DVD drive use chokes computer

[cloverm]

I recently installed the 64 bit version of SuSE 9.2. It works pretty well for the most part, except for when I try to use my DVD drive for extensive reading or writing (like copying a whole DVD), the computer grinds to almost a halt, I pretty much can't use it for anything while the DVD drive is in use. I checked it with top, no process is taking up a lot of CPU time or memory, yet the load averages are sky high. Has anyone seen this before? I don't even know where to start. Tried upgrading the kernel to no avail.

[pbharris]

hello,
I used to have my pC come to a crawl when moving large blocks around - but I have not had this issue for quite a while - do you have DMA enabled for the DVD drive?

[cloverm]

[quote author=pbharris link=board=2;threadid=9993;start=#msg90648 date=1100880108]
hello,
I used to have my pC come to a crawl when moving large blocks around - but I have not had this issue for quite a while - do you have DMA enabled for the DVD drive?
[/quote]

That's exactly what it was! I issued

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hdd

and the problem went away. Thanks for the hint! I just don't understand why Suse 9.2 wouldn't enable it by default, while 9.1 did this automatically.

[pbharris]

8)