System Slow, Noticed not using all RAM - typical?

English Hardware
1

New Install OF tumbleweed.

System is slow- I have a ssd on order, will install it when it comes in
However, I am noticing I have 16GB ram, system is using 3.7. under heavy usage or none, never goes above but may drop to 3.6 GiB

Watching Ksysguard, I see memory 3.7 GiB of 15.6 Gib

Kilbert@localhost:~> uname -r
4.15.1-1-default
Kilbert@localhost:~> cat /proc/meminfo 
MemTotal:       16396532 kB
MemFree:         7848976 kB
MemAvailable:   12163328 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Buffers:           23660 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Cached:          2548528 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
SwapCached:            0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Active:          4498876 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Inactive:        1667876 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Active(anon):    2929136 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Inactive(anon):   665024 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Active(file):    1569740 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Inactive(file):  1002852 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Unevictable:          80 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Mlocked:              80 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
SwapTotal:       2104316 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
SwapFree:        2104316 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Dirty:             71708 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Writeback:             0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
AnonPages:       3351688 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Mapped:           315080 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Shmem:            154112 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Slab:            2221904 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
SReclaimable:    2079992 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
SUnreclaim:       141912 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
KernelStack:       13376 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
PageTables:        51552 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Bounce:                0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
WritebackTmp:          0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
CommitLimit:    10302580 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Committed_AS:    8017940 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
VmallocTotal:   34359738367 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
VmallocUsed:           0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
VmallocChunk:          0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
HardwareCorrupted:     0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
AnonHugePages:    890880 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
ShmemHugePages:        0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
ShmemPmdMapped:        0 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
HugePages_Total:       0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
HugePages_Free:        0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
HugePages_Rsvd:        0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
HugePages_Surp:        0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Hugepagesize:       2048 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
DirectMap4k:      666384 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
DirectMap2M:    15034368 kB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
DirectMap1G:     3145728 kB

TOP:
 2080 Kilbert   20   0 3265992 470812 124052 R 79.87 2.871  45:38.89 firefox                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
 1631 Kilbert   20   0  890372 128816  32528 S 13.86 0.786   8:01.91 Plex Media Serv                                                                                                                                                                                                             
 8078 Kilbert   20   0  403264  87152  37692 S 12.87 0.532  14:17.51 Plex Media Scan                                                                                                                                                                                                             
23638 Kilbert   20   0  963620 104700   8860 S 5.941 0.639   2:10.36 Plex Script Hos                                                                                                                                                                                                             
 1980 Kilbert   20   0 3361148 100364  61956 S 4.950 0.612   4:31.83 kwin_x11                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
 2580 Kilbert   35  15 1869108 202628   9008 S 4.620 1.236   3:38.98 Plex Script Hos

Is this normal? Shouldn’t my ram be pushed, instead of the slowdown I am seeing?

2

Try the ‘free’ command for memory; although, I don’t think memory is your problem.

The SSD will help with loading programs, and reading / writing files,
but probably won’t help with what you are experiencing.

Your top output shows firefox is heavily active.
Combined with the Plex software it’s over 100%

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/145247/understanding-cpu-while-running-top-command
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/34435/top-output-cpu-usage-100

What is your CPU and GPU?

3

Thanks
her is the info:


Kilbert@localhost:~> free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:       16396532     4857416      153144      119988    11385972    11284520
Swap:       2104316           0     2104316

cpu:


Kilbert@localhost:~> lscpu
Architecture:        x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):      32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:          Little Endian
CPU(s):              8
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-7
Thread(s) per core:  2
Core(s) per socket:  4
Socket(s):           1
NUMA node(s):        1
Vendor ID:           AuthenticAMD
CPU family:          21
Model:               2
Model name:          AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor
Stepping:            0
CPU MHz:             3096.717
CPU max MHz:         4000.0000
CPU min MHz:         1400.0000
BogoMIPS:            7982.68
Virtualization:      AMD-V
L1d cache:           16K
L1i cache:           64K
L2 cache:            2048K
L3 cache:            8192K
NUMA node0 CPU(s):   0-7
Flags:               fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes xsave avx f16c lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs xop skinit wdt lwp fma4 tce nodeid_msr tbm topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb cpb hw_pstate retpoline retpoline_amd rsb_ctxsw vmmcall bmi1 arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold
Kilbert@localhost:~>

gpu is an old 9800gt , I have a newer rx250 2 or 4 gb but previously had issues with it, so I yanked it and put this in.

4

Also, perhaps examine your cpu utilization (eg with ‘top’) when these slow downs are being experienced.

5

Your top output shows firefox is heavily active.
Combined with the Plex software it’s over 100%

Understanding %CPU while running top command - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
linux - top output: CPU usage > 100% - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange

What is your CPU and GPU?

Oops, missed this. Yes, this needs investigating further.

6

amd fx8350 & r800 gt video card. I have a r7 250 4 gb (in the desk drawer) but last install had issues with it, eg. may kernel errors on boot.

7

Look at ‘top’ again.
Is firefox still using a lot of CPU?
When I switched to terminal to look right now,
firefox was %2.0 then %0.33,
compared with your %79.87.

What version of firefox is it?
Is it the openSUSE package?

8

>look at ‘top’ again.

>Is firefox still using a lot of CPU? no its plasma shell but firefox keeps bumping up to the top 3

while I was typing this out, my menubar disappeared (with the start button) & no right click menu for a solid 30 seconds, then it came back… SYstem, is super slugginsh.
still does not use much ram, right now ksysguard shows at idle its at 3.1 of 15.6. & CPU shoows 3 cpu pegged @ 100% and 2 of the others at 2-100% bouncing. & 3 at 40-100% bouncing.

>When I switched to terminal to look right now,
>firefox was %2.0 then %0.33,
>compared with your %79.87.

>What version of firefox is it?
58.0.1
>Is it the openSUSE package?yes,
default from new tumbleweed install packman & restricted extras added from multimenia pinned post.

 
1861 Kilbert   20   0 6418944 226492  51556 R 125.6 1.381 178:28.39 plasmashell                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
 1673 root      20   0  424168  72976  48928 S 54.82 0.445  93:43.13 X                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
29318 Kilbert   20   0  282424  20232  16496 S 17.94 0.123   0:20.99 file.so                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
  450 root      20   0       0      0      0 D 16.28 0.000  55:32.20 btrfs-cleaner                                                                                                                                                                                                               
29317 Kilbert   20   0  282256  19996  16496 D 11.63 0.122   0:17.71 file.so                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
 1853 Kilbert   20   0 3377440  55284  18940 S 4.319 0.337  19:50.43 kwin_x11                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
29407 Kilbert   20   0  828180  89836  74392 S 4.319 0.548   0:01.90 konsole                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
28308 root      20   0       0      0      0 D 3.322 0.000   0:00.98 kworker/u16:3                                                                                                                                                                                                               
   78 root      20   0       0      0      0 S 2.990 0.000   6:42.95 kswapd0                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
 2267 Kilbert   20   0  301188  11876   5116 R 0.664 0.072   1:07.14 kuiserver                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
28406 root      20   0       0      0      0 I 0.664 0.000   0:00.25 kworker/u16:9                                                                                                                                                                                                               
    8 root      20   0       0      0      0 I 0.332 0.000   1:10.97 rcu_preempt                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
  181 root       0 -20       0      0      0 I 0.332 0.000   0:33.13 kworker/1:1H                                                                                                                                                                                                                
 1746 Kilbert   20   0   42504   3348   1996 S 0.332 0.020   0:55.45 dbus-daemon                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
28855 Kilbert   20   0 1182508 115332  84560 S 0.332 0.703   0:14.94 dolphin                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
28859 root      20   0       0      0      0 I 0.332 0.000   0:00.36 kworker/1:2                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
.
.
1948 Kilbert   20   0 3380984 418216 106408 S 0.662 2.551 151:46.22 firefox
9

Try creating a new user, and then login to the desktop as that user. Check the plasmashell CPU loading again. Any different? If you search there seems to be a number of similar threads around with similar symptoms. A common theme seems to be that killing and restating plasmashell seems to help (temporarily at least) with settling CPU utilization down. I’m not sure what’s behind it though.

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/525505-plasmashell-very-high-usage-CPU-after-snapshot-20170618/page3

10

A web search for btrfs-cleaner shows various people complaining about performance.
Check ‘top’ again to see if it’s still running.

Something weird is definitely going on.

You could experiment with using a different desktop environment / window manager.
icewm is probably already installed.

xfce is lightweight.

zypper in --no-recommends -t pattern xfce
11

This thread may be of interest…
https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=141998

12

Thanks guys I will try some things,

I am still concerned that I never use more than 3.9mb of ram. is a very odd thing that my system never uses more than the 32 bit max ram, though I am on 64 bit machine and 64 bit os.

13

I’m not sure why your **free** output only has two lines.
Mine shows:


Mem:       8059980    1382376    6677604      52020       2092     637040
-/+ buffers/cache:     743244    7316736
Swap:      8271868          0    8271868

and I’ve read that the middle line gives a more accurate view of how much is used.

Either way, the 16396532 seemingly indicates you have all the memory active.
“Used” is talking about how much is “filled”.

14

me neither. I tried it with root also, same output <edit added -l switch>
It just seems to me that there would be a need occasionally to use more ram, but maybe I don’t do anything heavy enough to warrant it. Though when my machine is sluggish I would hope the machine uses ram vs. temp file /swap etc…


Kilbert@localhost:~> free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:       16396532     2931760     1921768       76504    11543004    13416624
Swap:       2104316           0     2104316
Kilbert@localhost:~>

got it.


localhost:~ # free -l
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:       16396532     3009920     1682008      103576    11704604    13373184
Low:       16396532    14714524     1682008
High:             0           0           0
Swap:       2104316           0     2104316
localhost:~ #
15

Remember that Linux uses any free memory as cache. The cache is freed as applications require more memory.Unless you do something really intense it is hard to use more then about 6 gig. In any case as long as you are not using any swap speed should not be affected.

File indexing can sometimes eat a lot of CPU run top and see what is eating the CPU

16

We must be running different versions of free.

> free -V
free from procps-ng 3.3.9

You could install htop which is small and seems to give the same information as my version of free.

17

Here’s information about free and the changes in the new version:https://serverfault.com/questions/85470/meaning-of-the-buffers-cache-line-in-the-output-of-free

https://askubuntu.com/questions/770108/what-do-the-changes-in-free-output-from-14-04-to-16-04-mean

18

Leap:

server50:~> free             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       9723536    9288128     435408      49288     234404    7817508
-/+ buffers/cache:    1236216    8487320
Swap:            0          0          0

Tumbleweed:


@knurpht-HP:~> free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:        8085396     5004224      220388     1182592     2860784     2458948
Swap:             0           0           0

Don’t ask me why …

19

I think the second link I posted describes the relevant change in 3.3.10 of procps,
which I’m sure Tumbleweed is using (or a later version).

From the NEWS file:

  • free exploits MemAvailable field and offers improved memory statistics
  • free considers slabs in displayed totals, debian #565518, ubuntu #126329