# Computer gets more and more sluggish as time goes by?

## alexbuell

Hey,

I'm using 2.6.22-gentoo-r5 with a 2007.0 profile. This runs on a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop, fully spec'd. This system has been up for the last 40 days, and I've just noticed that the system is getting slower, slower and slower as each day goes by. 

Any ideas why?

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## alexbuell

I think I've solved it. I simpy blew away the caches, and the machine got a bit faster. First do a sync, and then echo 1 >> /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches. 

But really, this shouldn't have to happen though...

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## PaulBredbury

 *alexbuell wrote:*   

> up for the last 40 days

 

Check for memory leaks in your apps, i.e. their memory usage increasing suspiciously.

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## alexbuell

 *PaulBredbury wrote:*   

>  *alexbuell wrote:*   up for the last 40 days 
> 
> Check for memory leaks in your apps, i.e. their memory usage increasing suspiciously.

 

I tried restarting all my large apps before I found out about the drop_caches sysctl variable. That made no difference. I think it's memory fragmentation.

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## alexbuell

System's been up for 45 days now, and tried everything apart from rebooting to eliminate the source of the slowdowns. I'm out of ideas...

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## ilovebeer

Hi, I posted on this old thread because I'm having the same problem on the same machine running the same kernel! I know the memory leak comes from NVU and after having tried Kompozer the smae problem persists. What can be done about this?... if anything. Is not using those programs the only alternative?

Thanks

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