# Dell Dimension 2350, 1 gig very slow [solved - kinda]

## h2sammo

i am using fluxbox, trying everything very minimal, but i think everything is way slower than it should be.  i know its a weaker processor, but i even chromium is choppy, its hard to scroll pages, programs like openoffice are a nightmare to run and scroll through.  what do you guys think?

```
 

MW20-PPL2106U01 bobby # emerge --info

Portage 2.1.6.13 (default/linux/x86/10.0/desktop, gcc-4.3.4, glibc-2.9_p20081201-r2, 2.6.30-gentoo-r6 i686)

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

System uname: Linux-2.6.30-gentoo-r6-i686-Intel-R-_Pentium-R-_4_CPU_2.50GHz-with-gentoo-1.12.13

Timestamp of tree: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:30:01 +0000

ccache version 2.4 [enabled]

app-shells/bash:     4.0_p28

dev-java/java-config: 2.1.9-r1

dev-lang/python:     2.6.2-r1

dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r7

dev-util/cmake:      2.6.4

sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.13

sys-apps/sandbox:    1.6-r2

sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.63-r1

sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.2

sys-devel/binutils:  2.18-r3

sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1

sys-devel/libtool:   2.2.6a

virtual/os-headers:  2.6.27-r2

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"

CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"       

CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/config /var/lib/hsqldb"

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d"

CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"

DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"

FEATURES="ccache distlocks fixpackages parallel-fetch parralel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch"

GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo"

LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"               

MAKEOPTS="-j2"                  

PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"  

PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"          

PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" 

PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"       

PORTDIR="/usr/portage"          

SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

USE="X a52 aac acl acpi alsa berkdb bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cdr cli consolekit cracklib crypt cups dbus dri dts dvd dvdr eds emboss encode evo fam firefox flac fortran gdbm gif gpm gstreamer gtk hal iconv ipv6 jpeg ldap libnotify mad mikmod modules mp3 mp4 mpeg mudflap ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pdf perl png ppds pppd python qt3support qt4 quicktime readline reflection sdl session spell spl ssl startup-notification svg sysfs tcpd thunar tiff truetype unicode usb vorbis win32codecs x264 x86 xml xorg xulrunner xv xvid zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="intel"

Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY 
```

```
 MW20-PPL2106U01 bobby # lspci   

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 03)

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 82)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL (ICH4/ICH4-L) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DB (ICH4) IDE Controller (rev 02)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 02)

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)

01:04.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 6c)

01:09.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401 100Base-T (rev 01)

```

```
 MW20-PPL2106U01 bobby # cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor       : 0

vendor_id       : GenuineIntel

cpu family      : 15

model           : 2

model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.50GHz

stepping        : 7

cpu MHz         : 2492.430

cache size      : 512 KB

fdiv_bug        : no

hlt_bug         : no

f00f_bug        : no

coma_bug        : no

fpu             : yes

fpu_exception   : yes

cpuid level     : 2

wp              : yes

flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe up pebs bts cid

bogomips        : 4984.86

clflush size    : 64

power management:

```

```
 MW20-PPL2106U01 bobby # cat /proc/meminfo

MemTotal:        1032136 kB

MemFree:          475808 kB

Buffers:           30320 kB

Cached:           333772 kB

SwapCached:            0 kB

Active:           353228 kB

Inactive:         162264 kB

Active(anon):     158968 kB

Inactive(anon):        0 kB

Active(file):     194260 kB

Inactive(file):   162264 kB

Unevictable:           0 kB

Mlocked:               0 kB

HighTotal:        138184 kB

HighFree:            252 kB

LowTotal:         893952 kB

LowFree:          475556 kB

SwapTotal:       2104504 kB

SwapFree:        2104504 kB

Dirty:                92 kB

Writeback:             0 kB

AnonPages:        151404 kB

Mapped:            50652 kB

Slab:              13488 kB

SReclaimable:       9176 kB

SUnreclaim:         4312 kB

PageTables:         1312 kB

NFS_Unstable:          0 kB

Bounce:                0 kB

WritebackTmp:          0 kB

CommitLimit:     2620572 kB

Committed_AS:     380812 kB

VmallocTotal:     122880 kB

VmallocUsed:      105292 kB

VmallocChunk:      16312 kB

HugePages_Total:       0

HugePages_Free:        0

HugePages_Rsvd:        0

HugePages_Surp:        0

Hugepagesize:       4096 kB

DirectMap4k:       40952 kB

DirectMap4M:      868352 kB

```

Last edited by h2sammo on Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:29 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## eccerr0r

How did you set up X11?  Is acceleration enabled?

When you run 'top' is it indicating there's something running at the time?  Zombie process?  Interrupt galore?

How is your disk speeds?  Is it getting choked up while trying to read disk from a slowly operating disk due to DMA off?

----------

## h2sammo

what i see is that X is eating up to 90% of cpu when i scroll pages.  i tested whether my 3D acceleration is enabled and it said yes:

```
 bobby@MW20-PPL2106U01 ~ $ glxinfo | grep rendering

direct rendering: Yes

bobby@MW20-PPL2106U01 ~ $ glxgears

685 frames in 5.0 seconds = 136.975 FPS

659 frames in 5.0 seconds = 131.770 FPS

683 frames in 5.0 seconds = 136.534 FPS

681 frames in 5.0 seconds = 136.170 FPS

640 frames in 5.0 seconds = 127.877 FPS

```

i am thinking it is the something with the 3D because i tried playing some really non-demanding game.  the linux version of Mario Bros, i forget the name and it was extremely slow and choppy.  Also scrolling pages is choppy.

here is my xorg.conf.  how can i troubleshoot this further?

```
 

 GNU nano 2.1.10                   File: /etc/X11/xorg.conf                                   Modified  

Section "ServerLayout"

Identifier "Simple Layout"

Screen "Screen1"

InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"

EndSection

Section "Files"

EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"

Option "AllowEmptyInput" "off"

EndSection

Section "Module"

Load "dri"

Load "glx"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Mouse1"

Driver "mouse"

Option "Protocol" "Auto"

Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"

Option "Emulate3Buttons"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Keyboard1"

Driver "kbd"

Option "XkbRules" "xorg"

Option "XkbModel" "pc104"

Option "XkbLayout" "us"

Option "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "NEC"

EndSection

Section "Device"

Identifier "Brookdale-G"

Driver "intel"

#BusID: "PCI:0:2:0"

#Option "backingstore" "true"

#Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"

EndSection

Section "Screen"

Identifier "Screen1"

Device "Brookdale-G"

Monitor "NEC"

DefaultDepth 24

SubSection "Display"

Viewport 0 0

Depth 24

EndSubSection

EndSection

Section "Extensions"

Option "Composite" "Enable"

Option "RENDER" "Enable"

EndSection

Section "dri"

Mode 0666

EndSection

```

----------

## whiteghost

i had a problem with browsers, scrolling, trying to watch movies. a better video card solved it for me.

i had plenty of cpu and memory. just needed more graphic power.

----------

## h2sammo

any other help besides "buy a video card"?

----------

## h2sammo

sadly... i bought a video card... seems problem is solved.

----------

