Robert Elz writes:

 >   | channel).  It's idendified as ASUS CD-S400/A V2.1H
 > 
 > cd2 at atapibus0 drive 1: <ASUS CD-S500/A, , V2.1H> type 5 cdrom removable
 > 
 > So, if theory 2 is correct, it must be something pretty specific to the 40x 
 > Asus CD, and not to all Asus CDs on IDE.

Interesting that they both report the same firmware version number.

 > All this is on bog standard 1.4 NetBSD/alpha.    I intend to stick 1.4.1, and
 > maybe current as well, sometime soon, if either of those might make a 
 > difference.

Please do try -current and see if it gets slower.  These are very
interesting results, especially since I know we're using the same
motherboard and IDE controller :)

Actually, if you could boot the install image from the snapshot I made
a couple of weeks ago, that will be a very good test.  My system is
built from the same sources.

--
Dan.