[Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

tarun.hellknight · 2012-01-30 04:06:12

I was getting very low copying speed when copying files to NTFS partitions, around 8-10 MB. But, when I commented the modules section in /etc/rc.conf file, the speed dramatically improved upto 5-6x. Now, it also created some problems for me. Like vboxdrv is required by Virtualbox to function & cpufreq_ondemand is required by my AMD processor. Please help me & tell what I'm doing wrong. I'm also posting the output of my /etc/rc.conf file here

#
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
#

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# LOCALIZATION
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# LOCALE: available languages can be listed with the 'locale -a' command
# DAEMON_LOCALE: If set to 'yes', use $LOCALE as the locale during daemon
# startup and during the boot process. If set to 'no', the C locale is used.
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "UTC" or "localtime", any other value will result
#   in the hardware clock being left untouched (useful for virtualization)
#   Note: Using "localtime" is discouraged.
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
# CONSOLEFONT: found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US)
# CONSOLEMAP: found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
# VERBOSE: Verbose level (from 1 to 8). man 3 syslog for level info
#
LOCALE="en_US.UTF-8"
DAEMON_LOCALE="no"
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"
TIMEZONE="Asia/Kolkata"
KEYMAP="us"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"
VERBOSE="3"

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# HARDWARE
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# MODULES: Modules to load at boot-up. Blacklisting is no longer supported.
#   Replace every !module by an entry as on the following line in a file in
#   /etc/modprobe.d:
#     blacklist module
#   See "man modprobe.conf" for details.
#
#MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"

#MODULES=(microcode powernow-k8 cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave vboxdrv vboxnetflt )
# Udev settle timeout (default to 30)
UDEV_TIMEOUT=30

# Scan for FakeRAID (dmraid) Volumes at startup
USEDMRAID="no"

# Scan for BTRFS volumes at startup
USEBTRFS="no"

# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="no"

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# NETWORKING
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# HOSTNAME: Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts
#
HOSTNAME="AX-64"

# Use 'ip addr' or 'ls /sys/class/net/' to see all available interfaces.
#
# Wired network setup
#   - interface: name of device (required)
#   - address: IP address (leave blank for DHCP)
#   - netmask: subnet mask (ignored for DHCP)
#   - gateway: default route (ignored for DHCP)
# 
# Static IP example
# interface=eth0
# address=192.168.0.2
# netmask=255.255.255.0
# gateway=192.168.0.1
#
# DHCP example
# interface=eth0
# address=
# netmask=
# gateway=

interface=eth0
address=192.168.1.2
netmask=255.255.255.0
gateway=192.168.1.1

# Setting this to "yes" will skip network shutdown.
# This is required if your root device is on NFS.
NETWORK_PERSIST="no"

# Enable these netcfg profiles at boot-up. These are useful if you happen to
# need more advanced network features than the simple network service
# supports, such as multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
#   - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
#   - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
#
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network.d
#
# This requires the netcfg package
#
#NETWORKS=(main)

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# DAEMONS
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
#   - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
#   - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
#
# If something other takes care of your hardware clock (ntpd, dual-boot...)
# you should disable 'hwclock' here.
#
DAEMONS=(hwclock @acpid syslog-ng network netfs dkms_autoinstaller sshd @crond @alsa dbus hal gdm @cpufreq @cpu)

Last edited by tarun.hellknight (2012-02-04 16:55:39)

stqn · 2012-01-30 14:36:55

Try disabling only some modules to find which one causes the slowdown... No idea besides that.

tarun.hellknight · 2012-02-01 18:47:03

Sorry for replying late.. Was very busy.. So, the thing is that I disabled every module & loaded only microcode & powernow-k8 in /etc/rc.local. Now, I'm getting good speed while copying data but the problem is that the processor is running & full speed i.e. 3.0 GHz. I checked it via cat /proc/cpuinfo. Also, there is a message in the bootime, that i'm posting here..

grep: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors: No such file or directory

If it helps, here's the output of cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor	: 0
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 16
model		: 5
model name	: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor
stepping	: 3
microcode	: 0x10000b6
cpu MHz		: 3000.000
cache size	: 512 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 4
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 4
apicid		: 0
initial apicid	: 0
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 5
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid pni monitor cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save
bogomips	: 6002.74
TLB size	: 1024 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 48 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps hwpstate

Last edited by tarun.hellknight (2012-02-01 18:49:55)

stqn · 2012-02-01 19:53:46

You're not loading any cpufreq governor, so yes your CPU is running at full speed. Adding back "cpufreq_ondemand" should fix this.

tarun.hellknight · 2012-02-01 20:15:40

Loaded it & this is the culprit. Loading cpufreq_ondemand decreases the speed of my file copying to NTFS partitions. Any remedies on this? Although now the cpu is running at 800 Mhz. But I had to do cpufreq-set -c 3 -g ondemand for every core.

Last edited by tarun.hellknight (2012-02-01 20:16:37)

stqn · 2012-02-03 12:13:40

Does it improve if you do (as root):

echo 50 >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/ondemand/up_threshold

Just a guess...

tarun.hellknight · 2012-02-04 03:13:47

^^Damn.. this is working.. & performance increased a lot..

stqn · 2012-02-04 10:46:03

Great . Then you can add that to rc.local or to sysctl.conf... and mark the thread as solved .

As for an explanation, I don't really have one. I couldn't find anything on the web that linked slow ntfs transfers to the ondemand governor. Let's just say that the default up_threshold value is 95, which means that the CPU increases in frequency only when its load is 95% or more... I suppose that the ntfs driver is CPU-bound but somehow doesn't make it go above 95%...

As a side effect youtube videos should be smoother now (unless Google changed the way it works...)

tarun.hellknight · 2012-02-04 16:54:59

Yeah.. Thanks for your help dude..

Arch Linux

#1 2012-01-30 04:06:12

[Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

#2 2012-01-30 14:36:55

Re: [Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

#3 2012-02-01 18:47:03

Re: [Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

#4 2012-02-01 19:53:46

Re: [Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

#5 2012-02-01 20:15:40

Re: [Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

#6 2012-02-03 12:13:40

Re: [Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

#7 2012-02-04 03:13:47

Re: [Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

#8 2012-02-04 10:46:03

Re: [Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

#9 2012-02-04 16:54:59

Re: [Solved] Very strange problem with kernel-modules & NTFS write speed

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