For the hardware guys...

[Richard Zimmerman <ke4rit@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   As many know, I lost a modem last week. I purchased an external to replace it
simply because I like the lights and like to know what is going on with the
modem line. 

   Well all this lead me to start playing with the hardware config on my
computer to see if I can gain some bytes here and there in speed.

   First, thanks Adam for irqtune. This has definately cleared up the irq
problem on the serial port!

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   Warning - don't try this at home unless you know what you are doing! I
speak from experience.  You will trash a drive in a hurry!!! like as soon you
press the enter key! <G> 
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   Then I got to messing around with hdparm again! While I did not suffer the
horrible results of my last attempts, I did do significant research on the
hardware of both the motherboard and hard drive. In my case, they are a Asus
P/I-P55T2P4 (430HX chipset) w/ AMD6k-200 & an IBM built Maxtor hd.

   I did an "hdparm -u1 -c1 -m16 /dev/hda". For clarity -c1 tells the
system to turn on 32bit transfers. -m16 tells the hard drive to transfer 16
sectors of data for each irq interrupt. -u1 Tells the computer to unmask the
ide interrupt. This will free the interrupt sooner so the cpu can go on to
other tasks. 

   While the hard drive loved it and the system seem to love it, my
Mistsumi CD-RROM *HATED* the setup. Obviously, Mitsumi doesn't set any records
on IDE bus transfer rates.... It did cause me a number of close calls for data
loss with system freezes tough. So I reconfiged the whole machine placing the
cdrom on the 2nd IDE bus and retried the setup and Wow! What a increase in
speed! I don't think it's quite double, but the hard drive is noticably faster!

   With everyting looking good, I tweaked the clock speed... (read I overclocked
it). After doing that and about 20 reboots to play with the memory settings in
BIOS and measure system timings, I got nearly 30mhz more throughput in memory
I/O!

   Between the two, this old girl has a lot more spunk. Next will be to read
Adam's "Performance Tuning" presentation on the website. FIRST, I think I'll
backup everything first. I've got a feeling that might be a large learning
curve! <G>

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   As a final warning to newcomers, if you have *NOT* played with the hardware
inside your computer, DO NOT try this! I've been messing with computer 
hardware since the dawn of the personal computer. I'm not afraid (and I should
be at times) to try a new setup in search of that extra ounce of speed.
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   I guess I did all this because I miss playing with the hardware. My job
involes lot's of programming and little hardware work. Boring if you ask me!
I've always liked hardware more. But there are cool advantages on both sides of
the fence of hardware & software. I have posted my experiences here for all
to read and learn and your results will vary! <G>

   As always, comments are welcome. 

   For what it is worth....

   Richard

P.S. to get ftape & the tape drive working <sigh>

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Richard Zimmerman                              ke4rit@earthlink.net
K&B Transport, Inc.                            ke4rit@gate.net
Elkhart, Indiana