Hi,

It goes very slow when I transfer a file from one harddrive to
another. I suspect that the drives are not using ultra-DMA. I have no
idea where I can see which mode they are using right now. Where do I
see if they are using ultra-dma?
Also, any tips on what I could do to make it go a little faster, are
very much appreciated.

I am running OpenBSD 3.2 on a AMD K5 150 Mhz with 20Mb RAM. Two disks.
I used to run the exact same hardware with Windows95 back in the days,
and the filetransfers were faster.

Thanks in advance.

"DJ_Farid" <dj_farid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:88343fd0.0402250424.4802a8e8@posting.google.c om...
> It goes very slow when I transfer a file from one harddrive to
> another. I suspect that the drives are not using ultra-DMA. I have no
> idea where I can see which mode they are using right now. Where do I
> see if they are using ultra-dma?

dmesg ?

Steve
http://www.fivetrees.com
http://www.sfdesign.co.uk

DJ_Farid wrote:

> Hi,
>
> It goes very slow when I transfer a file from one harddrive to
> another. I suspect that the drives are not using ultra-DMA. I have no
> idea where I can see which mode they are using right now. Where do I
> see if they are using ultra-dma?
> Also, any tips on what I could do to make it go a little faster, are
> very much appreciated.
>
> I am running OpenBSD 3.2 on a AMD K5 150 Mhz with 20Mb RAM. Two disks.
> I used to run the exact same hardware with Windows95 back in the days,
> and the filetransfers were faster.
>
> Thanks in advance.

hdparm /dev/hda

will show info

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda

will enable dma. Be aware however that older machines or harddisks, esp.
like the one you have might be handling dma wrongly, destroying the
disk.

HTH,

EJ
--
Remove the obvious part (including the dot) for my email address.
http://www.vanwesten.net for examples of ipf and pf.

erik wrote:
> DJ_Farid wrote:
>
>> I am running OpenBSD 3.2 on a AMD K5 150 Mhz with 20Mb RAM. Two disks.
^^^^^^^^^^^
>> I used to run the exact same hardware with Windows95 back in the days,
>> and the filetransfers were faster.
>
> hdparm /dev/hda
>
> will show info
>
> hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda
>
> will enable dma. Be aware however that older machines or harddisks, esp.
> like the one you have might be handling dma wrongly, destroying the
> disk.

Well, hdparm is a linux thing, it is not part of the OpenBSD
distribution. A dmesg from the DJ_Farid would be more helpful.

Greetings
Markus

Markus Hennecke wrote:

> erik wrote:
>> DJ_Farid wrote:
>>
>>> I am running OpenBSD 3.2 on a AMD K5 150 Mhz with 20Mb RAM. Two
>>> disks.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>>> I used to run the exact same hardware with Windows95 back in the
>>> days, and the filetransfers were faster.
>>
>> hdparm /dev/hda
>>
>> will show info
>>
>> hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda
>>
>> will enable dma. Be aware however that older machines or harddisks,
>> esp. like the one you have might be handling dma wrongly, destroying
>> the disk.
>
> Well, hdparm is a linux thing, it is not part of the OpenBSD
> distribution. A dmesg from the DJ_Farid would be more helpful.
>
> Greetings
> Markus

Aaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggg. Sorry, posting in too many groups. Didn't watch
the groupname.

Nevertheless be careful when enabling dma. That story still holds.
Certainly with old hardware. AFAIK the kernel will choose the highest
possible rate to start with. For sure that will not be ultra dma as
requested by OP, that is simply not supported on hardware that old.

dmesg is the place to look indeed.

EJ
--
Remove the obvious part (including the dot) for my email address.
http://www.vanwesten.net for examples of ipf and pf.

DJ_Farid wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It goes very slow when I transfer a file from one harddrive to
> another. I suspect that the drives are not using ultra-DMA. I have no
> idea where I can see which mode they are using right now. Where do I
> see if they are using ultra-dma?
> Also, any tips on what I could do to make it go a little faster, are
> very much appreciated.
>
> I am running OpenBSD 3.2 on a AMD K5 150 Mhz with 20Mb RAM. Two disks.
> I used to run the exact same hardware with Windows95 back in the days,
> and the filetransfers were faster.
>
> Thanks in advance.

Take a look to the OpenBSD FAQ Chapter 12 (IIRC).

Jens

erik <erik@geenspam.vanwesten.net> wrote in message news:<403d3d97$0$572$c5fe704e@news6.xs4all.nl>...
> Markus Hennecke wrote:
>
> > erik wrote:
> >> DJ_Farid wrote:
> >>
> >>> I am running OpenBSD 3.2 on a AMD K5 150 Mhz with 20Mb RAM. Two
> >>> disks.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
> >>> I used to run the exact same hardware with Windows95 back in the
> >>> days, and the filetransfers were faster.
> >>
> >> hdparm /dev/hda
> >>
> >> will show info
> >>
> >> hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda
> >>
> >> will enable dma. Be aware however that older machines or harddisks,
> >> esp. like the one you have might be handling dma wrongly, destroying
> >> the disk.
> >
> > Well, hdparm is a linux thing, it is not part of the OpenBSD
> > distribution. A dmesg from the DJ_Farid would be more helpful.
> >
> > Greetings
> > Markus
>
> Aaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggg. Sorry, posting in too many groups. Didn't watch
> the groupname.
>
> Nevertheless be careful when enabling dma. That story still holds.
> Certainly with old hardware. AFAIK the kernel will choose the highest
> possible rate to start with. For sure that will not be ultra dma as
> requested by OP, that is simply not supported on hardware that old.
>
> dmesg is the place to look indeed.
>
> EJ

Here is my dmesg.boot. Is there any chance that I could do something
to get it faster? Also if I type only dmesg, I get a lot of strange
error messages that I do not understand. See below.

# cat /var/run/dmesg.boot
OpenBSD 3.2 (GENERIC) #25: Thu Oct 3 19:51:53 MDT 2002
deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
cpu0: AMD K5 ("AuthenticAMD" 586-class) 117 MHz
cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,MCE,CX8,PGE
real mem = 49917952 (48748K)
avail mem = 35307520 (34480K)
using 1904 buffers containing 7798784 bytes (7616K) of memory
mainbus0 (root)
bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+(77) BIOS, date 05/08/97, BIOS32 rev. 0 @
0xfaea0
apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.2
apm0: AC on, battery charge unknown
pcibios0 at bios0: rev. 2.1 @ 0xf0000/0xb35c
pcibios0: PCI BIOS has 6 Interrupt Routing table entries
pcibios0: PCI Interrupt Router at 000:07:0 ("Intel 82371SB PCI-ISA"
rev 0x00)
pcibios0: PCI bus #0 is the last bus
bios0: ROM list: 0xc0000/0x8000
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios)
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 "Intel 82437VX" rev 0x02
pcib0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0 "Intel 82371SB PCI-ISA" rev 0x01

pciide0 at pci0 dev 7 function 1 "Intel 82371SB IDE" rev 0x00: DMA,
channel 0

wired to compatibility, channel 1 wired to compatibility
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <IBM-DJNA-351520>
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 14664MB, 16383 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 30033360
sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2
wd1 at pciide0 channel 1 drive 0: <Maxtor 5T020H2>
wd1: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 19458MB, 16383 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 39851760
sectors

wd1(pciide0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2

vr0 at pci0 dev 18 function 0 "VIA Rhine/RhineII" rev 0x06: irq 10
address 00:80:c8:f9:b6:ef
amphy0 at vr0 phy 8: Am79C873 10/100 media interface, rev. 0
vga1 at pci0 dev 19 function 0 "Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430" rev 0x22
wsdisplay0 at vga1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
isa0 at pcib0
isadma0 at isa0
pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: <PC speaker>
sysbeep0 at pcppi0
lpt0 at isa0 port 0x378/4 irq 7
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: using exception 16
pccom0 at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
pccom1 at isa0 port 0x2f8/8 irq 3: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0/6 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
biomask c040 netmask c440 ttymask c4c2
pctr: user-level cycle counter enabled
dkcsum: wd0 matched BIOS disk 80
dkcsum: wd1 matched BIOS disk 81
root on wd0a
rootdev=0x0 rrootdev=0x300 rawdev=0x302




# dmesg
error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
wd1d: device timeout reading fsbn 39052960 of 39052960-39053087 (wd1
bn 39053023; cn 38743 tn 1 sn 16), retrying
wd1: soft error (corrected)
wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
type: ata
c_bcount: 1024
c_skip: 0
pciide0:1:0: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
wd1d: device timeout writing fsbn 9904252 of 9904252-9904253 (wd1 bn
9904315; cn 9825 tn 11 sn 22), retrying
wd1: soft error (corrected)
wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
type: ata
c_bcount: 8192
c_skip: 0
pciide0:1:0: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
wd1d: device timeout writing fsbn 18725248 of 18725248-18725263 (wd1
bn 18725311; cn 18576 tn 11 sn 10), retrying
wd1: soft error (corrected)
wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
type: ata
c_bcount: 2048
c_skip: 0
And so on...

Thanks!

"J. Hilgner" <j.hilgner@web.de> wrote in message news:<c1ll7l$1jbe2s$1@ID-80646.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> DJ_Farid wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > It goes very slow when I transfer a file from one harddrive to
> > another. I suspect that the drives are not using ultra-DMA. I have no
> > idea where I can see which mode they are using right now. Where do I
> > see if they are using ultra-dma?
> > Also, any tips on what I could do to make it go a little faster, are
> > very much appreciated.
> >
> > I am running OpenBSD 3.2 on a AMD K5 150 Mhz with 20Mb RAM. Two disks.
> > I used to run the exact same hardware with Windows95 back in the days,
> > and the filetransfers were faster.
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
>
> Take a look to the OpenBSD FAQ Chapter 12 (IIRC).
>
> Jens

I already read the FAQ in openbsd.org. I couldn't find anything that
helps or explains my problems in chapter 12?

DJ_Farid wrote:
> error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
> wd1d: device timeout reading fsbn 39052960 of 39052960-39053087 (wd1
> bn 39053023; cn 38743 tn 1 sn 16), retrying
> wd1: soft error (corrected)
> wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
> type: ata
> c_bcount: 1024
> c_skip: 0
> pciide0:1:0: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
> wd1d: device timeout writing fsbn 9904252 of 9904252-9904253 (wd1 bn
> 9904315; cn 9825 tn 11 sn 22), retrying
> wd1: soft error (corrected)
> wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
> type: ata
> c_bcount: 8192
> c_skip: 0
> pciide0:1:0: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
> wd1d: device timeout writing fsbn 18725248 of 18725248-18725263 (wd1
> bn 18725311; cn 18576 tn 11 sn 10), retrying
> wd1: soft error (corrected)
> wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
> type: ata
> c_bcount: 2048
> c_skip: 0
> And so on...

This why it is so slow. Are these messages only for wd1? Looks like
wd1 does not work well with your controller.

Take a look at the pciide manpage, perhaps disabling dma for wd1 will
help? That would be slower than using udma but with those timeouts you
are sure slower than using no dma.

Greetings
Markus

Markus Hennecke <hennecke@web.de> wrote in message news:<r2n3h1-27r.ln1@zerberus.hades.wg>...
> DJ_Farid wrote:
> > error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
> > wd1d: device timeout reading fsbn 39052960 of 39052960-39053087 (wd1
> > bn 39053023; cn 38743 tn 1 sn 16), retrying
> > wd1: soft error (corrected)
> > wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
> > type: ata
> > c_bcount: 1024
> > c_skip: 0
> > pciide0:1:0: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
> > wd1d: device timeout writing fsbn 9904252 of 9904252-9904253 (wd1 bn
> > 9904315; cn 9825 tn 11 sn 22), retrying
> > wd1: soft error (corrected)
> > wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
> > type: ata
> > c_bcount: 8192
> > c_skip: 0
> > pciide0:1:0: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x20
> > wd1d: device timeout writing fsbn 18725248 of 18725248-18725263 (wd1
> > bn 18725311; cn 18576 tn 11 sn 10), retrying
> > wd1: soft error (corrected)
> > wd1(pciide0:1:0): timeout
> > type: ata
> > c_bcount: 2048
> > c_skip: 0
> > And so on...
>
> This why it is so slow. Are these messages only for wd1? Looks like
> wd1 does not work well with your controller.
>
> Take a look at the pciide manpage, perhaps disabling dma for wd1 will
> help? That would be slower than using udma but with those timeouts you
> are sure slower than using no dma.
>
> Greetings
> Markus

I found this other thread with google:

http://dbforums.com/arch/181/2003/4/745460

It's about someone having the same error message as me. According to
someone replying to the thread the disk is faulty... Could this be the
case with my drive also?

I get the errors only with wd1.