# Inconsistent system performance

## smypee

I'm having strange performance problems lately: Sometimes when I boot my system works perfectly. Smooth and fast. But other times it is very laggy and choppy. I boot into console mode, not X. But even there I feel that my system doesn't perform as usual (key repeating on console is very slow). /var/log/messages doesn't reveal anything special to me. The system seems to be idle. When I start an X server it is very inresponsive and slow. But like I said, the next time I boot it might as well be all fine again (or not). Any ideas? I'm using gentoo-sources-1.6.17. I tried both preemptive and not.

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## wynn

You could try running top and see if anything is hogging CPU.

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## smypee

I did. CPU seems to be idle.

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## ecce

Rootkits can hide processes from programs such as top, but I think it's more likely some kind of driver slow things down. Try downloading a stable vanilla kernel source code and compile a new kernel. You could also try booting knoppix from a CD several times and see if the problem persists.

I suddenly recall that there's a command emerge --info or something like that, post that info here, it may give someone with higher status than noob a clue.   :Razz: 

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## smypee

Thanks, I'll try that in the evening. I also have the feeling that this is somehow driver or other kernel functionality related.

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## dejima

I have the same problem.

When I start X I see that it consumes too much memory.

Probably when the system starts being slow and inresponsive it uses great deal of swap.

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## smypee

here's my emerge --info:

```

Portage 2.1_pre10-r3 (default-linux/x86/2006.0, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.17-gentoo-r1 i686)

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

System uname: 2.6.17-gentoo-r1 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz

Gentoo Base System version 1.6.14

dev-lang/python:     2.4.2

dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5

dev-util/ccache:     [Not Present]

dev-util/confcache:  [Not Present]

sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.12

sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r6

sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1

sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1-r3

sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.12-r6

sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22

virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r2

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"

AUTOCLEAN="yes"

CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

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

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"

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

DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"

FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict"

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

LANG="en_US.utf8"

LC_ALL="en_US.utf8"

PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"

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

PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"

PORTDIR="/usr/portage"

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/local/xgl-coffee"

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

USE="X aac alsa apache2 apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cairo cdparanoia cdr cdrom cli crypt ctype cups dba directfb dlloader dri dv dvd dvdr dvdread eds elibc_glibc emboss encode epson esd ethereal exif expat fam fastbuild ffmpeg foomaticdb force-cgi-redirect fortran ftp gd gdbm gif glitz glut gmp gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile hal idn imlib ipv6 isdnlog jack java joystick jpeg jpeg2k kde kernel_linux lame lcms ldap libg++ libwww lm_sensors mad memlimit mikmod mng motif mozilla mp3 mpeg mpeg2 mplayer musicbrainz mysql mythtv ncurses nls nptl ogg opengl openssh oss pam pcre pdf pdflib perl png posix pppd python qt qt3 qt4 quicktime readline real reflection reiserfs samba sblive scanner sdl session simplexml slang soap sockets spell spl ssl svg svgz swat tcltk tcpd tiff tokenizer truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode userland_GNU userlocales utf8 v4l2 vfat vorbis win32codecs x86 xcomposite xft xgl xine xinerama xml xml2 xmms xorg xsl xv xvid zlib input_devices_joystick input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse video_cards_nvidia"

Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, MAKEOPTS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

```

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## Paapaa

Could it be a CPU temperature issue? Make sure your heatsink is properly installed and hot.

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## smypee

CPU temperature is at 50 degrees, so I don't think that's the problem. It also occurs right after starting up.

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## at240

Do you think this has been triggered by changes in kernel configuration or even a kernel upgrade?

(i.e. Did you recently move from 2.6.16 to 2.6.17? Have you been playing around with your kernel recently? Remember any changes you made?)

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## intgr

 *smypee wrote:*   

> I'm using gentoo-sources-1.6.17. I tried both preemptive and not.

 

I personally started getting really bad performance after upgrading from ck-sources-2.6.16 to -2.6.17, but I didn't try to find out what the problem was since I had planned moving to mm-sources-2.6.17-r6 (which I did) anyway. The latter work great.

Can you give an overview of your hardware, in case we have something in common?

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## smypee

I had this problem with gentoo-sources-2.6.16 too. That's why I moved to 2.6.17. But I did move my whole system to a new hard drive, i.e. copying the whole / to another partition and mount a new swap...maybe that's the source of my problem. I also upgraded my memory recently, I could imagine that this might be the source too. My hardware is P4 2.8GHz, ASUS P4GPL-X, ASUS NVIDIA EN6600Top, 2x512Mb OCZ Platinum memory.

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## intgr

 *smypee wrote:*   

> My hardware is P4 2.8GHz, ASUS P4GPL-X, ASUS NVIDIA EN6600Top, 2x512Mb OCZ Platinum memory.

 

Doesn't sound like we have anything in common, except an ASUS motherboard, although a different chipset as well. So that's probably not the reason.

My machine is Athlon 64 3000+ (running in AMD64), ASUS A8N5X motherboard, 2x512 MB Kingston RAM, ATI Radeon x550, one SATA Seagate 200GB HD.

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