[TriLUG] rh8.0 and dell inspiron 8100 questions

[Doug Taggart]

Hello,

I've got a linux problem I'm hoping you folks will be able to help me
with. 

I just upgraded to rh8.0 (from rh7.3) on a dell inspiron 8100.
I'm using the stock kernel provided in rh8.0 (2.4.18-14).

I love the new unified bluecurve art packages, most everything works
well after a little help from the irc folks on
irc.openprojects.net(#redhat), but I still have a problem albeit minor
with dvd playback.  I think it's related to DMA not enabling on the
DVD-rom drive.

I'm noticing a few things that may help.

1. The kernel seems to not like Dell Inspiron hardware(mb)/bios, as I
have this message grepped out of dmesg after boot.

Dell Inspiron 8100 series board detected. Disabling IDE DMA.
Dell Inspiron 8100 detected. Forcing restore of PCI configuration space
on APM resume.

solution: Unknown, anybody have any knowledge of why the kernel does
this?  It's very close to the front of the dmesg info, just after BIOS
ram map.

2. My computer seemed a bit slower after the upgrade, which turns out I
believe was attributable to the lack of DMA being set on the hard drive
and dvd rom drive.

solution:
hdparm -c 1 -d 1 -X 69 /dev/hda
hdparm -c 1 /dev/hdb

This gave me more than four fold improvement on hda..  the buffered disk
reads were in the 3.5mb/sec range before issuing the hdparm commands
above for hda.

[root at laptop myrh]# hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.76 seconds =168.48 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  3.27 seconds = 19.55 MB/sec


3. DVD playback, the main problem at this point is still slightly
stuttery every few seconds using ogle.  Sometimes it skips ahead a half
second or so, or pauses a half second.. alternating randomly in this
manner.

solution: hoping you guys can help here.
hdparm -c1 /dev/hdb seems to help a lot from the initial poor playback. 
It's a vast improvement over how jerky it was without this, makes it
nearly watchable now, like 98% there.

xvattr -a XV_DOUBLE_BUFFER -v 0 
(defaults to 1, nvidia cards I read is supposedly better with 0)
not real sure if this helps any or not.


hdparm -d1 /dev/hdb fails with the following output:

/dev/hdb:
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
 using_dma    =  0 (off)

trying..
hdparm -d1 -X mdma2 /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
 setting xfermode to 34 (multiword DMA mode2)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)


Other notes(some redundancy):

The hdparm commands above (in solution area 2) have been added to
rc.local and seem to have made a vast improvement to general disk IO on
the laptop.

After doing so(well after a reboot, just in case, know it shouldn't have
been necessary), dvd playback is like again 98% there but not quite, but
there is still some slight stuttering/skips.

I've already upgraded my nvidia driver to version (3123), and set
XV_DOUBLE_BUFFER to 0
using xvattr (also tried dvd playback with default 1).  
I used the NVIDIA.src.rpm's and rebuilt them for rh8.0.

[root at laptop myrh]# rpm -qa | grep NVIDIA
NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-3123
NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123


Under windows I know the dvd drive is capable of mdma2 (see windows info
below), so should be capable in linux as well I'd hoped.
DVD playback is just fine in xp, so I know it's not the hardware.


linux device info

[root at laptop myrh]# hdparm -i /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Model=IC25T048ATDA05-0, FwRev=DA8OA70A, SerialNo=68068L61526
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=1806kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=93759120
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,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
 AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0xFE (254) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-5 T13 1321D revision 3:  2 3 4 5

[root at laptop myrh]# hdparm -i /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:

 Model=LG DVD-ROM DRN-8080B, FwRev=1.13, SerialNo=2001/03/28
 Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic }
 RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0
 (maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes:  sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2
 AdvancedPM=no
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-4 T13 1153D revision 13:  4

/dev/scd0 is actually a scsi cd-rw also in the system, so shouldn't be
an issue...

video:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 Go]
(rev b2)


basically redundant info here, just for comparison..

windows xp device manager info
dvd
DMA if available
Multi-Word DMA Mode 2
LG DVD-ROM DRN8080B

cd-rw
SONY CD-RW CRX700E

harddrive
dma if available
current: Ultra DMA Mode 5
IC25T048ATDA05-0

video
Nvidia GeForce2 Go (Dell Mobile)



Peace,

Doug T.