Maybe its the kernel itself. I've heard about the kernel accesing disk at regular intervals. -----Original Message----- From: Nick Selby [mailto:php@nickselby.com] Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 1:14 PM To: suse-linux-e Subject: Re: [SLE] Hard Disk Hits Thanks, I'll look - Nick On Friday 09 August 2002 15:40, John Ross Hunt wrote:
Maybe I never noticed it before, but since last night I've noticed that my Suse 8 notebook is hitting its hard drive every five seconds. Clickity Click. Pause. Clickity Click. Is this normal or what?
Try the idle disk daemon. Package name 'noflushd'.
Good luck,
-- ---------------------------- Nick Selby German Mobile: +49 173 384 6576 | UK Mobile: +44 781 592 5713 | US Mobile: +1 646 334 3649 *Currently in: Germany* ------------------------------------------------------- -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com
Alle 18:21, venerdì 9 agosto 2002, Martin.Guillen@siemens.com.ar ha scritto:
Maybe its the kernel itself. I've heard about the kernel accesing disk at regular intervals.
I think it has something about the journaling fs. I had an ext3 partition and it accessed the disk all the time, causing it to overheating. I got back to ext2 and the problem disappeared. Praise
Praise wrote:
Alle 18:21, venerdì 9 agosto 2002, Martin.Guillen@siemens.com.ar ha scritto:
Maybe its the kernel itself. I've heard about the kernel accesing disk at regular intervals.
I think it has something about the journaling fs. I had an ext3 partition and it accessed the disk all the time, causing it to overheating. I got back to ext2 and the problem disappeared.
Praise
I haven't seen the earlier messages with this Subject header so I am coming in part-way through your conversation. For several weeks now I have been trying to resolve why my HD was/is being accessed every 5-seconds. I have now found out that, in my case at least, it is not resiserfs per se which is causing this constant "HD hits" but Win4Lin which I have installed with SuSE (v8) and with reiserfs. (I am in correspondence with NeTraverse about this.) Someone in this forum mentioned a couple of weeks ago that when he shutdown seti-at-home on his system the "HD hits" stopped. What I found is that I have no "hits" if I boot SuSE without Win4Lin but as soon as I boot with Win4Lin the 5-second accessing begins :-(. What I also found is that if I have SuSE installed with ext3 the "hits" are also at 5-second intervals but this timing "drops" to every 35 seconds if I use ext2 as the file system. I did some testing today and found that it is not the Win4Lin patched *kernel* that is causing the problem but the Win4Lin program component - and you don't need to have Windows installed to start getting the "hits". If you have Kernel-Win4Lin and Win4Lin3 installed and both running and you then execute "rpm -e Win4Lin" on a command line the "hits" immediately stop. So, if you are getting "hits" then check which applications you are running that may be causing the "hits" because, as far as I am concerned, it is not reiserfs nor ext3 per se that causes this. I would be interested to know what you find as the cause of your "hits" when/if you find it. Cheers.
On Saturday 10 August 2002 10:58, Basil Chupin wrote: <snip>
For several weeks now I have been trying to resolve why my HD was/is being accessed every 5-seconds. I have now found out that, in my case at least, it is not resiserfs per se which is causing this constant "HD hits" but Win4Lin which I have installed with SuSE (v8) and with reiserfs. (I am in correspondence with NeTraverse about this.) Someone in this forum mentioned a couple of weeks ago that when he shutdown seti-at-home on his system the "HD hits" stopped.
Interesting. I don't have the latter but I do have Win4Lin3.0 on my machine, and installed it only recently.
What I found is that I have no "hits" if I boot SuSE without Win4Lin but as soon as I boot with Win4Lin the 5-second accessing begins :-(.
Oh, great.
I did some testing today and found that it is not the Win4Lin patched *kernel* that is causing the problem but the Win4Lin program component - and you don't need to have Windows installed to start getting the "hits". If you have Kernel-Win4Lin and Win4Lin3 installed and both running and you then execute "rpm -e Win4Lin" on a command line the "hits" immediately stop.
Hmm. Uninstalling it after paying for it and going to significant trouble to get it working sounds like a poor solution, but I suppose that it's better than having my hard drive eaten...Goes to show that introducing MS products into any computer, regardless of how, causes problems, don't it! Have you heard anything back from the crack customer support team at Netraverse, or have you only asked the question in the last 48 hours -the period during which they seem not to reply as a matter of principle?
I would be interested to know what you find as the cause of your "hits" when/if you find it.
I'd be interested in hearing what they say on the matter. I'll email them too, and two days from now I can post their reply. Many thanks for this post, Nick
Have you heard anything back from the crack customer support team at Netraverse, or have you only asked the question in the last 48 hours -the period during which they seem not to reply as a matter of principle?
I would be interested to know what you find as the cause of your "hits" when/if you find it.
I'd be interested in hearing what they say on the matter. I'll email them too, and two days from now I can post their reply.
To much trouble to try attributing quotes this time, anyway I'd just like to mention that win4lin also has a good mailing list. I've been using v4 for awhile and haven't noticed unusual disk access. (SuSE7.2, netraverses stock suse kernel) -- dh
dh wrote:
Have you heard anything back from the crack customer support team at Netraverse, or have you only asked the question in the last 48 hours -the period during which they seem not to reply as a matter of principle?
I would be interested to know what you find as the cause of your "hits" when/if you find it.
I'd be interested in hearing what they say on the matter. I'll email them too, and two days from now I can post their reply.
To much trouble to try attributing quotes this time, anyway I'd just like to mention that win4lin also has a good mailing list. I've been using v4 for awhile and haven't noticed unusual disk access. (SuSE7.2, netraverses stock suse kernel)
SuSE 7.2 does not install resierfs as the default file system- it uses ext2 and you have to deliberately select reiserfs during installation if you want to use reiser. However, when I install SuSE v8 with ext2 the "hits" occur every 35 seconds. So, what you are saying is that using the latest Win4Lin (version 4) with SuSE 7.2 you do not get any "hits" at all - not at 35 seconds, for example? Is your HD LED connected and working properly? Sorry for asking but your response will save me effort and time in installing SuSE7.2 with the Win4Lin (which was my next stage of proving to NeTraverse that someting is amiss with Win4Lin, and helping to pinpoint where this problem lies). Looking forward to your reply. Cheers.
Sorry it took so long to get back to you, On Sunday 11 August 2002 08:23 pm, Basil Chupin wrote: ----------------snip-------------------
SuSE 7.2 does not install resierfs as the default file system- it uses ext2 and you have to deliberately select reiserfs during installation if you want to use reiser. However, when I install SuSE v8 with ext2 the "hits" occur every 35 seconds.
I've got a combination of ext2 and reiser partitions,
So, what you are saying is that using the latest Win4Lin (version 4) with SuSE 7.2 you do not get any "hits" at all - not at 35 seconds, for example? Is your HD LED connected and working properly?
Unfortunately it seems that lately I'm always doing something that accesses the disk so I haven't had an opportunity to check further, I'd been trusting gKrellm's readout which wasn't showing anything (probably to short of access) but upon watching my disk activity led it seems entirely possible that somethings going on.
Sorry for asking but your response will save me effort and time in installing SuSE7.2 with the Win4Lin (which was my next stage of proving to NeTraverse that someting is amiss with Win4Lin, and helping to pinpoint where this problem lies). Looking forward to your reply.
The other posts describing reisers default activities seem to make sense to me. -- dh
Nick Selby wrote:
On Saturday 10 August 2002 10:58, Basil Chupin wrote: <snip>
For several weeks now I have been trying to resolve why my HD was/is being accessed every 5-seconds. I have now found out that, in my case at least, it is not resiserfs per se which is causing this constant "HD hits" but Win4Lin which I have installed with SuSE (v8) and with reiserfs. (I am in correspondence with NeTraverse about this.) Someone in this forum mentioned a couple of weeks ago that when he shutdown seti-at-home on his system the "HD hits" stopped.
Interesting. I don't have the latter but I do have Win4Lin3.0 on my machine, and installed it only recently.
What I found is that I have no "hits" if I boot SuSE without Win4Lin but as soon as I boot with Win4Lin the 5-second accessing begins :-(.
Oh, great.
I did some testing today and found that it is not the Win4Lin patched *kernel* that is causing the problem but the Win4Lin program component - and you don't need to have Windows installed to start getting the "hits". If you have Kernel-Win4Lin and Win4Lin3 installed and both running and you then execute "rpm -e Win4Lin" on a command line the "hits" immediately stop.
Hmm. Uninstalling it after paying for it and going to significant trouble to get it working sounds like a poor solution, but I suppose that it's better than having my hard drive eaten...Goes to show that introducing MS products into any computer, regardless of how, causes problems, don't it!
Have you heard anything back from the crack customer support team at Netraverse, or have you only asked the question in the last 48 hours -the period during which they seem not to reply as a matter of principle?
I would be interested to know what you find as the cause of your "hits" when/if you find it.
I'd be interested in hearing what they say on the matter. I'll email them too, and two days from now I can post their reply.
Many thanks for this post, Nick
.
A the time of writing this response to you, I received a reply from NeTraverse suggesting that it was reiserfs (which clears bffers every 5 seconds as programed by the authors) and Windows which writes to the HD constantly (!) [but not when I am running Windows neat on my machine :-)] and so resierfs keeps clearing the buffers every 5 seconds- hence the "hits". This reply from them was even after I told them that one doesn't have to be running Windows to have the 5-second "hits", and it was after this that I did some more testing and found what I described in my previous message: one does not need to have Windows installed at all and that the "hits" start as soon as the Win4Lin component is installed. This piece of information I sent them within their 48-hour "time limit" to respond but because this was over the weekdend I will have to wait till at least tomorrow for a reply from NeTraverse. What I do now is to boot with Win4Lin when I want to use a Windows application but then reboot just with Linux for most of my 'work'. This way I only get the "hits" for a short time while I am in Windows. A pain in the ass but.... And if it wasn't for my scanner (a Canon which even SANE doesn't have a driver for :-() I wouldn't have bothered with Win4Lin. Cheers.
On Monday 12 August 2002 05:06, Basil Chupin wrote:
Nick Selby wrote:
On Saturday 10 August 2002 10:58, Basil Chupin wrote: <snip>
A the time of writing this response to you, I received a reply from NeTraverse suggesting that it was reiserfs (which clears bffers every 5 seconds as programed by the authors) and Windows which writes to the HD constantly (!) [but not when I am running Windows neat on my machine
:-)] and so resierfs keeps clearing the buffers every 5 seconds- hence
the "hits". This reply from them was even after I told them that one doesn't have to be running Windows to have the 5-second "hits", and it was after this that I did some more testing and found what I described in my previous message: one does not need to have Windows installed at all and that the "hits" start as soon as the Win4Lin component is installed. This piece of information I sent them within their 48-hour "time limit" to respond but because this was over the weekdend I will have to wait till at least tomorrow for a reply from NeTraverse.
What I do now is to boot with Win4Lin when I want to use a Windows application but then reboot just with Linux for most of my 'work'. This way I only get the "hits" for a short time while I am in Windows. A pain in the ass but.... And if it wasn't for my scanner (a Canon which even SANE doesn't have a driver for :-() I wouldn't have bothered with Win4Lin.
Terrific. From Netraverse's website: "Win4Lin enables Linux users to run popular Windows programs at native speeds without additional hardware or the need to dual boot..." So what it seems is that in order to have the ability not to DUAL boot, I need to REBOOT every time I want to run windows under Linux or risk my hard drive being roasted and toasted. I hope this is not really the case. I know that the netraverse people seem heinously overworked, and therefore try to quiet technical queries in a friendly yet ordinarily vague manner. I'll try the w4l mailing list - have you? Nick
Dear Nick I have confirmed the regular hits phenomenon. A hard disk spins continuously unless it is idle for quite a few minutes - depending on the power saving settings (30 min). Unlike in a tape or floppy drive, the read/write head never touches the disk surface, it just skims over the surface. In fact if the read/write head touches the magnetic surface for any reason, the disk is ruined. A 'hit' is when the hard drive mechanism get a command to read or write a sector or sectors. The only change that occurs during a hit is that the sensor arm may have to move. As the actuation of the sensor arm has no moving parts (purely magnetic) the chances of wear are negligible. Most wear takes place on spin-up. I don't really think that you have much to worry about. Yours sincererly Basil Fowler
Terrific. From Netraverse's website:
"Win4Lin enables Linux users to run popular Windows programs at native
speeds
without additional hardware or the need to dual boot..."
So what it seems is that in order to have the ability not to DUAL boot, I need to REBOOT every time I want to run windows under Linux or risk my hard drive being roasted and toasted.
I hope this is not really the case. I know that the netraverse people seem heinously overworked, and therefore try to quiet technical queries in a friendly yet ordinarily vague manner. I'll try the w4l mailing list - have you?
Nick
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com
Thanks, Basil, for that information. Wondering though why the win4lin install seems to make it so that there are more hits than without it. Anyhoo. Thanks again> Nick On Monday 12 August 2002 12:40, Basil Fowler wrote:
Dear Nick
I have confirmed the regular hits phenomenon.
A hard disk spins continuously unless it is idle for quite a few minutes - depending on the power saving settings (30 min). Unlike in a tape or floppy drive, the read/write head never touches the disk surface, it just skims over the surface. In fact if the read/write head touches the magnetic surface for any reason, the disk is ruined.
A 'hit' is when the hard drive mechanism get a command to read or write a sector or sectors.
The only change that occurs during a hit is that the sensor arm may have to move. As the actuation of the sensor arm has no moving parts (purely magnetic) the chances of wear are negligible.
Most wear takes place on spin-up.
I don't really think that you have much to worry about.
Yours sincererly
Basil Fowler
Terrific. From Netraverse's website:
"Win4Lin enables Linux users to run popular Windows programs at native
speeds
without additional hardware or the need to dual boot..."
So what it seems is that in order to have the ability not to DUAL boot, I
need
to REBOOT every time I want to run windows under Linux or risk my hard drive being roasted and toasted.
I hope this is not really the case. I know that the netraverse people seem heinously overworked, and therefore try to quiet technical queries in a friendly yet ordinarily vague manner. I'll try the w4l mailing list - have you?
Nick
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com
Basil Fowler wrote:
Dear Nick
I have confirmed the regular hits phenomenon.
A hard disk spins continuously unless it is idle for quite a few minutes - depending on the power saving settings (30 min). Unlike in a tape or floppy drive, the read/write head never touches the disk surface, it just skims over the surface. In fact if the read/write head touches the magnetic surface for any reason, the disk is ruined.
A 'hit' is when the hard drive mechanism get a command to read or write a sector or sectors.
The only change that occurs during a hit is that the sensor arm may have to move. As the actuation of the sensor arm has no moving parts (purely magnetic) the chances of wear are negligible.
Most wear takes place on spin-up.
I don't really think that you have much to worry about.
You promise? :-) The explanation sounds reasonable but there is still something rattling around at the back of my mind about this and I'll look further into this. One thing 'bothering' me is the bit about the HD being active and therefore not being able to power-down into "sleep mode". Cheers.
Yours sincererly
Basil Fowler
Terrific. From Netraverse's website:
"Win4Lin enables Linux users to run popular Windows programs at native
speeds
without additional hardware or the need to dual boot..."
So what it seems is that in order to have the ability not to DUAL boot, I
need
to REBOOT every time I want to run windows under Linux or risk my hard drive being roasted and toasted.
I hope this is not really the case. I know that the netraverse people seem heinously overworked, and therefore try to quiet technical queries in a friendly yet ordinarily vague manner. I'll try the w4l mailing list - have you?
Nick
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com
Nick Selby wrote:
On Monday 12 August 2002 05:06, Basil Chupin wrote:
Nick Selby wrote:
On Saturday 10 August 2002 10:58, Basil Chupin wrote:
<snip>
A the time of writing this response to you, I received a reply from NeTraverse suggesting that it was reiserfs (which clears bffers every 5 seconds as programed by the authors) and Windows which writes to the HD constantly (!) [but not when I am running Windows neat on my machine
:-)] and so resierfs keeps clearing the buffers every 5 seconds- hence
the "hits". This reply from them was even after I told them that one doesn't have to be running Windows to have the 5-second "hits", and it was after this that I did some more testing and found what I described in my previous message: one does not need to have Windows installed at all and that the "hits" start as soon as the Win4Lin component is installed. This piece of information I sent them within their 48-hour "time limit" to respond but because this was over the weekdend I will have to wait till at least tomorrow for a reply from NeTraverse.
What I do now is to boot with Win4Lin when I want to use a Windows application but then reboot just with Linux for most of my 'work'. This way I only get the "hits" for a short time while I am in Windows. A pain in the ass but.... And if it wasn't for my scanner (a Canon which even SANE doesn't have a driver for :-() I wouldn't have bothered with Win4Lin.
Terrific. From Netraverse's website:
"Win4Lin enables Linux users to run popular Windows programs at native speeds without additional hardware or the need to dual boot..."
So what it seems is that in order to have the ability not to DUAL boot, I need to REBOOT every time I want to run windows under Linux or risk my hard drive being roasted and toasted.
I hope this is not really the case. I know that the netraverse people seem heinously overworked, and therefore try to quiet technical queries in a friendly yet ordinarily vague manner. I'll try the w4l mailing list - have you?
Nick
.
No, I haven't tried their mailing list. I'm subscribed to too many as it is. As far as running Windows applications "at native speeds" under Win4Lin is concerned, this is not so - unless there is something wrong in my whole setup. This I will check with a friend of mine (and have been meaning to check with him for a while now) who is also running Win4Lin and because he's been using W4L since version 2 he'll have a better picture of its performance. Cheers.
On Tuesday 13 August 2002 14:38, Basil Chupin wrote: <snip>
No, I haven't tried their mailing list. I'm subscribed to too many as it is.
As far as running Windows applications "at native speeds" under Win4Lin is concerned, this is not so - unless there is something wrong in my whole setup. This I will check with a friend of mine (and have been meaning to check with him for a while now) who is also running Win4Lin and because he's been using W4L since version 2 he'll have a better picture of its performance.
From a user on the Netraverse Mailing List: <message> This is a file system issue. Every 5 seconds, the kernel calls "sync" to flush the hdd cache. This updates the atime (access time) on the sync binary executable, which flags the cache as dirty, which means it'll have to be flushed next run (in 5 seconds), which updates the atime on /bin/sync, which ... Solutions: - search for "update" in your start scripts and call it with different parameters OR - mount your ReiserFS partitions "-o noatime" (but you'll lose information about when your files were last accessed, FWIW) This doesn't look Win4lin specific. </message> Comments Anyone? ---------------------------- Nick Selby German Mobile: +49 173 384 6576 | UK Mobile: +44 781 592 5713 | US Mobile: +1 646 334 3649 *Currently in: Germany*
Nick Selby wrote:
On Tuesday 13 August 2002 14:38, Basil Chupin wrote: <snip>
No, I haven't tried their mailing list. I'm subscribed to too many as it is.
As far as running Windows applications "at native speeds" under Win4Lin is concerned, this is not so - unless there is something wrong in my whole setup. This I will check with a friend of mine (and have been meaning to check with him for a while now) who is also running Win4Lin and because he's been using W4L since version 2 he'll have a better picture of its performance.
From a user on the Netraverse Mailing List: <message> This is a file system issue. Every 5 seconds, the kernel calls "sync" to flush the hdd cache. This updates the atime (access time) on the sync binary executable, which flags the cache as dirty, which means it'll have to be flushed next run (in 5 seconds), which updates the atime on /bin/sync, which ...
Solutions:
- search for "update" in your start scripts and call it with different parameters
OR
- mount your ReiserFS partitions "-o noatime" (but you'll lose information about when your files were last accessed, FWIW)
This doesn't look Win4lin specific.
</message>
Comments Anyone?
---------------------------- Nick Selby
German Mobile: +49 173 384 6576 | UK Mobile: +44 781 592 5713 | US Mobile: +1 646 334 3649 *Currently in: Germany*
See my previous comments. It isn't a reiser file system issue per se at all. If it was then as soon as you installed reiserfs or ext3 then the "hits" would begin but they don't. They start when the Win4Lin component is installed (after the Win4Lin kernel is intalled - the kernel itself doesn't generate any "hits"). NeTraverse have been in touch with me and I have now replied to them (just now as a matter of fact). The reason for the "hits" has been now been narrowed down to the process "ventd" which is started by Win4Lin on bootup. If, while running Win4Lin, you CTRL-ALT-F2, logon as root and then KILL the process "opt/win4lin/bin/vnetd" the "hits" will immediately stop. NeTraverse also suggested I run "unloadem" and "loadem" on a command line to unload/load modules called "mki-adapter" and "Mmerge" which are loaded by Win4Lin, but "unloadem/loadem" are not recognised by SuSE as legitimate commands, and the 2 modules are nowhere to be seen. I now await NetTraverse's further instructions/comments :-). Cheers.
participants (6)
-
Basil Chupin -
Basil Fowler -
dh -
Martin.Guillen＠siemens.com.ar -
Nick Selby -
Praise