AMD A8 5545M APU

hi, newbee here, I have a lpatop with the processor on the title, 16 gb ram and a 333MHZ bus. it should be a lightning fast computer unfortunately linux is loading and doing almost everything pretty slow.
I think, and this is only my best guess, that it is not using all four of the cores in the quad core processor. is that even a possibility ? or maybe there is something else keeping it slow.

thanks to anyone answering this.

Hi
What does the output from the command lscpu show?

What about the cpu frequency?


zypper in cpupower
cpupower frequency-info

lscpu

Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 4
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
CPU family: 21
Model: 19
Model name: AMD A8-5545M APU with Radeon™ HD Graphics
Stepping: 1
CPU MHz: 1100.000
BogoMIPS: 3393.68
Virtualization: AMD-V
L1d cache: 16K
L1i cache: 64K
L2 cache: 2048K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-3

linux-mjq4:~ # cpupower frequency-info
analyzing CPU 0:
driver: acpi-cpufreq
CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
maximum transition latency: 4.0 us.
hardware limits: 1.10 GHz - 1.70 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.70 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.30 GHz, 1.10 GHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1.10 GHz and 1.70 GHz.
The governor “ondemand” may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1.10 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).
boost state support:
Supported: yes
Active: yes
Boost States: 3
Total States: 8
Pstate-Pb0: 2700MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb1: 2400MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb2: 2000MHz (boost state)
Pstate-P0: 1700MHz
Pstate-P1: 1500MHz
Pstate-P2: 1300MHz
Pstate-P3: 1100MHz
Pstate-P4: 900MHz

thank you in advance.

Hi
So cpu info looks good, all cpu’s present etc.

The following will show the frequency info for all of them;


cpupower -c all frequency-info

So what about boot time?


systemd-analyze

Can you describe some more detail about what is going slow, disk
access, starting apps?


Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.6-4-desktop
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linux-mjq4:~ # cpupower -c all frequency-info
analyzing CPU 0:
driver: acpi-cpufreq
CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
maximum transition latency: 4.0 us.
hardware limits: 1.10 GHz - 1.70 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.70 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.30 GHz, 1.10 GHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1.10 GHz and 1.70 GHz.
The governor “ondemand” may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1.10 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).
boost state support:
Supported: yes
Active: yes
Boost States: 3
Total States: 8
Pstate-Pb0: 2700MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb1: 2400MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb2: 2000MHz (boost state)
Pstate-P0: 1700MHz
Pstate-P1: 1500MHz
Pstate-P2: 1300MHz
Pstate-P3: 1100MHz
Pstate-P4: 900MHz
analyzing CPU 1:
driver: acpi-cpufreq
CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 1
CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 1
maximum transition latency: 4.0 us.
hardware limits: 1.10 GHz - 1.70 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.70 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.30 GHz, 1.10 GHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1.10 GHz and 1.70 GHz.
The governor “ondemand” may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1.10 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).
boost state support:
Supported: yes
Active: yes
Boost States: 3
Total States: 8
Pstate-Pb0: 2700MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb1: 2400MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb2: 2000MHz (boost state)
Pstate-P0: 1700MHz
Pstate-P1: 1500MHz
Pstate-P2: 1300MHz
Pstate-P3: 1100MHz
Pstate-P4: 900MHz
analyzing CPU 2:
driver: acpi-cpufreq
CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 2
CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 2
maximum transition latency: 4.0 us.
hardware limits: 1.10 GHz - 1.70 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.70 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.30 GHz, 1.10 GHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1.10 GHz and 1.70 GHz.
The governor “ondemand” may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1.10 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).
boost state support:
Supported: yes
Active: yes
Boost States: 3
Total States: 8
Pstate-Pb0: 2700MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb1: 2400MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb2: 2000MHz (boost state)
Pstate-P0: 1700MHz
Pstate-P1: 1500MHz
Pstate-P2: 1300MHz
Pstate-P3: 1100MHz
Pstate-P4: 900MHz
analyzing CPU 3:
driver: acpi-cpufreq
CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 3
CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 3
maximum transition latency: 4.0 us.
hardware limits: 1.10 GHz - 1.70 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.70 GHz, 1.50 GHz, 1.30 GHz, 1.10 GHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1.10 GHz and 1.70 GHz.
The governor “ondemand” may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1.10 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).
boost state support:
Supported: yes
Active: yes
Boost States: 3
Total States: 8
Pstate-Pb0: 2700MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb1: 2400MHz (boost state)
Pstate-Pb2: 2000MHz (boost state)
Pstate-P0: 1700MHz
Pstate-P1: 1500MHz
Pstate-P2: 1300MHz
Pstate-P3: 1100MHz
Pstate-P4: 900MHz

linux-mjq4:~ # systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 5.113s (firmware) + 3.510s (loader) + 7.113s (kernel) + 22.892s (userspace) = 38.629s

mostly what I see is that it take some time to access any folder in dolphin. applications are starting promptly but unfortunately windows 7 on a lap with less resource is doing all of this quiker.
also boot time is slower than expected, especially once it reaches the small kde window with the hdd and other icons on it, it’s like it is loading the desktop.
if I was to hybernate the system, it tkaes some time to load the pages. not sure if it is a 5500 or 7500 rpm disk.
also I took an sd card and copied pictures from it to my hdd under OS13.1 it took significant amount of time, and we are talking about merely 5GB on a class 10 sd card.
thanks. sorry i took so long to answer. i didnt know you guys would be online and would answer so quickly

Hi
And what about;


systemd-analyze

Can you describe some more detail about what is going slow, disk
access, starting apps?

Hi
So now look at the following;


systemd-analyse blame

I’m sorry I don’t know much about KDE as I use Gnome…

The above command should narrow down the slow booting. This system is only a dual core with 8GB of ram;


Startup finished in 4.934s (firmware) + 29ms (loader) + 3.027s (kernel) + 2.258s (userspace) = 10.249s

So the first time is BIOS, not much can be done about that, second time is the bootloader, I have it set to hidden and default since it’s only a single boot system. In your case this can be variable. The last two should be tweakable, I don’t use plymouth for a start, boot time so quick it’s gone so quick, so why bother.

Lets see what the blame output is like first before apply some tweaks.

if you look up amd a8 5545M it is a quad core. when I run the system hardware information from yast which is like the configuration on gnome it give me 4 cpus under cpu. like the same a8 cpu 4 times.
I think we are up to something with that statement.

linux-mjq4:~ # systemd-analyze blame
4.413s SuSEfirewall2.service
3.045s lvm2-activation-early.service
2.998s lvm2-activation.service
2.997s apparmor.service
2.006s systemd-udev-root-symlink.service
1.932s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dTOSHIBA_MQ01ABD100_Z3BLSP
1.907s cycle.service
1.847s home.mount
1.711s postfix.service
1.616s xdm.service
1.565s systemd-vconsole-setup.service
1.470s SuSEfirewall2_init.service
1.335s systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dTOSHIBA_MQ01ABD100_Z3BLSP
1.200s systemd-fsck-root.service
1.097s systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
902ms var.mount
897ms systemd-modules-load.service
844ms boot-efi.mount
629ms kmod-static-nodes.service
614ms dev-mqueue.mount
614ms sys-kernel-debug.mount
613ms dev-hugepages.mount
597ms systemd-backlight@acpi_video0.service
560ms user@1000.service
521ms udisks2.service
498ms dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dTOSHIBA_MQ01ABD100_Z3BLSPM0S\x2dpart9.
461ms systemd-readahead-replay.service
461ms systemd-readahead-collect.service
456ms NetworkManager.service
422ms systemd-random-seed.service
359ms systemd-update-utmp.service
285ms systemd-remount-fs.service
279ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
255ms plymouth-read-write.service
218ms ntp.service
163ms var-run.mount
146ms alsa-restore.service

linux-mjq4:~ #

Hi
Your cpu is 4 cores (cpu’s) with 2 threads per core equals 8, so no issues with the system recognizing what you have?

So your hard drive is 1TB at 5,400rpm, since windows is probably on partition sda2, sure it will be fast… can you post the output from;


lsblk

To see what’s where on the drive as you seem to have numerous mount points. The further out on the drive, the slower access will be… So are you running lvm?

lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 1G 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 100M 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 128M 0 part
├─sda4 8:4 0 600.2G 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 8.1G 0 part
├─sda6 8:6 0 100G 0 part /
├─sda7 8:7 0 200G 0 part /home
├─sda8 8:8 0 19G 0 part /var
├─sda9 8:9 0 2G 0 part [SWAP]
└─sda10 8:10 0 1G 0 part /boot/efi
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
linux-mjq4:~ #
thanks

On Mon 27 Jan 2014 12:46:01 PM CST, relay0052 wrote:

lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 1G 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 100M 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 128M 0 part
├─sda4 8:4 0 600.2G 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 8.1G 0 part
├─sda6 8:6 0 100G 0 part /
├─sda7 8:7 0 200G 0 part /home
├─sda8 8:8 0 19G 0 part /var
├─sda9 8:9 0 2G 0 part [SWAP]
└─sda10 8:10 0 1G 0 part /boot/efi
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

Hi
OK, so I would assume that;
sda1 - winre
sda2 - ms reserved
sda3 - windows ESP
sda4 - windows
sda5 - recovery partition
sda6 - openSUSE /
sda7 - /home
sda8 - /var
sda9 - swap
sda9 - openSUSE ESP

This is windows 8 or windows 7 (I’m guessing windows 7 with the
128/100MB partitions)?

Having the openSUSE ESP at the end of the drive would cause some minor
slow down for boot, having var on a separate partition another slowdown
as systemd needs to mount this, having a 100GB / partition sort of
negates the need for a separate var one?

Can your system support SATA III?


dmesg |grep SATA

Seems a pity to have such a nice set of hardware somewhat crippled with
a slow (as in rotation speed and onboard cache) and large drive IMHO…

Both windows and openSUSE can co-exist on the same ESP (as in /boot/efi
or in windows EFI), when installing openSUSE you can choose to mount,
but not format.

So improvements could be made, but that would require a re-think on the
drive setup (partitioning) and if you would be up to getting a
different drive? Do you need all that space?

So, for the systemd output, what does show;


systemd-analyze critical-chain

Maybe someone with more KDE usage can come up with some ideas how to
improve the 22 seconds to get the graphical target up… some is disk
access, maybe the above will highlight something.

You can also run;


systemd-analyze plot > systemd_boot.svg

You can look at this (no need to post here, just an fyi for you) and see
how things boot up.

Note, if you moved the windows os to the end of the drive, it would
also boot slower as well…


Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.6-4-desktop
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

dmesg |grep SATA

0.651377] ahci 0000:00:11.0: AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 2 ports 6 Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode
0.652249] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf034f000 port 0xf034f100 irq 42
0.652253] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf034f000 port 0xf034f180 irq 42
1.111366] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
1.111401] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)

9299.679835] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
9299.680779] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[11630.203991] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[11630.206067] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[12908.461959] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[12908.462964] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
linux-mjq4:~ #

systemd-analyze critical-chain
The time after the unit is active or started is printed after the “@” character.
The time the unit takes to start is printed after the “+” character.

graphical.target @22.881s
└─multi-user.target @22.881s
└─SuSEfirewall2.service @18.467s +4.413s
└─network.target @18.466s
└─NetworkManager.service @18.009s +456ms
└─SuSEfirewall2_init.service @16.536s +1.470s
└─basic.target @16.466s
└─sockets.target @16.466s
└─dbus.socket @16.466s
└─sysinit.target @16.416s
└─apparmor.service @13.417s +2.997s
└─systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @13.135s +279ms
└─local-fs.target @13.132s
└─home.mount @11.284s +1.847s
└─systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dTOSHIBA_MQ01AB
└─dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dTOSHIBA_MQ01ABD100_Z3BLSP

linux-mjq4:~ #

well, now that it’s narrowed to the hard drive I will delete windows 8, either way it is no more useful than an android phone.
by the way I would recommend that you look into the new kde. I tried gnome a few years back and the integration was still behind KDE. now KDE has such a good integration and so many things that make a pc more like a personal computing assistant. unlike windozed 8 which is useful for surfing the net, wasting time looking for installed apps and fixing freezes, viruses, malware and intrusions. besides taking off the var partition would you make and other suggestion to my disk partition configuration?
my new config (without windows ) will look like this

─sda2 8:6 0 100G 0 part /
├─sda3 8:7 0 200G 0 part /home

├─sda4 8:9 0 2G 0 part [SWAP]
└─sda1 8:10 0 1G 0 part /boot/efi
would you suggest a different config?
thank you.

"
You can also run;


systemd-analyze plot > systemd_boot.svg

You can look at this (no need to post here, just an fyi for you) and see
how things boot up."

did not return anything.

On Mon 27 Jan 2014 02:46:01 PM CST, relay0052 wrote:

dmesg |grep SATA

0.651377] ahci 0000:00:11.0: AHCI 0001.0300 32 slots 2 ports 6 Gbps

0x3 impl SATA mode
0.652249] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf034f000 port
0xf034f100 irq 42
0.652253] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m2048@0xf034f000 port
0xf034f180 irq 42
1.111366] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
1.111401] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
9299.679835] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
9299.680779] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[11630.203991] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[11630.206067] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[12908.461959] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
[12908.462964] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
linux-mjq4:~ #

systemd-analyze critical-chain
The time after the unit is active or started is printed after the “@”
character.
The time the unit takes to start is printed after the “+” character.

graphical.target @22.881s
└─multi-user.target @22.881s
└─SuSEfirewall2.service @18.467s +4.413s
└─network.target @18.466s
└─NetworkManager.service @18.009s +456ms
└─SuSEfirewall2_init.service @16.536s +1.470s
└─basic.target @16.466s
└─sockets.target @16.466s
└─dbus.socket @16.466s
└─sysinit.target @16.416s
└─apparmor.service @13.417s +2.997s
└─systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @13.135s +279ms
└─local-fs.target @13.132s
└─home.mount @11.284s +1.847s

└─systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dTOSHIBA_MQ01AB

└─dev-disk-by\x2did-ata\x2dTOSHIBA_MQ01ABD100_Z3BLSP

linux-mjq4:~ #

well, now that it’s narrowed to the hard drive I will delete windows 8,
either way it is no more useful than an android phone.
by the way I would recommend that you look into the new kde. I tried
gnome a few years back and the integration was still behind KDE. now KDE
has such a good integration and so many things that make a pc more like
a personal computing assistant. unlike windozed 8 which is useful for
surfing the net, wasting time looking for installed apps and fixing
freezes, viruses, malware and intrusions. besides taking off the var
partition would you make and other suggestion to my disk partition
configuration?
my new config (without windows ) will look like this

─sda2 8:6 0 100G 0 part /
├─sda3 8:7 0 200G 0 part /home

├─sda4 8:9 0 2G 0 part [SWAP]
└─sda1 8:10 0 1G 0 part /boot/efi
would you suggest a different config?
thank you.

Hi
If you going to go that route, could you afford $60 or so for a new
hard drive? I got a WD 320 SATA III Black drive (7200rpm) for Xmas,
something like that would should rock along in that setup? You can then
get a caddy for the drive you remove for backup and additional data via
USB?

Anyway, if use the existing drive I would partition like;


sda1 - 260MB type ef00 vfat /boot/efi
sda2 - 60GB type 8300 ext4 /
sda3 - ?GB type 8300 ext4 /home
sda4 - = installed RAM if you hibernate/suspend type 8200 swap

The rest you could create an additional data partition, but don't mount
automatically, mount manually as required. If so, then move the swap to
the end of the disk.

If you don't have windows restore DVD's then suggest you make a copy
before removing. Else with some effort it could be moved to the end of
the disk, then have openSUSE first.

--
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.6-4-desktop
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below... Thanks!

On Mon 27 Jan 2014 02:56:01 PM CST, relay0052 wrote:

"
You can also run;

Code:

systemd-analyze plot > systemd_boot.svg


You can look at this (no need to post here, just an fyi for you) and see
how things boot up."

-did not return anything.-

Hi
The graphic will be in the directory you ran the command, open it with
an image viewer :wink:


Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.6-4-desktop
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

Here is my windows 8 system with SLED (at present) but did run openSUSE 13.1 on it. This is the WD 320GB SATA III drive;


 lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 298.1G  0 
├─sda1   8:1    0   260M  0 /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0   128M  0 
├─sda3   8:3    0   100G  0 
├─sda4   8:4    0    50G  0 
├─sda5   8:5    0   140G  0 /data
└─sda6   8:6    0   7.7G  0 [SWAP]

sda - shared boot
sda2 - ms reserved
sda3 - windows 8.1
sda4 - /
sda5 - data
sda6 - swap

This is a dual core AMD 1.7GHz machine, boot time for openSUSE was around 17 seconds with the above setup.

I suspect that a large part of what you’re experiencing may be caused by low default clocks on the graphics adapter … add “radeon.dpm=1” to your linux boot line … with kernel 3.13 this becomes unnecessary for most AMD adapters, as dynamic power mgmt is enabled by default, and which provides dynamic reclocking

thanks p penguin.

just wanted to add so anyone with a similar issue will now the outcome of this thread.
deleted windoze 8 partitions, even backup and efi and installed OSuse13.1 from scratch.
my startup times are quicker, my programs start faster and even my webpages load faster.
my whole pc works faster now.

On Tue 28 Jan 2014 04:16:01 AM CST, relay0052 wrote:

thanks p penguin.

just wanted to add so anyone with a similar issue will now the outcome
of this thread.
deleted windoze 8 partitions, even backup and efi and installed
OSuse13.1 from scratch.
my startup times are quicker, my programs start faster and even my
webpages load faster.
my whole pc works faster now.

Hi
The beginning of the large disks these days is always better :wink:

So what does systemd-analyze show now and your lsblk output, did you
implement the suggestion from user ‘Tyler_K’?


Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.6-4-desktop
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!