Slow system after some time...

fariouche · n00b Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 18

Hi,

I've just installed gentoo, 2006_0.
Everything works fine except one anoying thing. The system become very slow after heavy use.

It's especially tru if I try to compile a kernel or emerge something big...
The system become slower and after ermerging become slow.
"top" shows that when a lot of cpu is used by the system when emerging!
If I reboot, it's ok until a recompile something again.
Shutding down the laptop become very long also...

Of course I've set dma (the only option -d1)

I'm using gentoo-sources (2.6.16-r6)
My kernel config file:
http://fafou.ben.free.fr/linux/.config

Dmesg:
http://fafou.ben.free.fr/linux/dmesg.txt

Message log file:
http://fafou.ben.free.fr/linux/messages.txt

lspci:
http://fafou.ben.free.fr/linux/lspci.txt

It's a laptop Fujistsu Lifebook P7120 with a centrino 1.2GHz and 1GB of Ram.

Using the liveCD, I did not noticed this problem (And I've compiled a kernel with it)
Before I was using a Ubuntu distro with a 2.6.15 kernel without any problem...

I don't know were to look now...

Thank you.

Fariouche

SoylentGreen · l33t Joined: 19 Aug 2005 Posts: 904 Location: The Hostel

could have to do with powersave mode. maybe if the CPU gets temperature xyz, the clockfrequency goes down?
did you set CPU scaleing in the kernel?

also, some notebook do this all by itself if running on battery..

//edit: yes, looking at your dmesg output, your CPU is able to handle diferent powerstates

fariouche · n00b Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 18

Hi,

The dmesg is after the problem.
Actually I've enabled cpu freq scaling, but it's not the cause. I've already tried without it.
And when I check the freq, it's at it's max when it's slow.
There is not error in any log file...

Also In the Unbuntu kernel 2.6.15, the cpu freq scaling was enabled and it was working fine.

Fariouche

fariouche · n00b Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 18

Hi,

I've tried to change a small option and recompile the kernel.Thsi was fast but after that the system began to slow down a bit.
Using "hdparm -tT" before, the result was around 20.
After a small recompilation, it dropped to 15. (consistant result)
then a make modules_install dropped the result to 12.

The laptop was not hot at all! For me is more like a ide driver problem... The more I read/write on the drive, the slower it is after.

I've tried to enable "debug" in the kernel (for ACPI and in device drivers) but I did not see any debug output in the /var/log/message file...

Fariouche

fariouche · n00b Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 18

Hi,

Any Idea? Did you already see a similar problem?

Fariouche

fariouche · n00b Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 18

Hi,

well... nothing.

There is no error in log files.

The system just becomes slow. The more I use (the hard drive?) the slower.

I've just emerged some stuffs and a patch. After the emerge finished, the patching was very slow. using top, I've found that the cpu was mainly in Sys (70%). When it finished, it was back to 0%.

As soone as I do something, top shows again that it's eating a lot of cpu in system! Not user space.

I'm trying to build a 2.6.17-rc3 vanilla kernel to see if it's better.

Fariouche

nickless · n00b Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 26

Hi,
I just looked at your kernel .config, and I noticed that you've included (and you have included a lot of stuff) nearly everything as modules and have checked forced automatic module unloading etc.

Maybe you should try to build a monolitic kernel with only things you need?

...just my 5ct

bollucks · l33t Joined: 27 Oct 2004 Posts: 606

Maybe you're just hitting swap after a while. That ultimately leads to pain. Check the output of 'free' when your pc seems slow.

fariouche · n00b Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 18

I've just tried the 2.6.17-rc3 kernel and it's the same.

free tells me that the swap is not used (I have 1GB of ram)

I will try to remove as much modules as possible.

fariouche

jongust · n00b Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 47

I decided to re-install from scratch, twice , casue the i was getting slowness when running programs like firefox or even opening up eterms. Installed again to no avail. Im using fluxbox on an athlon XP 3200 with a gig of ddr400 ram. I tried to change the kernel to a 3g/1g split to support a full gig of low memory..didnt help. I removed a lot of things from my kernel when installing....like extra network card drivers...ect.....it never did this when I installed before.....here is my make.conf.
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
USE="symlink,3dnow,gtk,gtk2,gnome,ssh,openssh,mplayer,kde"
VIDEO_CARDS="radeon"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/usr/X11R6/bin/startx"

The only thing i had in that was different was the symlink use flag.
Im using the newer xorg and ati-drivers .....the version of gcc that installed is: gcc (GCC) 3.3.6 (Gentoo 3.3.6, ssp-3.3.6-1.0, pie-8.7.

it did compile the newer version...i watched it while it was installing.
It did this on kernels 2.6.16-gentoo-r6 and 2.6.16-gentoo-r7 i do not recall this issue on older kernels
free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 905232 545460 359772 0 65932 365596
-/+ buffers/cache: 113932 791300
Swap: 500368 76 500292

jongust · n00b Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 47

well....i began thinking...as i began drinking.......then i thougt ...ya know...maybe i didnt follow the install directions as well as i should have, even though I have been using gentoo for a few years now. When i linked /usr/src/linux to my kernel i did ln -s and not ln -sfn ....the last time i looked in my kernel a lot of the settings were wrong/differnet than i remember when I edited my kernel last.......I noticed DMA was not in the kernel!!!!
ALSO !@!@!@!@!!@
When i ran the hdparm command i noticed there was no dma activated........i ran command:
hdparm-d1 -A1 -m 16 -u 1 -a 64 /dev/hda LOW AND BEHOLD......dma was again turned on ( after i found the option in the kernel )
I opened numerous firefoxes and terminals running my mouse in crazy circles and no slow downs. I hope this helps anyone that might be having this same problem when installing a new gentoo system

marciorps · n00b Joined: 25 Aug 2005 Posts: 22

I was having a VERY VERY similar problem. I think I solved it, and the culprit was the cpufreq driver used. Two different cpufreq drivers can be loaded on my system, p4-clockmod and acpi-cpufreq. Loading them gives me different available states. For a time acpi was hardwired on my kernel, and p4 was module, and someday I tested both and for whatever reason switched to p4. After sometime the problem you describe started to happen. I was lost for sometime, even recompiled somethings, but now I am back to acpi P-states driver and seems fine. I see that you are using the centrino driver, maybe you want to enable all drivers as modules and then try to load one by one to see all that accept loading (may require some restarts to unload some of the drivers...) and then do some tests...

Anyway, I just did relink my kernel tree with the "correct options" just in case =)

jongust · n00b Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 47

So im not sure If that made any differnce. The last time i checked my kernel i noticed a lot of things were not set that i previously built, and it was the only thing I could think of.
Another thing that helped was setting the memory options in the kernel. When I set the 3GB/1GB slpit for a full gig of low memory it was not using any swap, where as, when I just had the 3GB/1GB split the first option, it was using swap when i ran the free command.
Anyone have any other comments on this it would be appreciated

fariouche · n00b Joined: 14 May 2006 Posts: 18

Hi,

I removed the config file and reconfigured the kernel from scratch. It's now working!

I'm still using vesa-tng, cpufreq without modules, ACPI and piix...

I will try to check what is different with the old config when I will have some time.

Thank you all!

Fariouche