845GE Chipset severe performance problems

[goal]

Having built 3 identical machines based on:

MSI 845GE Max-L mainboard
P4 (533) 2.4GHz CPU
512Mb PC2700 DDR
Maxtor DiamondMax9 80GB

... we're experiencing very strange and severe performance problems with the systems.

They all have RH8 installed, we have tried both the default kernel and the latest 2.4.20. The problem manifests itself in overall slow system performance. I'll give an example below:

When running 'make menuconfig', this normally takes about a second to make and load, however on these machines it takes about 20-30 seconds! We've got a Celeron which does it faster.

A bit of background on what we've tried:

-HD's are running 32bit I/O and UDMA, infact hdparm tests report some very nice figures.
-There is no excessive HD activity, infact HD activity seems normal.
-Onboard Sound and all USB is disabled, and on the 2.4.20 we're using, these have been removed from the kernel.
-We've tried various combinations of just about every BIOS setting which could effect this, so we're resigned to thinking this is some sort of OS/Kernel/Support issue.

The best way to describe the problem is; it's like trying to use the system while it's under excessive load. Obviously there is no load on the system however, the problem occurs when using the system from idle.

If anyone needs any more info feel free to ask, we're beginning to tear our hair out on this one, it's very frustrating... ANY help at all is really appreciated.

Thanks in advance folks,
Andy.

 

[danielhozac]

Execute these commands and post the output:
[tt]cat /proc/cpuinfo
cat /proc/meminfo
fdisk -l[/tt]
The first one would print the information about the CPU, the second about your memory and the third would print your partition table.
I'm personally running a quite similar configuration, and I have not experienced any sort of performance issues. //Daniel

 

[goal]

Daniel,

Thanks for the reply, output as requested below.. hope this helps:

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
stepping        : 7
cpu MHz         : 2405.506
cache size      : 512 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
bogomips        : 4784.26

cat /proc/meminfo
        total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
Mem:  525225984 215515136 309710848        0 93630464 74813440
Swap: 1069244416        0 1069244416
MemTotal:       512916 kB
MemFree:        302452 kB
MemShared:           0 kB
Buffers:         91436 kB
Cached:          73060 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:         190012 kB
Inact_dirty:      2200 kB
Inact_clean:      4036 kB
Inact_target:    39248 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:       512916 kB
LowFree:        302452 kB
SwapTotal:     1044184 kB
SwapFree:      1044184 kB
Committed_AS:    63376 kB

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1        13    104391   83  Linux
/dev/hda2            14      1543  12289725   83  Linux
/dev/hda3          1544      2563   8193150   83  Linux
/dev/hda4          2564      9964  59448532+   f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5          2564      2690   1020096   83  Linux
/dev/hda6          2691      2820   1044193+  82  Linux swap
/dev/hda7          2821      9964  57384148+  83  Linux

 

[danielhozac]

Doesn't seem to be something wrong with your setup... How are you experiencing this slowness? Are you at the console? //Daniel

 

[Craig783]

Hello. Goal is a colleague of mine.

Daniel, Compiling takes forever, for example Apache taking over an hour and a half (before we got tired of waiting) where as it usually only takes around ten minutes. Also when saving files it takes around 20 seconds, terminal, both remote and local is lagged. Where as on other machines it is instant. It just seems to be running very sluggishly and slow.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

 

[Daster]

Hi Goal, i have the same problem u have!

Well i tried a celeron and a pentium4, but always the same: people laught when i tell them, linux kernel takes half an hour!

 

[Daster]

well have u tried a bios update already or another OS. for example windows?

 

[goal]

Well we had a lot of people look at this, and after a few suggestions from them and from Alan Cox we managed to improve the performance slightly, but still it was not acceptable. I think this may be something fixed over time.

In the end we pulled the boards and replaced them with a different brande+chipset..

 

[goal]

re: your 2nd post.

The boards work fine in windows and were running the latest BIOS at the time.

 

[Daster]

Well, i cannot change the mainboard, because the server is far away
Thats a thing u just realize when the server is gone

Have u tried a newer kernel like the 2.5 branch?

 

[Daster]

Well i tried the actuel 2.5.69 kernel, and same problem.
Where is the fault? Does other 845 GE boards have the same problem?

 

[goal]

I don't believe other 845 GE boards have the same problem, it seems to be a combination of factors which cause this on this particular board, none of which we were able to track down.

Maybe post to the linux kernel list, I know AC had a few suggestions, and he may be able to come up with something for you.

 

[Daster]

that would be great i dont want windows on my machine

 

[Daster]

did somebody found already a solution?

 

[arios2mx]

Hi!


Sometime ago I noticed the same problem I was trying to find the problem for almost a week then I do the following:

I unmount the motherboard from the CPU.
I connected everything on the motherboard (audio,video,lan,etc)
I don't install the motherboard to the CPU chassis.
I works perfectly!
My problem was an small screw we use to mount the motherboard

I hope it helps

 

[Daster]

Well, i sold both mainboards anybody else now can try it