The transfer rate from the disks is ok, I added some options in /etc/sysconfig/hardisk after the original install, but found they weren't needed,

[root@ ~]# hdparm -t /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:
Timing buffered disk reads:   62 MB in 3.07 seconds = 20.17 MB/sec
[root@ ~]# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing buffered disk reads:   62 MB in 3.02 seconds = 20.51 MB/sec

/dev/hdb:
multcount    = 16 (on)
IO_support   = 0 (default 16-bit)
unmaskirq    = 0 (off)
using_dma    = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly     = 0 (off)
readahead    = 256 (on)
geometry     = 38792/16/63, sectors = 20020396032, start = 0
[root@lionel ~]# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
multcount    = 16 (on)
IO_support   = 0 (default 16-bit)
unmaskirq    = 0 (off)
using_dma    = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly     = 0 (off)
readahead    = 256 (on)
geometry     = 38792/16/63, sectors = 20020396032, start = 0

The controller ignores setting IO bit to 32bit , so hdparm -d1 /dev/hda does nothing... and the disks are 20gigs not 40,they are Western Digital WD200
hdparm -i /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

Model=WDC WD200EB-00CPF0, FwRev=06.04G06, SerialNo=WD-WCAAU5009049
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=40
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=17475/15/63, CurSects=16513875, LBA=yes, LBAsects=39102336
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version:

* signifies the current active mode
hdparm -i /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:

Model=WDC WD200EB-00CPF0, FwRev=06.04G06, SerialNo=WD-WCAAU5108990
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=40
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=17475/15/63, CurSects=16513875, LBA=yes, LBAsects=39102336
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version:

* signifies the current active mode

I'm running software RAID and they are both on one IDE controller, but this is because the installer detects the drive geometry differently for each if they are on separate controller, which would be the best option, but as I am doing mirroring I want the geometry the same. Furthermore no amount of changing in the BIOS affects the detected geometry by Anaconda. I've seen this quite a lot on Compaqs. I have just bought a Compaq motherboard from Ebay with a 933MHz PIII for £12.95 (= 20 bucks), to replace the PII 450 motherboard, so I guess I'll know if it is the CPU in a day or two.

Any other ideas?

Here is top:

top - 23:55:32 up 3 days, 7:46, 2 users, load average: 0.05, 0.03, 0.00
Tasks: 97 total,   1 running, 96 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 1.6% us, 2.3% sy, 0.0% ni, 95.8% id, 0.0% wa, 0.3% hi, 0.0% si
Mem:    515708k total,   449256k used,    66452k free,    92000k buffers
Swap: 1020024k total,      916k used, 1019108k free,   205364k cached

PID USER      PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+ COMMAND
3276 root      16   0 7528 2288 1828 S 2.6 0.4   0:01.07 sshd
3466 root      17   0 3464 952 748 R 1.3 0.2   0:00.33 top
    1 root      16   0 2708 568 476 S 0.0 0.1   0:01.92 init
    2 root      34 19     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.05 ksoftirqd/0
    3 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:01.37 events/0
    4 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.04 khelper
    5 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.03 kblockd/0
    6 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.00 khubd
   30 root      20   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.00 pdflush
   31 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:13.89 pdflush
   33 root       7 -10     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.00 aio/0
   28 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.21 kapmd
   32 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:32.34 kswapd0
107 root      25   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.00 kseriod
207 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.00 md6_raid1
209 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.72 md1_raid1
211 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.01 md2_raid1
213 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.01 md4_raid1
215 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.40 md5_raid1
217 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:04.02 md3_raid1
218 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:00.00 md0_raid1
219 root      15   0     0    0    0 S 0.0 0.0   0:07.55 kjournald

Note that I put X back on the box with VNC in xinetd, since it seems to make no difference to the box performance...

P.

Bryan J. Smith wrote:

Peter Farrow <peter@farrows.org> wrote:

web browsing now has a high latency ... DNS is all ok ...
I note that squid uses a fair amout of CPU on the PII450
from time to time,  but can't seem to get a handle on what

is

causing the delay.


Could be differences in the disk / disk controller.  Squid is
very storage intensive, although 512MiB RAM should mitigate
much of that.

Run "hdparm -i" and "hdparm" (no options) on each of your IDE
disks and check for DMA settings, and what the controller
currently set at (the asterisk next to the modes).