Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2731 mails)

[H du Plooy <linuser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

This is just out of curiosity, but fixing the problem would lessen some
irritations too.

I have fetchmail --> sendmail --> procmail <spamassassin> (if I
understand the order of events correctly.

Whenever I download lots of e-mail at a time, I notice my system gets
slower and less responsive, sometimes so bad that apps like evolution
and mozilla seem to freeze until the mail is delivered.
I never noticed the system monitor showning increased cpu activity, and
top didn't turn up anything either.

Today I realised that it's the hard drive that's going bezerk when I'm
downloading mail.  Why?

It's not a slow drive, at least not slow enough that the colletive size
of the mail should tax it.  Seagate 40gb ATA-100 5400rpm disc (reiserfs)
on a ATA-100 controller.  Yast2 reports DMA to work in ATA-100 mode.

Any clues?

Thanks
Hans