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[Aaron Johnson <acjohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Christopher- I have been using the 64-bit version of Ubuntu 13.10 since
its release and have had no issues whatsoever with this release as far
as system stability and reliability is concerned. It seems that with
mature Intel hardware support in the more recent kernel release and
sticking with AMD64 arch I have an incredibly stable system and even
power management features such as suspend and hibernate work flawlessly.

Thanks for the follow-up :)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1090715

Title:
  [Toshiba L840] Slow and sporadic hard drive write performance

Status in The Linux Kernel:
  Expired
Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  I have been troubleshooting an interesting bug on my Toshiba L840
  laptop for a number of months now. This bug affects all versions of
  Ubuntu since (and including) 12.04 and other Linux distributions as
  well (so this is most likely an upstream bug). I have only ran the
  32-bit version with PAE support because I choose application
  compatibility and efficient memory usage over what 64-bit Linux can
  provide.

  WORKAROUND: 64-bit ubuntu raring (13.04).

  Here is what I have experienced:

  Every kernel version I have tried is affected by this bug since 3.2 in
  Precise (kernel 3.3 - 3.7 is affected). What happens is my hard drive
  write performance is greatly reduced (and over time it becomes so slow
  it is unusable) once I run a newer version of Linux kernel. The stock
  kernel of Precise does not have this bug but it has too many other
  bugs that cause hard lockups on ivy bridge so I cannot use it. I am
  happy to report that the hard lockups seem to have disappeared on
  13.04 (Linux kernel 3.7) and the most stable experience I have had so
  far is with kernel version 3.7.0-5 on Raring 32-bit.

  Even though I have found a relatively stable experience running Raring
  I am still haunted by this write performance issue. Once I boot I can
  get consistent write speeds at about 40MB/s (which is about half the
  speed of what my drive is able to write at) and read speed never
  really seems to be affected. Here is a test using dd to check write
  speed:

  owner@Satellite-L840:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output bs=8k count=50k; rm -f /tmp/output
  51200+0 records in
  51200+0 records out
  419430400 bytes (419 MB) copied, 10.6863 s, 39.2 MB/s
  owner@Satellite-L840:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output bs=8k count=50k; rm -f /tmp/output
  51200+0 records in
  51200+0 records out
  419430400 bytes (419 MB) copied, 10.4765 s, 40.0 MB/s
  owner@Satellite-L840:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output bs=8k count=50k; rm -f /tmp/output
  51200+0 records in
  51200+0 records out
  419430400 bytes (419 MB) copied, 10.4648 s, 40.1 MB/s
  owner@Satellite-L840:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output bs=8k count=50k; rm -f /tmp/output
  51200+0 records in
  51200+0 records out
  419430400 bytes (419 MB) copied, 11.2678 s, 37.2 MB/s

  Even though 40MB/s write speed is completely unacceptable I would
  actually be okay with it if it didn't drop any lower than this but
  eventually it does.

  I have experienced that over time eventually the write speed of the
  drive will drop to about 1-2MB/s and at that point the computer
  becomes unusable and has to be rebooted.

  Strangely enough I have finally noticed that the significant drop from
  40MB/s to 1-2MB/s seems to be triggered by certain applications, for
  instance when I have a torrent downloading using various torrent
  downloader programs, I have experienced this bug more frequently.

  Even so, if I choose to not use the torrent downloading programs the
  bug will eventually crop back up (could be hours, could be several
  days...) but eventually it happens and I have to reboot.

  Here are some more troubleshooting steps I have tried in a failed attempt to isolate the issue:
  * I have ran memtest 86+ for over 24 hours on my laptop and it completed without error
  * I have scanned my hard drive using mhdd and no bad sectors
  * I have replaced my hard drive with a different size and different brand hard drive and same issue
  * I have attempted a clean install of Precise and then updating to the latest packages and then install the Quantal kernel from the stable repositories and reboot. Immediately this bug affects my computer
  * I have installed a clean install of 13.04 and bug still exists
  * I have tried installing Ubuntu (12.04 and 13.04 32-bit) on a flash drive to see if the bug crops up eventually on the flash drive and it does. Eventually the write speed even to the USB bus will drop to 1-2MB/s !!!
  * I have even tried installing other distributions as well (Fedora and Debian) and they both have the same issue.

  One more thing worth noting: The very first kernel release that I
  tried in 13.04 was 3.7.0-2 and even now if I reboot and choose that
  kernel I get better write performance at first (70-80MB/s) but
  eventually the write speed drops down to 1-2 MB/s just like the
  others.

  I have experienced many problems running Linux on this laptop but even
  so it is the fastest and best performing computer experience I have
  ever had. Now that the lockups are gone I feel so close to getting
  this computer working perfectly with Linux but I need help from
  someone with troubleshooting this issue further.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
  Package: linux-image 3.7.0.6.10
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.7.0-5.13-generic 3.7.0-rc8
  Uname: Linux 3.7.0-5-generic i686
  ApportVersion: 2.7-0ubuntu2
  Architecture: i386
  AudioDevicesInUse:
   USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
   /dev/snd/controlC0:  acjohnson   2197 F.... pulseaudio
  Date: Sat Dec 15 07:13:04 2012
  HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=9f7c92ad-121c-458f-8813-1cb8191180c2
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-12-10 (5 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Alpha i386 (20121206)
  MachineType: TOSHIBA Satellite L840
  MarkForUpload: True
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
  ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.7.0-5-generic root=UUID=4836d385-16fc-47c0-8720-c369e39d0775 ro quiet splash i915.i915_enable_rc6=7 vt.handoff=7
  RelatedPackageVersions:
   linux-restricted-modules-3.7.0-5-generic N/A
   linux-backports-modules-3.7.0-5-generic  N/A
   linux-firmware                           1.98
  SourcePackage: linux
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
  dmi.bios.date: 06/26/2012
  dmi.bios.vendor: Insyde Corp.
  dmi.bios.version: 1.80
  dmi.board.asset.tag: Type2 - Board Asset Tag
  dmi.board.name: Type2 - Board Product Name1
  dmi.board.vendor: Type2 - Board Vendor Name1
  dmi.board.version: Type2 - Board Version
  dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
  dmi.chassis.type: 10
  dmi.chassis.vendor: OEM Chassis Manufacturer
  dmi.chassis.version: OEM Chassis Version
  dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnInsydeCorp.:bvr1.80:bd06/26/2012:svnTOSHIBA:pnSatelliteL840:pvrPSK8GU-08S00D:rvnType2-BoardVendorName1:rnType2-BoardProductName1:rvrType2-BoardVersion:cvnOEMChassisManufacturer:ct10:cvrOEMChassisVersion:
  dmi.product.name: Satellite L840
  dmi.product.version: PSK8GU-08S00D
  dmi.sys.vendor: TOSHIBA

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