So I have a _very_ heavily loaded box. (load average 5.6 on a 2.4Ghz machine) _lots_ of CPU load and two h/drives whirring fit to bust.

I have CD audio going into sound card and out into my head phones. (I can pick up the CD audio direct from the drive but then I can't pick up any other sound events / inputs (.ogg files and the like)

I'm using xmms from Debian unstable (Have you looked at that "What a Goom" visualizer plugin? Wow!)

Anyway, the audio goes blip and has gaps due to the very high CPU / disk load.

So I tried cranking up the priority lots. Helps a bit, but nowhere near cures it.

I even push it into real time priorities with chrt. No improvement.

Aha! Must be IO starved.

Grep around /usr/src/linux-2.4.10/Documentation and find block/deadline-iosched.txt

ls -l /dev/cdrom
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 3 Feb 19  2004 /dev/cdrom -> hdc

cat /sys/block/hdc/queue/iosched/read_expire
125

echo 60 > /sys/block/hdc/queue/iosched/read_expire

cat /sys/block/hdc/queue/iosched/read_expire
60

Blips and gaps have all gone away.

Pure Schubert Piano Sonata in A D959 by Alfred Brendel.

Magic.

I love Linux.

Curiously enough you can hear when Grendel (Brendel) really gets into it he makes a sort of growly crooning sound.

Well, so do I, so I don't mind.


John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand

"The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses
 between the notes -
 ah, that is where the art resides!' - Artur Schnabel



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