Opensuse 10.3 Very Slow On Modern Hardware

It was not too easy to find the right place to put this because I don't really know if it is a hardware or software problem. As I suspect my nvidia drivers for now, I'm posting it here.I could also have posted it in miscellaneous, but almost all topics there had to be moved by a moderator / administrator and I don't want them to do unnecessary work.

I'm noticing my 10.3 install is really slow lately, and it is annoying me more and more, so I am trying to find out what is the cause. My notebook is fairly good (Core 2 Duo T7250@2GHz, 2GB Ram, Nvidia NVS 140M) so I don't think that is the problem.

What do I mean with slow?
- Flash videos get the CPUs to 50 - 90% each and the playback is not smooth.
- This is almost the same for normal videos in fullscreen.
- Refreshing a page in firefox gets one of the cores to 100%
- Scrolling in firefox is not smooth at all
- Switching desktops with compiz (you know, the rotating cubes) is also not smooth at all
- Can't play lBreakout with a decent fps
- maximising and resizing a window takes 4 seconds
- playing webcam takes about 80% for both CPUs

These are just some examples to show what I mean. I have the feeling that my nvidia drivers are not installed (correctly) but I do see the nvidia logo on login.

Now the thing is that I want to give more info but I don't know where to start, I really have no idea what the cause/bottleneck is so somebody has to point me to the right directions. Below are some outputs that might be of use.

top while playing a flash video in firefox:

Tasks: 151 total,** 5 running, 146 sleeping,** 0 stopped,** 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 55.3%us,**6.5%sy,**0.0%ni, 36.5%id,**0.8%wa,**0.2%hi,**0.7%si,**0.0%st
Mem:** 2074504k total,**1962956k used,** 111548k free,** 677724k buffers
Swap:**2104472k total,****** 12k used,**2104460k free,** 863268k cached

**PID USER******PR**NI**VIRT**RES**SHR S %CPU %MEM****TIME+**COMMAND****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
26145 root******20** 0**913m**62m**10m R** 83**3.1** 8:42.12 X**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
 3318 v1per**** 20** 0**212m**83m**25m R** 21**4.1** 4:24.08 firefox-bin************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
26299 v1per**** 20** 0 28456**21m 8824 R** 16**1.1** 3:13.13 compiz**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 
26304 v1per**** 20** 0 98.9m**26m**12m S****2**1.3** 0:40.59 python**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 
 8301 v1per**** 20** 0**146m**53m**27m S****0**2.6** 0:35.31 amarokapp**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
20510 v1per**** 20** 0**2324 1036**764 R****0**0.0** 0:00.06 top********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
26328 v1per**** 20** 0 41360**17m**11m R****0**0.9** 0:02.20 gnome-terminal******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 
28213 v1per**** 20** 0 31464**24m 4828 S****0**1.2** 0:18.14 wish****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 
28270 v1per**** 20** 0 70112**29m**12m S****0**1.5** 0:08.38 skype******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
****1 root******20** 0** 740**292**240 S****0**0.0** 0:01.33 init******

loadavg is also quite high:

17:32 elise:~ > cat /proc/loadavg 
1.79 1.16 0.95 1/264 24633

A lot in cache, but that's ok as there is no swapping:

17:34 elise:~ > cat /proc/meminfo 
MemTotal:******2074504 kB
MemFree:********105084 kB
Buffers:********678320 kB
Cached:******** 869464 kB

my kernel

17:35 elise:~ > uname -r
2.6.23.16-ccj64-regular

18:09 elise:/home/v1per # cat /proc/vmstat
nr_free_pages 6719
nr_inactive 325176
nr_active 170314
nr_anon_pages 90131
nr_mapped 29523
nr_file_pages 405378
nr_dirty 125
nr_writeback 0
nr_slab_reclaimable 5094
nr_slab_unreclaimable 3964
nr_page_table_pages 816
nr_unstable 0
nr_bounce 0
nr_vmscan_write 26
pgpgin 4227438
pgpgout 2324080
pswpin 0
pswpout 3
pgalloc_dma 45465
pgalloc_normal 6150209
pgalloc_high 13107639
pgalloc_movable 0
pgfree 19310489
pgactivate 695734
pgdeactivate 328419
pgfault 59622960
pgmajfault 1612
pgrefill_dma 8650
pgrefill_normal 309025
pgrefill_high 165579
pgrefill_movable 0
pgsteal_dma 12222
pgsteal_normal 457092
pgsteal_high 141971
pgsteal_movable 0
pgscan_kswapd_dma 12231
pgscan_kswapd_normal 466857
pgscan_kswapd_high 152731
pgscan_kswapd_movable 0
pgscan_direct_dma 0
pgscan_direct_normal 384
pgscan_direct_high 384
pgscan_direct_movable 0
pginodesteal 0
slabs_scanned 180608
kswapd_steal 610517
kswapd_inodesteal 151823
pageoutrun 7821
allocstall 6
pgrotated 20

My xorg.conf has too many screens, but the one being used has the nvidia driver:

19:10 elise:~ > cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:**version 1.0**(buildmeister@builder3)**Thu Feb 14 18:20:37 PST 2008

# generic XFree86 4.x configuration file
# Screen Section for module X support
# -------------------------------------
# Screen Section for fbdev support
# vesafb defaults to 16bit
# others default to 8bit, force a higher colordepth
# on Apple onboard controllers, remove the default #207338
# changes for DefaultDepth have to be made in /usr/lib/YaST2/startup/YaST2.call as well
# ----------------------------------
# Screen Section for vesa support
# ----------------------------------
# Screen Section for vmware support
# ----------------------------------
# Device Sections...
# -------------------

Section "ServerLayout"
****Identifier**** "Layout[all]"
****Screen******** "Screen[fbdev]" 0 0
****InputDevice****"Mouse0" "CorePointer"
****InputDevice****"Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
****InputDevice****"Synaptics Touchpad"
****Option******** "Xinerama" "off"
EndSection

Section "Files"
****ModulePath******"/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS0"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS1"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS2"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS3"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS4"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS5"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS6"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS7"
****InputDevices******"/dev/ttyS8"
****InputDevices******"/dev/psaux"
****InputDevices******"Synaptics Touchpad"
****FontPath********"/usr/share/fonts/truetype/"
****FontPath********"/usr/share/fonts/uni/"
****FontPath********"/usr/share/fonts/misc/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
****Load********** "dbe"
****Load********** "extmod"
****Load********** "glx"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
****Option******** "AllowMouseOpenFail"
****Option******** "BlankTime" "0"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

****# generated from default
****Identifier**** "Mouse0"
****Driver******** "mouse"
****Option******** "Protocol" "auto"
****Option******** "Device" "/dev/psaux"
****Option******** "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
****Option******** "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
****Identifier**** "Keyboard[0]"
****Driver******** "kbd"
****Option******** "Protocol" "Standard"
****Option******** "XkbRules" "xfree86"
****Option******** "XkbKeycodes" "xfree86"
****Option******** "XkbModel" "pc104"
****Option******** "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
****Identifier**** "Synaptics Touchpad"
****Driver******** "synaptics"
****Option******** "Name" "Synaptics Touchpad"
****Option******** "Device" "/dev/input/mouse1"
****Option******** "Protocol" "auto-dev"
****Option******** "SendCoreEvents" "true"
****Option******** "SHMConfig" "on"
****Option******** "LeftEdge" "130"
****Option******** "RightEdge" "840"
****Option******** "TopEdge" "130"
****Option******** "BottomEdge" "640"
****Option******** "FingerLow" "7"
****Option******** "FingerHigh" "8"
****Option******** "MaxTapTime" "180"
****Option******** "MinTapTime" "110"
****Option******** "ClickTime" "0"
****Option******** "EmulateMidButtonTime" "75"
****Option******** "VertScrollDelta" "140"
****Option******** "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
****Option******** "MinSpeed" "0.40"
****Option******** "MaxSpeed" "0.95"
****Option******** "AccelFactor" "0.030"
****Option******** "EdgeMotionMinSpeed" "200"
****Option******** "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" "200"
****Option******** "UpDownScrolling" "1"
****Option******** "CircularScrolling" "1"
****Option******** "CircScrollDelta" "1"
****Option******** "CircScrollTrigger" "3"
****Option******** "VertEdgeScroll" "on"
EndSection

Section "Modes"
****Identifier******** "Modes[0]"
****ModeLine**** "800x600" 40.0 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync
****ModeLine**** "640x480" 31.5 640 656 720 840 480 481 484 500 # 6. Try
****ModeLine**** "640x480" 31.5 640 680 720 864 480 488 491 521 # 5. Try
****ModeLine**** "640x480" 28.0 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525 # 4. Try
****ModeLine**** "640x480" 28.3 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525 # 3. Try
****ModeLine**** "640x480" 25.2 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525 # 2. Try
****ModeLine**** "640x480" 25.2 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525 # 1. Try
EndSection

Section "Modes"
****Identifier******** "Modes[vmware]"
****ModeLine**** "800x600" 29.4 800 816 896 992 600 601 604 617
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
****Identifier**** "Monitor[0]"
****VendorName**** "Initial"
****ModelName******"Initial"
****UseModes****** "Modes[0]"
****HorizSync****** 25.0 - 40.0
****VertRefresh**** 47.0 - 75.0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
****Identifier**** "Monitor[vmware]"
****VendorName**** "Initial"
****ModelName******"Initial"
****UseModes****** "Modes[vmware]"
****HorizSync****** 28.0 - 33.0
****VertRefresh**** 43.0 - 72.0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
****Identifier**** "Monitor[vesa]"
****VendorName**** "VESA"
****ModelName******"VESA"
****HorizSync****** 31.0 - 48.0
****VertRefresh**** 50.0 - 60.0
EndSection

Section "Device"

**#BusID********"1:0:0"
**# device_options
****Identifier**** "Device[0]"
****Driver******** "ChangeMe"
****Option******** "sw_cursor" "on"
EndSection

Section "Device"

**# fbdev_options
****Identifier**** "Device[fbdev]"
****Driver******** "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Device"

**#Option********"DefaultRefresh"
****Identifier**** "Device[vesa]"
****Driver******** "vesa"
****Option******** "ModeSetClearScreen" "no"
EndSection

Section "Device"
****Identifier**** "Device[vmware]"
****Driver******** "vmware"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
****Identifier**** "Screen[0]"
****Device******** "Device[0]"
****Monitor********"Monitor[0]"
****DefaultDepth****16
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 16
********Modes******"800x600"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 24
********Modes******"800x600"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 32
********Modes******"800x600"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 8
********Modes******"800x600"
****EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"

#@DefaultDepth@
****Identifier**** "Screen[fbdev]"
****Device******** "Device[fbdev]"
****Monitor********"Monitor[0]"
****DefaultDepth****24
****Option******** "RenderAccel" "True"
****Option******** "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Modes******"default"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 15
********Modes******"default"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 24
********Modes******"default"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 32
********Modes******"default"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 8
********Modes******"default"
****EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
****Identifier**** "Screen[vesa]"
****Device******** "Device[vesa]"
****Monitor********"Monitor[vesa]"
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 16
********Modes******"default"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 8
********Modes******"default"
****EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
****Identifier**** "Screen[vmware]"
****Device******** "Device[vmware]"
****Monitor********"Monitor[vmware]"
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 8
********Modes******"800x600"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 16
********Modes******"800x600"
****EndSubSection
****SubSection**** "Display"
********Depth****** 24
********Modes******"800x600"
****EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
****Option******** "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

just started playing the movie, a load of 1.5 for just playing a firefox movie, that shouldn't be like that, right?

X taking 64%???

My xorg log shows no errors

16:52 elise:/home/v1per # grep -i nvidia /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(--) PCI:*(1:0:0) nVidia Corporation Quadro NVS 140M rev 161, Mem @ 0xfd000000/24, 0xe0000000/28, 0xfa000000/25, I/O @ 0xdf00/7
(II) Module glx: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
(II) NVIDIA GLX Module**169.12**Thu Feb 14 18:45:56 PST 2008
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//drivers/nvidia_drv.so
(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
(II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver**169.12**Thu Feb 14 17:55:38 PST 2008
(II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
(--) Chipset NVIDIA GPU found
(**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
(==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888
(==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor
(==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "RenderAccel" "True"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Enabling RENDER acceleration
(II) NVIDIA(0): Support for GLX with the Damage and Composite X extensions is
(II) NVIDIA(0):**** enabled.
(II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU Quadro NVS 140M (G86GL) at PCI:1:0:0 (GPU-0)
(--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 524288 kBytes
(--) NVIDIA(0): VideoBIOS: 60.86.47.00.01
(II) NVIDIA(0): Detected PCI Express Link width: 16X
(--) NVIDIA(0): Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU
(--) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on Quadro NVS 140M at PCI:1:0:0:
(--) NVIDIA(0):**** Seiko (DFP-0)
(--) NVIDIA(0): Seiko (DFP-0): 330.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(--) NVIDIA(0): Seiko (DFP-0): Internal Dual Link LVDS
(II) NVIDIA(0): Assigned Display Device: DFP-0
(WW) NVIDIA(0): No valid modes for "default"; removing.
(WW) NVIDIA(0): 
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Unable to validate any modes; falling back to the default mode
(WW) NVIDIA(0):**** "nvidia-auto-select".
(WW) NVIDIA(0): 
(II) NVIDIA(0): Validated modes:
(II) NVIDIA(0):**** "nvidia-auto-select"
(II) NVIDIA(0): Virtual screen size determined to be 1680 x 1050
(--) NVIDIA(0): DPI set to (129, 126); computed from "UseEdidDpi" X config
(--) NVIDIA(0):**** option
(**) NVIDIA(0): Enabling 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Initialized GPU GART.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "nvidia-auto-select"
(II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA 3D Acceleration Architecture Initialized
(II) NVIDIA(0): Using the NVIDIA 2D acceleration architecture
(==) NVIDIA(0): Backing store disabled
(==) NVIDIA(0): Silken mouse enabled

Thanks in advance for anybody who is willing to help me on this.

Might I suggest turning off the 3d desktop effects. They are, unfortunately, a huge resource hog in 10.3 (hopefully 11 will be better).

Great idea, but the problem is if I turn it off by removing compiz and compiz-gnome (don't know if that is the right way) I don't have any window borders anymore.

Do I have to install the previous windowmanager again? Metacity is still installed though, but maybe I need to change a configuration file to point gnome to use metacity again?

Unfortunately if I go to the settings window and choose desktop effects, everything is greyed out and it says: desktop effects disabled, so I can not disable it there anymore.

I think you have to at least log out, and possibly reboot before changes to desktop effects will fully take effect.

I don't know a lot about the desktop effects. since I had some very bad experiences with them in the past and won't go near them these days.

Perhaps someone who has more experience with them can help, but if i were you I would just reboot at this juncture and take it from there.

ok I got the same (no window borders), but doing

metacity --replace

helped

Also I had to add it to my gnome session

I'm going to try if it's better now (don't see a change so far)

Edit: Ok it is a LITTLE better (of course), but didn't change my problem. I still have the opinion that my OS is too slow for my hardware and I didn't have this feeling in the beginning

Edit 2: The new problem is now that I need compositing for cairo-dock (I love it) or awn (the alternative). I enabled compositing according to this post but it doesn't change

I think once you get all that stuff turned off you will be happy with the speed of the OS. I feel that 10.3 is easily faster than Windows XP for doing most tasks, and it definitely boots to a usable state much faster.

EDIT: As I said earlier, I am not an expert on 3d effects, but since none else is contributing to the discussion ATM let me offer this. Is it possible that creating a new account might help undo some of these problematic desktop settings? Or are these adjustments made as root and therefore system-wide?

I think once you get all that stuff turned off you will be happy with the speed of the OS. I feel that 10.3 is easily faster than Windows XP for doing most tasks, and it definitely boots to a usable state much faster.

EDIT: As I said earlier, I am not an expert on 3d effects, but since none else is contributing to the discussion ATM let me offer this. Is it possible that creating a new account might help undo some of these problematic desktop settings? Or are these adjustments made as root and therefore system-wide?
[/b]

I have already tried this and also other users have this problem (but less of course). I don't understand this though. Are you saying that it is not possible to run compiz and watch a video on this hardware? Even Vista runs smooth! I'm sure there is something wrong but I can't figure out what (a fresh install would probably help of course but that's the windows way to solve problems)

my kernel

17:35 elise:~ > uname -r
2.6.23.16-ccj64-regular

[/b]

What kernel is that?

What kernel is that?
[/b]

I'm affraid I don't understand your question

Name: kernel-regular
Version: 2.6.23.17-ccj64@i586
Priority: 0
Group: System/Kernel
Installed Size: 69.8MB
Reference URLs:
Flags: lock
Channels: Opensuse 10.3 Jengelh Repository
Summary: UP/SMP kernel for x86/x64, w/100 Hz tickrate
Description:
The standard kernel suggested for server platforms.

Well, I asked because I never heard of ccj64-regular branch and Google returned next to nothing. Why are you using that branch? I'm just curious.