Arch Linux

Rasi

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-08-14

Posts: 1,914

Website

Help me identify the cause of REALLY bad I/O issues

ok, i am running latest arch-testing on an i7 870 and a WD20ears HD.

problem is like this: i boot my computer into runlevel 3. After entering my username it takes around a minute until the password prompt appears.
After that it can take another minute until X starts (a minimal tiling WM).
checking iotop while doing so shows all kind of processes using 99% I/O ressources. ck-launch-session, nitrogen, X itself, subtle (My WM of choice).

the waiting for password prompt is caused by updatedb and mandb, even tho they run with IONICE=3 (idle)

even cd /et<tab> causes zsh to use 99% I/O.
even worse: while the heavy I/O is active my startx procedure will not complete without errors. e.g. my keyboard layout is not set, altho i have the appropriate line in .xinitrc.

If i wait around 5 minutes ALL those issues are gone. no more I/O issues, whatever i do. Even huge programs like KDE or JDownloader wont influence the system much.

Any hints what i could look for?

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