Nagging Questions!!!!!
 

Ok I've got a few quirks on my system that I can't seem to find a answer to searching the forums.


First my /var/log/messages contain multiple lines of

Aug 23 04:57:30 Aliennb -- MARK --
Aug 23 05:17:30 Aliennb -- MARK --
Aug 23 05:37:30 Aliennb -- MARK --
Aug 23 05:57:30 Aliennb -- MARK --
Aug 23 06:17:30 Aliennb -- MARK --
Aug 23 06:37:30 Aliennb -- MARK --
Aug 23 06:57:30 Aliennb -- MARK --

Anyone have a clue what this is and more importantly how to disable it so it doesn't fill up my logs?


Second. I'm throughly confused on how hard drive DMA works in linux. Let me give a example

my boot log contains the following:


Aug 25 06:44:14 Aliennb kernel: ide: Assuming 66MHz system bus speed for PIO mod
es
Aug 25 06:44:14 Aliennb kernel: SIS5513: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:02.5
Aug 25 06:44:14 Aliennb kernel: SIS5513: chipset revision 0
Aug 25 06:44:14 Aliennb kernel: SIS5513: not 100%% native mode: will probe irqs
later
Aug 25 06:44:14 Aliennb kernel: SIS5513: SiS 962/963 MuTIOL IDE UDMA133 controll
er
Aug 25 06:44:14 Aliennb kernel: ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings
: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
Aug 25 06:44:14 Aliennb kernel: ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings
: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
Aug 25 06:44:14 Aliennb kernel: hda: 117210240 sectors (60011 MB) w/7877KiB Cach
e, CHS=16383/255/63, UDMA(100)



ok now I edited my lilo.conf to add lines idebus=66 and ide0=ata66 ide1=ata66

But heres my question my controller says UDMA133 so is the bus speed actually supposed to be 133? also if you look at the last line there it shows UDMA(100)???? I've tried uping idebus=100 and 133 and it goes back to the default 33mhz??? I'm so confused.

The reason I ask is with a hdparm -tT /dev/hda I'm only getting

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 2408 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1201.78 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 118 MB in 3.01 seconds = 39.26 MB/sec


which is ok but I'd expect more from a 60gb 7200 rpm drive on UDMA 133 etc. This is a Alienware Area 51m with two 3.2 Ghz processors.


Ok third and last question, what the hell does this mean?

Aug 24 08:56:53 Aliennb kernel: ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5)
Aug 24 08:56:53 Aliennb kernel: RAMDISK: Couldn't find valid RAM disk image star
ting at 0.

I'm thinking this MIGHT be why I can't get ACPI to work correctly but it might also be this laptop is bleeding edge and more then likely the DSDT isn't good enough for this laptop. It says ACPI supports all these sleep levels but I can't get any of them to work correctly. It would be nice to get ACPI working though as it's a thorn in my side as with the exception of this I've got everything else to work by devouring this website.


Thanks,

Chris

On your first question, those are just the system logger telling you that it is still working. There hasn't been anything to log. That's a good thing. It lets you know that the system logger is working. You shouldn't have a problem with your logs filling up. The logs are rotated out regularly. Just ditch the old ones when you don't nedd them if it becomes a space issue.

Thanks Shilo :) One question answered two to go ;)