Compaq problems forwarded

[Andy Valencia]

This isn't mine; I'm just posting it for Mr. Zorat....

					Andy


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Date: 23 May 1988 16:34-EST
From: mcvax!irst!zorat at uunet.UU.NET            (Alessandro Zorat)
Subject:  Re: microport memory
To: vandys at hpindda.hp.com (Andy Valencia)
Message-Id: <580401278/zorat at caneva>
Status: R

Hello:
I have been reading the problems that people are experiencing  with the
installation of uPort 386.  I have had a terrible time with mine, on a
Compaq portable 386.  It boots and runs, but so slowly that it cannot
even be used.  I had prepared the following article to post and ask for
advise, but we have just joined the net-news and for some reason on our
site I cannot do a posting yet.  Our manager tells me that he will have
to recompile and allow posting permissions, but he has not done so  yet.
Could I please ask you to post my article for me and redirect any
suggestions (if any) that might come out of this?
Here is the article.

Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.microport
Title: microport 386 and Compaq 386/20

I have installed (sucessfully) microport unix 386 Rel. 3.0 L2.2
on a portable Compaq 386/20 with a 40 Mbyte hard disk (type 17: 17
sect/track, 5 heads/cyl, 512 Bytes/sect., about 28 msec average seek
time - the standard disk for the portable Compaq).  The computer has 2
Mbyes of memory (of which only the bottom 640K of the base memory and
the 1M of ty extended memory are seen by unix).

The system installed OK, but it runs **exceedingly** slowly, so slow -
in fact - as to make it unusable.  I have traced the problem to a very
slow transfer rate from the hard disk;  the CPU is running at the
prescribed speed (as tested by running a CPU-only, no disk I/O program.)

The test I have tried to see the speed of the disk is:

	time dd if=/dev/rdsk/0s0 of=/dev/null bs=17b count=100

that is, read 100 tracks.

The result was that the microport unix 386 took (elapsed time) a
whopping 35 seconds!! (corresponding to a transfer rate of something
like 25 Kbytes/sec. or thereabouts)

On the same disk (on another partition) I have installed SCO xenix,
also for the 386:  on that the same test (reading 100 tracks from
/dev/rdsk/hd00) takes only 5-6 seconds (as it should).

Finally, I have also installed microport unix 286 and that shows a
perfomance of about 7 seconds.

The disk has been low level formatted (using the DOS utility "diskprep")
with a 1:1 interleaving - and was left that way for the three systems on
which I did my tests (Microport 386, SCO  xenix 386  and Microport 286).
Just to be safe, I have also tried to  (low-level) format  the hard disk
with an interleaving factor of 3:1, but the Microport 386 showed exaclty
the same performance.  As a matter of  fact, the  DOS utility "spintest"
showed  always  a  transfer rate  of about  256 Kbytes/sec  and two disk
revolutions necessary to read in a track, NO MATTER WHAT the
interleaving factor was.  This makes me  suspect that  the controller of
the disk has the interleaving factor hardwired in and that  it cannot be
changed.    But  anyway, this  does not  explain -  in my  opinion - why
transfer times on the SAME disk - take about 5-7 sec under xenix and 286
microport and 35 sec.  under 386 microport.  

I have tried to set up uPort as the only system (no DOS, no other
partitions),  I have tried the 3:1 interleaving, and any other
possibility that came to mind.

I have run out of things to try;  I have asked for assistance from
Compaq and Microport, but I have not obtained any suggestions of what
to do (or of what to try) next.  As a matter of fact. Microport told me
that they were not able to recreate my problem.  I even got an other
Compaq 386 just like mine, straight out of the box and installed uport
on that:  same problem.

If anybody has a computer+system like mine and knows what is going on, I
would appreciate very much hearing from you.  Thanx in advance.  

My E-mail address is (should be ??)
	mcvax!irst!zorat at uunet.UU.NET