Help - slow performance on a Toshiba laptop

[Mike Keithley]

Hello list.

I installed Linux on a Toshiba laptop.  It is a 266 MHz Pentium machine
with 96 MB of ram.  Linux is under the 2.4.22 kernel (Slackware 9.1) and
is on a dedicated partition on the hard drive.

The problem is that, although the systems works fine, performance is slow.
I believe the problem is the IDE controller and the hard disk.  I'm
wondering if someone knows how I can speed up the IDE controller/hard disk.
In the boot-up messages, I see something like "Assuming 33 MHz bus speed"
in relation to the IDE controller.

When I do hdparm -t /dev/hda, the buffered write rate to the disk is only
3.5 MB/sec whereas hdparm -T (internal buffered write), the result is over
25 MB/sec.  From this I figure the hard disk is really slowing the system
down.

Because of the small amount of memory, the system soon starts using the
swap partition (128 MB) and processes often crash, presumably because of
time outs.  Pipes are not reliable.

Any help is appreciated.

The reason I'm trying to use this slow machine is that it uses a Yamaha
sound chip that, although a bit noisy, has really smooth high-frequency
performance without corners and there is a line-input jack.

Thanks