[linux-audio-user] xruns vs. disk activity

Hello all I'm trying to get a gentoo based audio box (primarily Ardour) off the ground. Despite my best efforts, I can't eliminate xruns to a level I could live with (10ms+ xruns every 2 minutes on average seems excessive - esp. with stereo @ 44k1). There's some captured data at the very end of this mail. My observations are made using; jackd -v -R -d... -r 44100 -p 128 2>&1 | tee jacklog (i.e. stereo SB16 @44k1) and ardour, session open but not actively playing I'll present my questions before wandering off into a tedious list (apologies for length) of stuff I've already done. Would anyone care to offer an opinion on these questions; 1. Am I expecting too much? Either from my hardware, or the current state of Linux. 2. Is there a vital piece of config that I've totally overlooked? 3. Is there a better way to measure this to home in on the source of the problem? 4. Are the xruns incidental to the disk activity - is this all a symptom of something else? 5. Insert any other question I should be asking here. Thanks in advance for any help/advice offered, I've run out of ideas. Ta R The (abridged) story so far... Google Patched 2.4.20 with everything I found on Andrew Mortons page Read http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/Arcana.html Read LAU resource links Fixed snd-card IRQ to 9 PCI latency timers set up Killed cron/syslog Switched to reiserfs (in desperation) Tried hdparm incantations to no effect Run bonnie (if I understand this, I'm getting 25Mb/s sustained block bandwidth) -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- --Random-- -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- --Seeks--- Machine MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU /sec %CPU 2000 7467 73.6 25491 24.5 12476 8.3 10739 75.3 25217 10.8 90.8 1.2 Checked /var/log/messages for signs of IDE bus failures Upgraded to alsa-driver 0.9.2 Re-emerged jack from CVS Monkeyed with vm settings to try to smooth out the disk activity The hardware: Duron 1300MHz, Abit KT7A 512M PC133 primary IDE: Seagate ST360021A, QUANTUM FIREBALLP AS40.0 (80 way ribbon) secondary IDE: CD/CDRW AGP graphics card SB16/128 PCI (i know - it's junk) 3Com PCI 3c905 0: 674864 XT-PIC timer 1: 7927 XT-PIC keyboard 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade 8: 2 XT-PIC rtc 9: 1166 XT-PIC Ensoniq AudioPCI 11: 21381 XT-PIC eth0 12: 94912 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse 14: 13585 XT-PIC ide0 15: 9 XT-PIC ide1 NMI: 0 LOC: 674826 ERR: 114 MIS: 0 lspci -vv 00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 03) Subsystem: ABIT Computer Corp. KT7/KT7-RAID/KT7A/KT7A-RAID Mainboard Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort - <MAbort+ >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 8 Region 0: Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M] Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0 Status: RQ=31 SBA+ 64bit- FW+ Rate=x1,x2,x4 Command: RQ=0 SBA- AGP- 64bit- FW- Rate=<none> Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot -,D3cold-) Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- 00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133 AGP] (prog-i f 00 [Normal decode]) Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66Mhz+ UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort - <MAbort+ >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0 Memory behind bridge: e6000000-e7ffffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: e4000000-e5ffffff BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR- NoISA+ VGA+ MAbort- >Reset- FastB2B- Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot -,D3cold-) Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- 00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 40 ) Subsystem: ABIT Computer Corp.: Unknown device 0000 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping+ SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort - <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 0 Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot -,D3cold-) Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- 00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586/B/686A/B PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP]) Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 Bus Master ATA133/100/66/33 IDE Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort - <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 32 Region 4: I/O ports at d000 [size=16] Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot -,D3cold-) Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- 00:07.4 Bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 40) Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] Control: I/O- Mem- BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort - <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Interrupt: pin ? routed to IRQ 11 Capabilities: [68] Power Management version 2 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot -,D3cold-) Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- 00:09.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905 100BaseTX [Boomerang] Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap- 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort - <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 32 (750ns min, 2000ns max) Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11 Region 0: I/O ports at dc00 [size=64] Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K] 00:0d.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 02) Subsystem: Ensoniq Creative Sound Blaster AudioPCI128 Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=slow >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 248 (3000ns min, 32000ns max) Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 9 Region 0: I/O ports at e000 [size=64] Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1 Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1- D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot -,D3cold-) Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV5M64 [RIVA TNT2 Model 64 /Model 64 Pro] (rev 15) (prog-if 00 [VGA]) Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Step ping- SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66Mhz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort - <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 32 (1250ns min, 250ns max) Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 10 Region 0: Memory at e6000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] Region 1: Memory at e4000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M] Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K] Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot -,D3cold-) Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0 Status: RQ=31 SBA- 64bit- FW- Rate=x1,x2,x4 Command: RQ=0 SBA- AGP- 64bit- FW- Rate=<none> ps ax PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND 1 ? S 0:04 init 2 ? SW 0:00 [keventd] 3 ? SWN 0:00 [ksoftirqd_CPU0] 4 ? SW 0:00 [kswapd] 5 ? SW 0:00 [bdflush] 6 ? SW 0:00 [kupdated] 7 ? SW 0:00 [kreiserfsd] 31 ? S 0:00 /sbin/devfsd /dev 1198 vc/1 S 0:00 login -- root 1199 vc/2 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux 1200 vc/3 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux 1201 vc/4 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux 1202 vc/5 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux 1203 vc/6 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux 1204 vc/1 S 0:00 -bash 1209 vc/1 S 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/X11R6/bin/startx 1220 vc/1 S 0:00 xinit /root/.xinitrc -- 1221 ? S< 0:33 X :0 1234 vc/1 S 0:00 fvwm2 1236 vc/1 S 0:01 xterm -geometry 120x70+0+0 1239 pts/0 S 0:00 bash 1284 vc/1 S 0:00 xterm 1285 pts/1 S 0:00 bash 1288 vc/1 S 0:00 xterm 1289 pts/2 S 0:00 bash 1313 vc/1 S 0:00 xterm 1314 pts/3 S 0:00 bash 1325 pts/3 S 0:00 alsamixer 1387 vc/1 S 0:00 xterm 1388 pts/4 S 0:00 bash 1398 vc/1 S 0:00 xterm 1399 pts/5 S 0:00 bash 1580 pts/0 S 0:00 jackd -v -R -d alsa -d card0 -r 44100 -p 128 1581 pts/0 S 0:00 tee jacklog 1582 pts/0 SL 0:11 jackd -v -R -d alsa -d card0 -r 44100 -p 128 1589 pts/2 SL 0:26 /usr/lib/ardour/ardourx 1616 pts/1 S 0:00 emacs jacklog.awk 1631 pts/1 R 0:00 ps ax I used this (jacklog.awk) to parse the output from jackd: $0 ~/load/ { count++; seconds++; } $0 ~/xrun/ { cost = ($7 * 1000)/count; print count "\t" $7 * 1000 "\t" cost; count = 0; xruns++; } END { minutes = int(seconds / 60); seconds = seconds - (minutes * 60); time = (minutes * 60) + seconds; print xruns " xruns in " minutes":"seconds " (" time " seconds) average " time/xruns; } <<<< which gave me this (cost function is extremely crude); 108 675 6.25 207 690 3.33333 196 1400 7.14286 34 10608 312 69 2658 38.5217 44 14553 330.75 117 465 3.97436 39 913 23.4103 206 1724 8.36893 108 8710 80.6481 176 12596 71.5682 58 1237 21.3276 182 15688 86.1978 53 4315 81.4151 233 1100 4.72103 95 8932 94.0211 5 1917 383.4 83 6378 76.8434 44 226 5.13636 10 7923 792.3 10 825 82.5 44 6949 157.932 44 1094 24.8636 15 455 30.3333 88 1220 13.8636 25 xruns in 39:30 (2370 seconds) average 94.8