Comment 25 for bug 21790

I have this poor performance before I login into Gnome:

/dev/hdb:
 Timing cached reads: 640 MB in 2.01 seconds = 319.09 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 2 MB in 5.27 seconds = 388.67 kB/sec

but after the login, it gets even worse:

/dev/hdb:
 Timing cached reads: 604 MB in 2.01 seconds = 300.84 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 2 MB in 9.04 seconds = 226.51 kB/sec

The info of hdparm about my disk is:

dev/hdb:

ATA device, with non-removable media
 Model Number: SAMSUNG SV1824D
 Serial Number: 0159J2FKB03618
 Firmware Revision: MD100-31
Standards:
 Used: ATA/ATAPI-4 T13 1153D revision 17
 Supported: 4 3 2 1 & some of 5
Configuration:
 Logical max current
 cylinders 16383 16383
 heads 16 16
 sectors/track 63 63
 --
 bytes/track: 34902 bytes/sector: 554
 CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
 LBA user addressable sectors: 35606592
 device size with M = 1024*1024: 17386 MBytes
 device size with M = 1000*1000: 18230 MBytes (18 GB)
Capabilities:
 LBA, IORDY(cannot be disabled)
 Buffer size: 472.0kB bytes avail on r/w long: 4 Queue depth: 1
 Standby timer values: spec'd by Vendor
 R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = ?
 DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4
      Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
 PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
      Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
 Enabled Supported:
    * NOP cmd
    * READ BUFFER cmd
    * WRITE BUFFER cmd
    * Host Protected Area feature set
    * DEVICE RESET cmd
    * Look-ahead
    * Write cache
    * Power Management feature set
    * SMART feature set
HW reset results:
 CBLID- above Vih
 Device num = 1

And the lspci output is:

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-751 [Irongate] System
Controller (rev 23)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-751 [Irongate] AGP
Bridge (rev 01)
0000:00:04.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South]
(rev 1b)
0000:00:04.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc.
VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:04.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
Controller (rev 0e)
0000:00:04.4 SMBus: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 20)
0000:00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:00:0f.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video
Capture (rev 11)
0000:00:0f.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture
(rev 11)
0000:00:10.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 08)
0000:01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX
440] (rev a3)

Are these results normal?? I find buffered reads VERY slow.