I built LFS 5.1 with nALFS and optimized almost everything for my computer. I think nALFS doesn't optimize stuff it says won't behave properly. Every time I read or write large files my system slows to a crawl. I have to walk away and wait for everything to finish. It even makes my mouse lag in X. I didn't have this problem with RedHat. Is it because my kernel is built with CFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon-xp" and CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon-xp" I've got an Athlon XP 2000+

If that probably isn't the problem do you know anything else that might be?

Hi Mr.,
Probably you are with disk operating in PIO mode. You have to install hdparm to check and properly configure your disk access.

Do you know where I can download hdparam?

The name is hdparm and you have google. The link on freshmeat is http://freshmeat.net/projects/hdparm/