Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753434AbZI2IKs (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:10:48 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753237AbZI2IKs (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:10:48 -0400 Received: from casper.infradead.org ([85.118.1.10]:43749 "EHLO casper.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753003AbZI2IKr (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:10:47 -0400 Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:11:14 +0200 From: Arjan van de Ven To: "Lennart Baruschka" Cc: Alan Cox , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Disabling DMA with ICH10? Message-ID: <20090929101114.1712314b@infradead.org> In-Reply-To: <20090929075416.77960@gmx.net> References: <1254173481.4454.32.camel@goodbyte.homelinux.com> <20090928234025.6dc4e3f7@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20090929075416.77960@gmx.net> Organization: Intel X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.2 (GTK+ 2.16.6; i586-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by casper.infradead.org See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2030 Lines: 49 On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:54:16 +0200 "Lennart Baruschka" wrote: > Hi, > > On Mon, 2009-09-28 at 23:40 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > > > 2. My system uses an ICH10 chipset, the harddrive is connected to > > > the Intel SATA controller. Is there a way to disable DMA and > > > switch back to PIO? I tried compiling with libata support and > > > without SCSI support, but the kernel is unable to mount root (no > > > matter if /dev/sda1 or /dev/hda1), then. > > > > If you disable DMA you will make your performance and latency worse > > not better as the PIO transfers will stall the bus and thus the > > processor. > > I thought that PIO transfers (which I understand to be > write32()/read32()'s) unlike DMA transfers could be interrupted by an > high-priority interrupt. Is that wrong? a single PIO instruction will NOT be interrupted by an interrupt. And can easily take several microseconds (remember: 8Mhz bus emulation) while DMA is going on, the CPU on the other hand is just happy executing instructions, fetching stuff from memory etc etc. > Actually, that's what I do - except for locking the page, yet. I do > need to access the PCI bus in real time, though. So I wonder what > happens when the RT CPU is getting data from the PCI device, doing > some calculations on it and then writing back some data to the device, > __while at the same time__ another (non-RT) CPU starts a DMA > transfer. I figured the DMA would block the PCI bus, having my > interrupt wait for it to finish. That's why I'm trying to avoid DMA. the PCI bus is time sliced, with typical transfer sizes being like 256 byte bursts... -- Arjan van de Ven Intel Open Source Technology Centre For development, discussion and tips for power savings, visit http://www.lesswatts.org -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/