Weird problem (I assume)

[herb] · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2003 10:21 am Post subject: Weird problem (I assume)

I'm not sure how to describe this, but here goes.

Roughly once a day or so, my computer will have a "thinking fit". That is, for 5 minutes or so, the hard drive light will stay on almost permanently, and you can hear it working... yet im not doing anything. However, this activity causes my entire system to slow down to a CRAWL. Its really quite a nuisance. So, it will do this for a while, then just stop after max 5 minutes.

Any ideas as to what it might be would be greatly appreciated

I have a p3800, w/ 128megs of RAM. I am using the 2.4 gaming kernel. I am also at my wits end

[P.S. -- IF any more info is needed, tell me and I will get it to you]
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PC: Antec 350W PSU, AMD Athlon64 3000+, ASUS K8V Deluxe Mobo, 512MB PC3200@400MHz, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB, 80GB Maxtor HDD @ 7200RPM

scootersmk · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2003 10:33 am Post subject:

Does it happen the same time everyday? Does it always happen after you have done something certain. You might want to look and see what processes are running and maybe check to see if there are any cron events setup that you do not know about or have forgoten about. Do you run any kind of monitoring software(ex: gkrellm) that would give you some system usage statistics? Are you running any servers?

I am sure you have thought of most of these questions....hope this helps you

maybe if you give us an overview of some of the software you are running....

Oh and check your logs after one of these "fits" to see if you see anything unusual
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dontremember · Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2003 10:36 am Post subject:

Could be "updatedb" running.

Next time it happens, pop up a terminal window and run top. That'll show you what's sucking up machine time. If it's updatedb, cron kicks it off once a day to rebuild the database used by "locate".

lurid · Guru Joined: 12 Mar 2003 Posts: 595 Location: Florida

Yeah, thats what I was thinking too. updatedb. Usualy happens around midnight? Thats what mine defaulted to. Since I'm usualy awake at midnight I moved the time to 6am when I'm usualy fast asleep. I'm not sure why updatedb takes quite so much juice out of the system though. I mean, I realise its indexing your entire drive, but it does slow things down quite a bit. Doing without the 'locate' command clearly isn't an option, so I'd suggest just changing the time to when you're not around.
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