denbeste@cc5.bbn.com.BBN.COM (Steven Den Beste) (09/19/87)
[Poisoned line-eater bait] eric keisler writes: > Everything is slow. Disks 'gronk' very slowly during accesses, windows > resize very sluggishly. Overall system behaves like I have several tasks > running. I can get the system to crash if I move a window too fast or > click on an icon while a window is redisplaying. When the system crashes > it crashes the wcs also; the system asks me for the kickstart disk. All > my graphics,audio, and music programs work BUT EVERYTHING IS SO SLOOOWWWWW! > [much stuff about testing deleted] > > Anybody have any idea? > > - eric keisler It sounds suspiciously like something inside is generating bogus interrupts at a high rate - this would chew a lot of CPU time servicing them (at high priority level). It isn't inconceivable that this behavior would change with 1.1 - did they change the priorities around for the I/O tasks? I fear I don't know enough about the hardware to make any specific suggestions - the 8520's would have been the first choice, but you tried that. If you can get hold of a scope, try looking at IPL0 (pin 25), IPL1 (pin 24) and IPL2 (pin 23). These are the interrupt inputs on the 68000. Under ordinary circumstances they should all be high. If I recall correctly (and I'm probably wrong, but I'm sure someone will correct me if so) the only periodic interrupt is the vertical retrace interrupt - 30 Hz. If the machine is otherwise idle, these lines shouldn't be rattling much. If you determine that this is the problem, all you can do is give it to someone who knows what they are doing to fix. Wasn't there someone out there who had a favorite technician (The name "Bruce Takahashi" seems to spring to mind as the technician's name) in that area? Again, I hope someone else will pick up on this and say so. -- Steven C. Den Beste Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA denbeste@bbn.com (ARPA or CSNET or UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste (UUCP) I don't think BBN cares what I think about this stuff.