KDE progressively slowing down

[catal]

When I start up my system everything works well. I go into KDE and I have no problems. However, after a few hours the whole system starts to slow down a lot, to the point in which it is a pain to keep working like that. If I reboot the system the problem is gone until a few hours later the problem starts again. This happens even if I'm not using the computer at all and just wait. Another problem I have is that now whenever I start watching a DVD, very quickly the image starts stopping and jumping ahead continuously, even if the sound remains ok. I've done some searches in the forums and it seems as if the two problems could be related, I've found stuff mentioned on DMA, etc., but I didn't really understand what they were saying or how to go about solving this. Everything worked great until a few weeks ago, I assume that I upgraded something (I did a kernel and a gcc upgrade) and that caused all the problems, but I don't know how to identify what the problem is. I've been using Gentoo for a few months now (because I love the concept) and I've been (painfully) learning my way through some difficulties, but I'm just a final user with no particular computer expertise. If anyone is able to help I would really appreciate it, but be aware that probably I will need things to be spelled out so I know what I'm doing.

I copy the output for dmesg to give you more info on my system (although to be honest I don't understand most of it):

Linux version 2.6.16-gentoo-r7 (root@mirosa) (gcc versió 3.3.6 (Gentoo 3.3.6, ssp-3.3.6-1.0, pie-8.7.) #1 PREEMPT Wed May 10 17:14:43 CDT 2006
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f800 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009f800 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000dc000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000003fee0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000003fee0000 - 000000003feea000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 000000003feea000 - 000000003ff00000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 000000003ff00000 - 0000000040000000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000e0000000 - 00000000f0006000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000f0008000 - 00000000f000c000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fed20000 - 00000000fed90000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ff000000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
Warning only 896MB will be used.
Use a HIGHMEM enabled kernel.
896MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 229376
DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:0
DMA32 zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0
Normal zone: 225280 pages, LIFO batch:31
HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0
DMI present.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 PTLTD ) @ 0x000f7e10
ACPI: RSDT (v001 PTLTD RSDT 0x06040000 LTP 0x00000000) @ 0x3fee3550
ACPI: FADT (v001 INTEL ALVISO 0x06040000 LOHR 0x0000005f) @ 0x3fee9e88
ACPI: MADT (v001 INTEL ALVISO 0x06040000 LOHR 0x0000005f) @ 0x3fee9efc
ACPI: BOOT (v001 PTLTD $SBFTBL$ 0x06040000 LTP 0x00000001) @ 0x3fee9fd8
ACPI: MCFG (v001 INTEL ALVISO 0x06040000 LOHR 0x0000005f) @ 0x3fee9f9c
ACPI: SSDT (v001 SataRe SataAhci 0x00001000 INTL 0x20030224) @ 0x3fee3dca
ACPI: SSDT (v001 PmRef Cpu0Ist 0x00003000 INTL 0x20030224) @ 0x3fee3985
ACPI: SSDT (v001 PmRef Cpu0Cst 0x00003001 INTL 0x20030224) @ 0x3fee37ad
ACPI: SSDT (v001 PmRef CpuPm 0x00003000 INTL 0x20030224) @ 0x3fee3594
ACPI: DSDT (v001 INTEL ALVISO 0x06040000 MSFT 0x0100000e) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x1008
Allocating PCI resources starting at 50000000 (gap: 40000000:a0000000)
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda4
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 65536 bytes)
Detected 1996.015 MHz processor.
Using pmtmr for high-res timesource
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Memory: 904888k/917504k available (2824k kernel code, 12188k reserved, 993k data, 164k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4001.19 BogoMIPS (lpj=8002380)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: After generic identify, caps: afe9fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000180 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: afe9fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000180 00000000 00000000
CPU: L1 I cache: 32K, L1 D cache: 32K
CPU: L2 cache: 2048K
CPU: After all inits, caps: afe9fbff 00000000 00000000 00000040 00000180 00000000 00000000
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz stepping 08
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
ACPI: setting ELCR to 0200 (from 0c00)
NET: Registered protocol family 16
ACPI: bus type pci registered
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd934, last bus=7
PCI: Using MMCONFIG
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20060127
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing
ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (0000:00)
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI quirk: region 1000-107f claimed by ICH6 ACPI/GPIO/TCO
PCI quirk: region 1180-11bf claimed by ICH6 GPIO
PCI: Ignoring BAR0-3 of IDE controller 0000:00:1f.1
Boot video device is 0000:01:00.0
PCI: Transparent bridge - 0000:00:1e.0
PCI: Bus #07 (-#0 may be hidden behind transparent bridge #06 (-#07) (try 'pci=assign-busses')
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PEGP._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.RP01._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.RP02._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.RP03._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCIB._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *10 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 11 12 14 15) *10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *10 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 12 14 15) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 11 12 14 15) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 12 14 15) *0, disabled.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 11 12 14 15) *10
ACPI: Embedded Controller [EC0] (gpe 2 interrupt mode.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI init
pnp: PnP ACPI: found 9 devices
SCSI subsystem initialized
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq". If it helps, post a report
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 7 of bridge 0000:00:1c.0
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 8 of bridge 0000:00:1c.0
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 9 of bridge 0000:00:1c.0
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 7 of bridge 0000:00:1c.1
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 8 of bridge 0000:00:1c.1
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 9 of bridge 0000:00:1c.1
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 7 of bridge 0000:00:1c.2
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 8 of bridge 0000:00:1c.2
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 9 of bridge 0000:00:1c.2
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:01.0
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: c1000000-c7ffffff
PREFETCH window: d0000000-d7ffffff
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:1c.0
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: disabled.
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:1c.1
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: disabled.
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:1c.2
IO window: disabled.
MEM window: disabled.
PREFETCH window: disabled.
PCI: Bus 7, cardbus bridge: 0000:06:09.0
IO window: 00002400-000024ff
IO window: 00002800-000028ff
PREFETCH window: 50000000-51ffffff
MEM window: 54000000-55ffffff
PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:1e.0
IO window: 2000-2fff
MEM window: c8000000-c80fffff
PREFETCH window: 50000000-52ffffff
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] enabled at IRQ 10
PCI: setting IRQ 10 as level-triggered
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:01.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:01.0 to 64
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 11
PCI: setting IRQ 11 as level-triggered
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1c.0[A] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1c.0 to 64
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1c.1[B] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1c.1 to 64
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1c.2[C] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1c.2 to 64
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1e.0 to 64
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:06:09.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
Simple Boot Flag at 0x36 set to 0x1
Machine check exception polling timer started.
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1149004990.176:1): initialized
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered (default)
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered
lp: driver loaded but no devices found
Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones
agpgart: Detected an Intel 915GM Chipset.
agpgart: AGP aperture is 256M @ 0x0
[drm] Initialized drm 1.0.1 20051102
vesafb: NVIDIA Corporation, nv43 Board - p264h5 , Chip Rev (OEM: NVIDIA)
vesafb: VBE version: 3.0
vesafb: VBIOS/hardware doesn't support DDC transfers
vesafb: no monitor limits have been set
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xf8900000, using 6144k, total 131072k
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
ACPI: AC Adapter [ACAD] (on-line)
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery present)
ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]
ACPI: Lid Switch [LID]
ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PWRB]
ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SLPB]
ACPI: Video Device [VGA] (multi-head: yes rom: no post: no)
ACPI: CPU0 (power states: C1[C1] C2[C2] C3[C3] C4[C3])
ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports 8 throttling states)
ACPI: Thermal Zone [THRM] (58 C)
PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303:PS2K,PNP0f13:PS2M] at 0x60,0x64 irq 1,12
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0
Synaptics Touchpad, model: 1, fw: 5.9, id: 0x236eb3, caps: 0x904713/0x10008
input: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad as /class/input/input1
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.2LK loaded
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:06:00.0[A] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
eth0: Identified chip type is 'RTL8169s/8110s'.
eth0: RTL8169 at 0xf8820000, 00:c0:9f:d0:ae:05, IRQ 11
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ICH6: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:1f.1
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.1[A] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
ICH6: chipset revision 4
ICH6: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0x1880-0x1887, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
Probing IDE interface ide0...
hda: FUJITSU MHV2100AT, ATA DISK drive
hdb: SONY DVD RW DW-Q58A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Probing IDE interface ide1...
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 195371568 sectors (100030 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(33)
hda: cache flushes supported
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: ATAPI 24X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
libata version 1.20 loaded.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:06:09.2[C] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.1 (PCI): IRQ=[10] MMIO=[c8008800-c8008fff] Max Packet=[2048] IR/IT contexts=[4/8]
ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized
usbmon: debugfs is not available
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.7[A] -> Link [LNKH] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.7 to 64
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: debug port 1
PCI: cache line size of 32 is not supported by device 0000:00:1d.7
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: irq 11, io mem 0xc0004000
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 8 ports detected
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.3
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.0[A] -> Link [LNKH] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.0 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: irq 11, io base 0x00001800
usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.1[B] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.1 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: irq 11, io base 0x00001820
usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.2[C] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.2 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: irq 10, io base 0x00001840
usb usb4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 4-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.3[D] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.3 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.3: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 5
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.3: irq 10, io base 0x00001860
usb usb5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 5-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 5-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
usbcore: registered new driver usblp
drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: v0.13: USB Printer Device Class driver
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usbcore: registered new driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.11rc2 (Wed Jan 04 08:57:20 2006 UTC).
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1b.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1b.0 to 64
ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[0800285608080808]
ALSA device list:
#0: HDA Intel at 0xc0000000 irq 10
oprofile: using timer interrupt.
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 131072 bind 65536)
TCP reno registered
ip_conntrack version 2.4 (7168 buckets, 57344 max) - 172 bytes per conntrack
TCP bic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Using IPI Shortcut mode
ACPI wakeup devices:
AZAL RP01 RP02 RP03 RP04 USB1 USB2 USB3 USB4 USB7 LANC MODM
ACPI: (supports S0 S3 S4 S5)
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 164k freed
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
Adding 2008116k swap on /dev/hda3. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:2008116k
EXT3 FS on hda4, internal journal
nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> Link [LNKA] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ 10
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:01:00.0 to 64
NVRM: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 Kernel Module 1.0-8756 Wed Mar 29 14:26:26 PST 2006
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:06:04.0[A] -> Link [LNKB] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
rt2500 1.1.0 CVS 2005/07/10 http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.

Thanks a lot.

[Ion Silverbolt]

Sounds like some application is hogging memory. Perhaps a memory leak somewhere. Hit CTRL+ESC and see what's using all your system memory.

Keep us posted.

[nextekcarl]

I appear to be having a similar issue, but now I'm not sure. I suggest you go into KInfoCenter (K->System->KInfoCenter) and click on "Memory". I have 512 megs of RAM and I have only Firefox and KInfoCenter running (well, as Active Proccesses) and I have about 32% Application, 9% Disk Buffers, 46% Disk Cache, and 12 % free under Phsycial memory. Is this pretty typically, though? What does yours look like under a similar load?