Problems with a sluggish system

[SanjayPethe]

Hello,

I am experiencing problems with my system becoming sluggish over time, eventually requiring a reboot. Has anyone had this problem? Where do I start to look for the cause?

First, the specs:
Dell Inspiron E1505
Intel Dual Core CPU, 800 MHz, 2 MB cache
1GB Memory
Fedora 9, version 2.6.25.6-55.fc9.i686
ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 graphics card
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG wireless card

Typical applications used:
GNOME/KDE/XFCE desktops
Text editors (gedit, kate, mousepad, depending on desktop being used)
File system browsers (depends on desktop - Dolphin/Nautilus/Thunar)
Firefox
Open Office (word processor, spreadsheet)
Terminal (defaults provided by desktop environment)
yum updates

Problem description and history
I first noticed this problem with Fedora 7, and it was the primary motivating factor causing me to upgrade, hoping it had been resolved.

I upgraded straight to Fedora 9. However, the problem has not gone away. On starting the system, it behaves fine. However, it becomes progressively sluggish and I eventually reboot after about 12-14 hrs, or less. Symptoms of sluggish behaviour are long time opening windows and starting applications (as much as 30-40 sec after clicking on the icon - I am sometimes not sure the click has registered, click again and eventually start two or more instances of the applicaiton), very slow webpage updates, jerky movements, etc

When the system is sluggish, the CPU usage is typically very high (100%). The top command generally shows the application I am working with (usually firefox) as the one consuming the most CPU. I have seen firefox show a CPU usage of as high as 125% (don't know what that means). XOrg is usually the other major user, typically ranging from 15% - 85%, though it is low when the system is well behaved (<10%).

Other major users vary depending on desktop used (e.g. knotify, xfce panel, gnome panel, pulseaudio, yum-updates (if update is in progress) etc).

Leaving firefox running instead of shutting it down when I am done seems to make the problem appear quicker. This is an impression I have formed, and may not be 100% accurate. However, even shutting it after use and letting the system idle without it does not cause the problem to go away.

I do notice that the system is hot and the fan is running fast even when it has been idling for a few hours. This happens about 70% of the time (again, my impression).

I have experimented with various desktops, wondering if it was a problem with a particular desktop environment, but all show the same problem. The problem seems less acute with KDE. I am currently using XFCE.

I am using the radeonhd driver for the graphics card, but this does not support 3D.

I'm stumped. I suspect the problem lies with xorg or firefox or the interaction between the two, but am not sure. Any ideas where to start looking? Here is my xorg.conf if that helps.

Thanks in advance,

Sanjay



================================================== ======================

# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# keyboard added by rhpxl
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
ModelName "Dell 1280x800 Laptop Display Panel"
HorizSync 31.5 - 90.0
VertRefresh 59.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "radeonhd"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Module"
#Load "i2c"
#Load "bitmap"
#Load "ddc"
#Load "dri"
#Load "extmod"
#Load "freetype"
#Load "glx"
#Load "int10"
#Load "type1"
#Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

================================================== ======================

[devils casper]

ATI hasn't release driver for kernel 2.6.25 and I would suggest you to try vesa driver. vesa driver in buggy too and works fine with a few cards only.
You have to wait untill ATI releases new driver.

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Videocard0"
 Driver "vesa"
 EndSection

[SanjayPethe]

Thanks devils casper.
I tried the vesa driver as you suggested but the performance is even worse.

I finally downgraded the X server and went to using the ATIs fglrx driver following the instructions from these posts:
FedoraForum.org - Fedora 9 (F9) and ATI ( fglrx ) with working OpenGL!
FedoraForum.org - Fedora 9 (F9) and Nvidia 173.08 with OpenGL!

Here is my script to do this based on these posts:
Script to downgrade the Xserver to Fedora 8 version.


#Remove the Xorg server and mesa libraries.
yum -y remove xorg-x11-server-Xorg xorg-x11-server-common
rpm -e --nodeps --allmatches mesa-libGL mesa-libGLU mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel glx-utils

#Download fedora8.repo and modify fedora.repo
cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://www.linux-ati-drivers.homecal...k/fedora8.repo
perl -i -pe "s/(\[.*\])/\1\nexclude=xorg* linuxwacom* rhpxl* mesa*/" fedora.repo
perl -i -pe "s/(\[.*\])/\1\nexclude=xorg* linuxwacom* rhpxl* mesa*/" fedora-updates.repo

#Install Development Tools/Libraries
yum -y groupinstall "Development Tools" "Development Libraries"
yum -y install kernel-devel

#Now, you are ready to install Xorg 1.3
yum -y groupinstall "X Window System"
yum -y install mesa-libGL mesa-libGLU mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel synaptics

# Optional, re-install compiz.
#yum -y install compiz-gnome compiz-fusion* gnome-compiz-manager ccsm

#Install the Livna driver
rpm -Uhv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-9.rpm
yum --enablerepo=livna-testing install xorg-x11-drv-fglrx xorg-x11-drv-fglrx-libs akmod-fglrx kmod-fglrx
akmods --kernels `uname -r`
service fglrx restart
fglrx-config-display enable

This results in much better behaviour. I do get direct rendering capabilities and my glxgears FPS is up to about 1200-1300 on a freshly booted system for about 100 without direct rendering, so that is good.

However this does not eliminate the issue. The system performance does degrade over time even with nothing running. The problem definitely seems to be in X because just logging out and logging back in (which restarts the X server) gets rid of the problem. You do not have to reboot the system.

Don't know where to go from here though.

Thanks for your help - it set me down the path to using ATI's driver.