Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

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Husse

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Husse »

Seems to be a problem with your ATA controller
Post the result of lspci (in a terminal)
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Husse

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Husse »

Pretty standard things, normally no problems. I'm out of time today, but hopefully I can look in to it soon
Husse

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Husse »

Most modern versions of UNIX report the percentage of time the CPU spends in each of four states. These are %System State, %User State, %Wait I/O and %Idle. The first two are reasonably straightforward - the CPU is actually busy and working in those states, either executing the code of user processes, or executing UNIX kernel code on behalf of user processes usually as a result of system calls. %Idle is also pretty easy to understand - the machine has 'nothing to do' and what you are seeing there is the percentage of time it spends in the Idle Process, a do-nothing loop which soaks up unused processor cycles. The fourth state is also an idle one, but it's one which has been forced on the machine. %Wait I/O is time in which the CPU could have been doing useful work, but all of its active processes are waiting for I/O operations to complete. This enforced idle time is degrading the ability of your system to do useful work, and should be avoided. Measured over reasonable periods (5-15 minutes), a %Wait I/O figure consistently above 10% is of concern. If you see this sort of thing, you will need to identify any disk drives which may be bottlenecks, i.e. those with high utilizations (> 40%).
From this you see that if the hard drive (or CD/DVD) works hard you may have this problem
You have ICH6 a reasonably well working Intel chip and I have not found anything indicating what your problem might be.
Try to see if there's a system in the madness - if you are doing something particular when this happens
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

orduek,

Just a thought for you and Husse. How about the power saving settings. Do you notice if the hard drive is parked and has to spin up and run at the beginning and during this pause?

Just a shot in the dark.

Fred
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

orduek,

Well, depending on how much noise your hard drive makes, you can probably hear it. Maybe a slight click and a rising frequency whirring sound as the motor spins up the drive.

I'll tell you what I am thinking. As a power saving feature, if the drive is not needed for a period of time the head is parked and the power is cut off to the drive. As your ram fills up or the kernel needs information from the drive, power is reapplied to the drive and it spins back up so it can be accessed. The system can, to some extent, forecast when the drive will be needed and spins up or restarts the drive so it can be accessed. It is possible that the ata controller is not anticipating the need for spin up properly, or that the drive is slow spinning up because of a drive motor going bad or a spindle dragging in a bearing. The cpu then has to wait for the drive to spin up before it can move information into or out of ram. If I had to guess, I would say it is probably a drive problem. It is more likely that than the controller.

Of course I could be way out in left field too. :-)

Fred
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

orduek,

Yes there is a command sequence to change the spin up. The problem is I don't know it off by heart. I am going to have to look it up.... which will take a few min. Plus, I ate breakfast very early this morning and need something to eat. I am diabetic. I will go eat and when I come back if someone hasn't already shown you how I'll look it up and tell you.

Sorry, but you will just have to be patient with me.

Fred
Husse

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Husse »

Code: Select all

sudo hdparm -B254 /dev/sda
Be warned hdparm is very powerful and can destroy your disk. The setting given will not - it will make the drive spin down less frequently
There is a lengthy topic about this in the forum, but I don't find it right now. It's titled something like "Ubuntu destroys laptop hard drives " but not exactly that
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

Husse,

Thank you sir for helping me out. I didn't mean to barge in on your thread. I just had an idea and had to get it out before I forgot it ... carry on. :-)

Fred
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

The command that Husse gave you will not hurt your drive. You can give hdparm commands that will, but that one won't.

Fred
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

orduek,

Let us know what happens... for sure. If my theory is correct, the problem should almost go completely away. you will see a shorter battery life though.

If this seems to solve the problem that tells me that the disk drive is going bad. I don't know how old it is but notebook drives are not known for their reliability. If you have a lot of data on that drive I would suggest you start backing it up.

Fred
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

orduek,

I gave you my best shot. Over heating sounds a bit unlikely, wrong symptoms, but stranger things have happened. It might be screen saver, graphics driver related though. You might have something there. It just sounds so hard drive related though.

I know.... I am rambling. Let me think on it a bit. :-)

Fred
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

orduek,

Sorry my friend, but I just don't have any good ideas for you. I still kind of suspect the hard drive but I have no real facts to hang my hat on there. If you have a source to use another hard drive just to test the theory, I would give it a shot. But I don't feel confident enough to recommend you purchase one to find out.

If it isn't the hard drive and it does the same thing on rpm distros as well as Debian distros, It is probably a mother board problem. I know, not what you want to hear. I just don't have any other answers. Sorry.

You might try the Ubuntu forum. There are a lot more people there. Maybe someone there has run across this problem before.

Fred
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

orduek,

Before we get carried away here let's try something. Disable the screen saver and see if that does anything to the problem. If not, remove the proprietary driver and go back to the open source driver, to see if that has any effect.

I really don't see the connection, but stranger things have happened, especially with proprietary drivers. It is worth a shot anyway.

Fred
Husse

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Husse »

Just a comment - it is a laptop :)
With that I mean that different parts are closer connected not only physically but electricly and logically as well
Fred

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Fred »

Husse, you have a very good point. All comments are appreciated. I am out of ideas, which usually doesn't take long. :-)

Fred
Husse

Re: Laptops holds I/O Wait 100%

Post by Husse »

I am out of ideas, which usually doesn't take long. :-)
Haven't noticed that....
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