742] EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.805178] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Verbatim STORE N GO       5.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.805294] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.808200] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.824137] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.832256] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.832423] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.832533] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.832643] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.836200] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.836550] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.837401] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 7831552 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 GB/3.73 GiB)
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.839021] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.839029] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.840650] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.840656] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.845651] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.845657] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.864252]  sdb: sdb1
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.868904] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.868910] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [    2.868916] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

--> I also had a delay here, but it now restricted to just before this
message..

Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [   73.590673] lp: driver loaded but no devices found
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [   73.657724] [Firmware Bug]: ACPI: No _BQC method, cannot determine initial brightness
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [   73.657830] [Firmware Bug]: _BCQ is used instead of _BQC
Jan 20 23:03:11 tatooine kernel: [   73.687801] acpi device:02: registered as cooling_device6

Would it make a difference if I mentioned that the hard driver is a new
Seagate Momentus 750GB hard drive.  It's a fast 7200 rpm, 3Gb/s hard
drive.  Could it be that its too modern for my old HP 530 laptop, which
incidentally is still Intel Pentium Core Duo (T2300) machine.  Oh yes,
I'm also using LVM for my /home partition, but not for root.

This machine is legendary in the company for how many people owned it
and how old it is.  It was retired but returned to active duty after my
other laptop failed.  I'm now doing software development on it without
complaints... It's wonderful how Ubuntu helps to extend the life of old
PC's!

Regards
Charl




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