Ubuntu
debian-installer package

AMD64-alternate installer *extremely* slow on Quad Core

Bug #128977 reported by RichardNeill
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
debian-installer (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: debian-installer

I've just assembled a new machine: Core Duo Quad Q6600, 8GB of RAM, 2 x SATA HHDs and 2x SATA DVD drives, and a GA-P35C-DS3R motherboard.
This ought to be really fast, but it feels like an 8086. Trying to install AMD64-alternate on it is like watching paint dry. I can literally see the screen paint the curses interface, and when I get to a command prompt (Ctrl-Alt-F2), if I run:
  i=0; while [ $i -le 50 ] ; do let i++; done
this takes an entire second to run!

Something's gone very badly wrong, but I'm afraid I don't know what. I've already unsuccessfully tried the following:

 1)Boot without -quiet, and with varying permutations of acpi=none, noapic, nolapic

 2)Look at /proc/interrupts - nothing untoward (compared to my normal machine)

 3)Look at /proc/loadavg:
    0.16 0.57 0.80 1/71 4539

 4)Run top (unfortunately, it's not present on the install disc)

This is the latest nightly image (as of today); it also happened with gutsy tribe-2.

Any ideas? Thanks for your help.

Revision history for this message
RichardNeill (ubuntu-richardneill) wrote :

If I set the motherboard to make the SATA controllers run in IDE mode, the Ubuntu Installer works no better. However, Knoppix 5.01 (x86) will boot, and runs fine.
[Running the same test, it can count to 100,000 in 1 second.]

Some more data points:

CD-ROM SATA/IDE RESULT
----------- ------------- ----------
Mandriva 2007,x86 legacy ide, or sata fails

Knoppix 5.01 (x86) legacy ide works perfectly (but fails if the DVD-drive is not in IDE legacy mode in the BIOS)

Mandriva 2007.1,64bit legacy ide boots up, but fails late in the initscript (won't boot at all in sata mode)

Feisty 64bit alternate either same problem as before: boots up, but about 2000 times slower than expected after the kernel loads.
                                                                                  (note: Grub loads the kernel just fine; it seems to be the initscripts which go wrong)

Choosing "Failsafe defaults" in the BIOS doesn't help.

Revision history for this message
RichardNeill (ubuntu-richardneill) wrote : Halving the RAM

Seems that if I remove half the memory, and only fit 4GB, it works ok. It's very odd: the motherboard is designed to take 4 identical DDRII DIMMS, and I bought a matched quad of 4 x 2GB modules. memtest86 is perfectly happy with the 8GB (it actually detects 8191 MB rather than 8192, but presumably that's normal), and the memory test runs fine.
So:

i)Why does the system crawl so badly if it has the full RAM fitted?

ii)This is obviously a kernel bug rather than an installer bug - where exactly should I file it?

Thanks - Richard

Revision history for this message
RichardNeill (ubuntu-richardneill) wrote :

I've filed this as kernel bug #129172 with some more details, and a tarball of diagnostics (/proc, dmesg etc).

I hope i did the right thing filing a new bug, since this isn't really an installer-specific problem.

Revision history for this message
Steven Harms (sharms) wrote :

Is this still an issue in Intrepid?

Changed in debian-installer:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
RichardNeill (ubuntu-richardneill) wrote :

This was a kernel bug in 2.6.22 related to MTRRs. It was definitely fixed as of 2.6.26, so I shall mark this as closed.

Revision history for this message
RichardNeill (ubuntu-richardneill) wrote :

Closing as fixed elsewhere - see bug #129172 if desired.

Changed in debian-installer:
status: Incomplete → Fix Released
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