[2.4.18-pre3-mjc3] heavy disk load and non-killable process

From: Kilobug (kilobug@freesurf.fr)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2002 - 19:17:37 EST


Hello,
        I've a 2.4.18-pre3-mjc3 kernel, with preempt enabled. I was testing
relative performance of DMA and non-DMA IDE hard disk access,
and I did the following as root:

~ # hdparm -X67 -d1 /dev/hdb
~ # time /bin/sh -c "cp foo bar; sync"
~ # time /bin/sh -c "cp foo bar; sync"
~ # time /bin/sh -c "cp foo bar; sync"
~ # hdparm -X12 -d0 /dev/hdb
~ # time /bin/sh -c "cp foo bar; sync"
~ # time /bin/sh -c "cp foo bar; sync"
~ # time /bin/sh -c "cp foo bar; sync"
(foo is a 64Mb large regular file)

I had xmms running, and during the first two tests of the non-DMA
version, the sound stops and then restarts, but it didn't restart after
the last cp.

What is strange (and may be a kernel bug IMHO) is that the xmms process
stays running and non-killable:

(kilobug@drizzt, 53) ~ $ ps aux | grep xmms
kilobug 1346 0.1 0.4 5792 2424 ? S Feb03 3:13 wmxmms
kilobug 12452 8.4 1.3 25104 6936 ? R 00:56 0:38 xmms -p
kilobug 12590 0.0 0.1 1732 684 pts/4 S 01:03 0:00 grep xmms
(kilobug@drizzt, 54) ~ $ kill -9 12452
(kilobug@drizzt, 55) ~ $ ps aux | grep xmms
kilobug 1346 0.1 0.4 5792 2424 ? S Feb03 3:13 wmxmms
kilobug 12452 8.9 1.3 25104 6936 ? R 00:56 0:40 xmms -p
kilobug 12592 0.0 0.1 1732 684 pts/4 S 01:03 0:00 grep xmms

Top says that xmms takes half of the CPU time, the other half being used
by a low priority process:

   PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
12452 kilobug 34 0 25104 6936 384 R 48.7 1.3 3:42 xmms
   685 kilobug 39 19 50080 17M 0 R N 48.4 3.4 1932m ghclient.x

Here is a cat /proc/meminfo:

(kilobug@drizzt, 57) /var $ cat /proc/meminfo
         total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 527327232 355241984 172085248 0 43528192 109633536
Swap: 296099840 40099840 256000000
MemTotal: 514968 kB
MemFree: 168052 kB
MemShared: 0 kB
Buffers: 42508 kB
Cached: 91764 kB
SwapCached: 15300 kB
Active: 286872 kB
Inact_dirty: 22708 kB
Inact_clean: 0 kB
Inact_target: 61916 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 514968 kB
LowFree: 168052 kB
SwapTotal: 289160 kB
SwapFree: 250000 kB

(kilobug@drizzt, 59) ~ $ uptime
  01:15:41 up 1 day, 14:39, 5 users, load average: 3.33, 3.38, 3.36

I can send you additional informations if you want so (I'll try to avoid
shuting down the box and the X server as long as needed).

All mounted partitions (including swap) are from /dev/hdb, an IDE
Western Digital disk (cat /proc/ide/hdb/model says WDC WD300BB-00AUA1),
and I've unmasked IRQs with hdparm on it at boot time.

lspci says:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 [Irongate]
System Controller (rev 13)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 [Irongate] AGP
Bridge
00:04.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South]
(rev 40)
00:04.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:04.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 16)
00:04.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 16)
00:04.4 Non-VGA unclassified device: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686
[Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 40)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8029(AS)
00:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 04)
00:0b.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! (rev 01)
00:0c.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt848 TV with
DMA push (rev 12)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon QD

Hoping I can help you,

-- 
** Gael Le Mignot "Kilobug", Ing3 EPITA - http://kilobug.free.fr **
Home Mail   : kilobug@freesurf.fr          Work Mail : le-mig_g@epita.fr
GSM         : 06.71.47.18.22 (in France)   ICQ UIN   : 7299959
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"Software is like sex it's better when it's free.", Linus Torvalds

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