Slow USB transfer rate after upgrading to Karmic

[skotos]

After upgrading to Karmic, copying files to and from a USB drive has become a problem.
I think this is a regression bug.

The transfer rate that previously was around 12-19 Mb/s and over is now down at 1.1-1.2 Mb/s: as if it were recognized as a USB 1.x, but this is not the case.

Any idea? I have found a now closed message of a user experiencing the same problem in the beta release - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1297106 - and after digging up a bit more this info, too:

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...us/+bug/457768
• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...fs/+bug/197762
• ....

[phillw]

After upgrading to Karmic, copying files to and from a USB drive has become a problem.
I think this is a regression bug.

The transfer rate that previously was around 12-19 Mb/s and over is now down at 1.1-1.2 Mb/s: as if it were recognized as a USB 1.x, but this is not the case.

Any idea? I have found a now closed message of a user experiencing the same problem in the beta release - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1297106 - and after digging up a bit more this info, too:

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...us/+bug/457768
• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...fs/+bug/197762
• ....

Can you post what your system says about its usb interface, etc...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=320202

would be a good start for someone to help you with.

Cheers,

Phill.

[yunone]

i have similar slow speeds with Ubuntu....WIN32 i see greater speeds, i just write it off as something with ubuntu.


example.... large file...1.2 GB to my USB thumb drive average transfer speeds of 7-9 MB

same file in Win 32.... 20-26 MB

makes no sense, not sure what to look for in Ubuntu....just kinda crappy

[Azraele]

i have similar slow speeds with Ubuntu....WIN32 i see greater speeds, i just write it off as something with ubuntu.


example.... large file...1.2 GB to my USB thumb drive average transfer speeds of 7-9 MB

same file in Win 32.... 20-26 MB

makes no sense, not sure what to look for in Ubuntu....just kinda crappy

yeah man this is a problem for me too. And searching up a little bit i found out that this problem is amongst us at least since 7.0..
It is unbelievable that during all this time nothing has been achieved.
How is supposed ubuntu to stand up as an alternative to windows?
Everybody who has an external HD is forced to dump this os!!
Yet we've not talked about the crappy flashplayer, and all the troubles getting a decent xorg set up with almost any ATI graphic card.

However i've got a pentium 4 3.0 Ghz, mounted on Intel 865PE mobo, 2 gigs Ram DDr 400, Ati radeon 4670 agp, Western digital 160 Gb Hd.

I've tested hard disk and usb speed with the command sudo hdparm -tT and this is the outcome:

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 1814 MB in 2.00 seconds = 906.61 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 150 MB in 3.01 seconds = 49.84 MB/sec
alexandros@alexandros-desktop:~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
Timing cached reads: 1724 MB in 2.00 seconds = 862.10 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 60 MB in 3.02 seconds = 19.88 MB/sec

here's info got with hdparm -i about the HD:

/dev/sda:

Model=WDC, FwRev=15.05R15, SerialNo=WD-WMAEK2296128
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=74
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=312581808
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6


Yet when moving data from hd to usbstick (Kingston 4 Gigs) the transfer rate starts from 10 Mb/s then drops gradually to 3 Mb/s, sometimes even 1 Mb/s, which goes without saying makes the usb unusable.

If some other info are needed just ask.

Thanks for the patience

[Azraele]

Sooooo Fellas

I've made further investigation about this crazy usb problem and found out some other shocking details:
googling up a little bit i found out that this problem was everything but new to ubuntu, and that the misfunctioning of the usb was due to the wrong kernel modules loaded during the startup; the damn modules were
ohci_hcd : the usb 1.0 module file
ehci_hcd : the usb 2.0 module file
uhci_hcd : the usb hi-speed module file

In the previous ubuntu releases the problem existed because of a wrong startup module file (/etc/module) which loaded ohci_hcd instead of the other two modules needed for our beloved usb 2.0.

So i decided to check out with dmesg | less if during the ubuntu boot our modules where misloaded, but sadly the modules were loaded fine.

Funny thing is, if you check out the /etc/modules files there NONE usb modules are loaded!!

More interesting if you check out the /lib/modules/2.6.31-14-generic/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ where the usb modules are stored you'll found out that the ehci and uhci do not exist!!!

I think that this is the core of the problem here, but as you'll already know i am knew to linux and i have no skills to deal with an issue like this one.

Good news is a found out that loading in the file /etc/modules the
usb 3.0 module my usb speeds up a little bit, making it better but surely leaving its performances to a very very poor level.

So if you want to give it a shot open /etc/modules as root with the termial:

sudo vi /etc/modules

and then insert the line:
xhci.ko (or if it doesn't work)xhci

but only if lines like ehci_hcd or uhci_hci are not already present.

This is not a solution. I hope that someone with skills tries to solve this problem too or we will end up with ubuntu without usb.

[beeema]

Yeah that's strange. I also can't acces my 3G-USB-modem properly and my mouse takes a looong time to run. In 9.04 everything was OK. I hobe someone can solve this. I'm not really an IT-expert

[gyaneshwar]

Sooooo Fellas
So if you want to give it a shot open /etc/modules as root with the termial:

sudo vi /etc/modules

and then insert the line:
xhci.ko (or if it doesn't work)xhci

but only if lines like ehci_hcd or uhci_hci are not already present.

This is not a solution. I hope that someone with skills tries to solve this problem too or we will end up with ubuntu without usb.

Thanks a million, it works for me.

[skotos]

Can you post what your system says about its usb interface, etc...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=320202

would be a good start for someone to help you with.

Cheers,

Phill.

Thank you phillw.

In the meantime I have discovered that the Avermedia firmware download that worked up to Jaunty is now causing me lots of small/big problems.

After renaming /lib/firmware/xc3028-v27.fw, in fact, the USB ports start working at full speed again and Cheese once again recognizes the internal webcam.

Thus, I think I have now to look for an xc3028-v27.fw update/solution.

[skotos]

@yunone
@beeema
@Azraele

Well guys, my problems seem related (as in my answer to phillw) to another non USB misconfiguration: when booting, in fact, the kernel asks for a firmware file needed to initialize my internal DVB board, but providing the requested file as I have done in the past is today causing these USB problems.

From this experience of mine, I would suggest you to do the same and look at the errors that can be reported in the log files, in particular inside /var/log/messages.

This file is in fact written at boot time and the first and most important errors are generally reported inside it. Taking these errors away can generally solve the others.

HTH

[Azraele]

@yunone
@beeema
@Azraele

Well guys, my problems seem related (as in my answer to phillw) to another non USB misconfiguration: when booting, in fact, the kernel asks for a firmware file needed to initialize my internal DVB board, but providing the requested file as I have done in the past is today causing these USB problems.

From this experience of mine, I would suggest you to do the same and look at the errors that can be reported in the log files, in particular inside /var/log/messages.

This file is in fact written at boot time and the first and most important errors are generally reported inside it. Taking these errors away can generally solve the others.

HTH

Well i've checked it twice, but i don't see any kind of error, nor usb-related neither any other kind of 'em.

however the starting transfer speed usually are fine, but there's a drastic drop of the transfer rate after some seconds since the beginning of the operation, which fast reaches a bottom of 3 - 1 Megs per second.

As i've already said i see no errors in the boot up log file, but i think that the core of our issue is in the kernel too.
Could be the fact that wrong usb-kernel modules are loaded, at least that seemed to be the problem in the previous version of ubuntu, easily solved by inserting the right ones in the kernel modules files, but since the usb 2.0 modules seems to be disappeared in the 9.10 i don't really know what to do.

We should have a good diagnosis before trying to solve this problem, and as far as i can see we don't have one.

I repeat, my system doesn't give me any kind of error outputs, which means that for his protocol everything is fine, but we all can see that it ain't.