Random desktop slowdowns

Hey there again. I’ve been experiencing this weird issue with apps getting jerky from time to time. At first it’s smooth, then all of a sudden it gets choppy, then it’s a bit better, but not as good as the first time, then it’s crappy again. Can anyone explain this thing to me?! I can always re-produce a radical slow-down by running audacious for example and browsing pages at the same time. It gets totally cheesy. Regardless of a browser, it’s something else. No, it’s not video, i believe it has to do with some cache or… i just dunno. And it’s always like that as i install opensuse, it’s not something i did myself. Any suggestions?..

openSUSE 11.4, Gnome 2.32.

It sounds like a GPU driver problem to me. What GPU have you got and what driver are you using ? Reading through this should be helpful :
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-forums/advanced-how-faq-read-only/438705-opensuse-graphic-card-practical-theory-guide-users.html

In this thread you don’t mention the use of compiz. That is a factor in issues like this. IMHO you started two threads on the same subject, at least the same issue

Nvidia GT240 and respective proprietary driver (G02). And tell me, would audacious make it act like this while playing something? And yes it does. And no, i don’t mean to say it’s because of audacious, i’m just saying that it could be anything else, and audacious is just a simple example. Cause it just doesn’t look like video or anything that has to do with it.

Sorry, i just didn’t say it. But no, i don’t use compiz, and i know that it could trigger such behaviour. But no, it’s just a sole metacity. And with or without compiz it acts the same.

Does it act the same with the opensource driver ?

Zelator wrote:

> And it’s
> always like that as i install opensuse, it’s not something i did myself.
> Any suggestions?..
>
> openSUSE 11.4, Gnome 2.32.

Gnome-shell 3.2 leaks a lot of memory, fast!
Within a few hours it goes from 60-80MB to 400+MB and on and on.
Take a look at it with gnome-system-monitor.
Hit ALT-F2 and type r to restart the gnome-shell and get the memory back to
normal.
Don’t worry about programs running at that moment, they will remain running
after the restart.


Chris Maaskant.

But the OP seems to be running gnome 2.3 so I don’t thing gnome 3.2 memory leaks affect him :slight_smile:

Good question. I think no, it didn’t. But i can’t use opensource driver anyway. I always have probs with resolution there. It’s always wrong, even if stretched out.

So I’d say it’s a driver bug.

How did you install your current driver ?
Could you post the output of this command here ?

/sbin/lspci -nnk

moebius@linux-x8jv:~> /sbin/lspci -nnk
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS880 Host Bridge [1022:9601]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
00:02.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (ext gfx port 0) [1022:9603]
00:05.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 1) [1022:9605]
00:11.0 SATA controller [0106]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [IDE mode] [1002:4390]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:4390]
Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:12.0 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller [1002:4397]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:12.1 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller [1002:4398]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:12.2 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller [1002:4396]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:13.0 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller [1002:4397]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:13.1 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller [1002:4398]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:13.2 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller [1002:4396]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:14.0 SMBus [0c05]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller [1002:4385] (rev 3c)
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: piix4_smbus
00:14.1 IDE interface [0101]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 IDE Controller [1002:439c]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: pata_atiixp
00:14.2 Audio device [0403]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) [1002:4383]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
00:14.3 ISA bridge [0601]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 LPC host controller [1002:439d]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
00:14.4 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge [1002:4384]
00:14.5 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI2 Controller [1002:4399]
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:2256]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd
00:18.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor HyperTransport Configuration [1022:1200]
00:18.1 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Address Map [1022:1201]
00:18.2 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor DRAM Controller [1022:1202]
00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control [1022:1203]
Kernel driver in use: k10temp
00:18.4 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Link Control [1022:1204]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation GT215 [GeForce GT 240] [10de:0ca3] (rev a2)
Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. Device [19da:1142]
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
01:00.1 Audio device [0403]: nVidia Corporation High Definition Audio Controller [10de:0be4] (rev a1)
Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. Device [19da:1142]
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications AR8131 Gigabit Ethernet [1969:1063] (rev c0)
Subsystem: Elitegroup Computer Systems Device [1019:8131]
Kernel driver in use: atl1c

Actually, now i’m not sure that it happens only with proprietary drivers installed. Cause when i install the proprietary ones it’s still ok for some time no matter what i do. But after a little while those slowdowns kick in… and it has to do with several apps being run at a time… especially if those are doing something sophisticated like playing music etc… very weird.

I’m now in fail-safe mode, which is the same state i was in after fresh installation. NO. No slowdowns at all. Which may actually mean two things: 1) Video driver after all, 2) A few additional grub options that are used for fail-safe mode, that MAY HAVE disabled some nasty thing.

I have to try one by one of those options for the normal boot. If none of them works… then yeah, it’s the video. Nothing else.

Can you tell us how did you install the drivers ? Did you install them from the repo or did you use this procedure ?
SDB:NVIDIA the hard way - openSUSE

I installed from the repo, yes. And i do know the hard way, though i’ve done it on Debian only. What’s the difference actually?

If you installed from the repo you should be fine I guess. The difference is that when compiling on your own you can get the latest version of the driver whereas the repo version can be outdated. I don’t have much experience myself because I’ve got intel GPU which simply uses the kernel driver.

Ok guys, i’ve tried all i could and have come to conclusion that this thing happens if i use proprietary video driver. If i boot in fail-safe mode or use ‘x11failsafe’ option for normal mode everything is FINE. Any ideas? Does that mean i cannot use the proprietary driver or what? I use exactly the same one on Debian, but it doesn’t behave like this.

On 2012-06-12 15:56, Zelator wrote:
>
> Ok guys, i’ve tried all i could and have come to conclusion that this
> thing happens if i use proprietary video driver. If i boot in fail-safe
> mode or use ‘x11failsafe’ option for normal mode everything is FINE.

Booting in failsafe mode does many things, like for example, disables all
cores of the cpu but one.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

I’ve just told everyone that i’ve done it thoroughly using all options (including the one that disables the cores) but with proprietary video driver. Failed, same thing. And only one, which is ‘x11failsafe’, which disables the proprietary driver and uses the base one and that was OK! That’s all from me.

On 2012-06-12 16:16, Zelator wrote:

> I’ve just told everyone that i’ve done it thoroughly using all options
> (including the one that disables the cores) but with proprietary video
> driver. Failed, same thing. And only one, which is ‘x11failsafe’, which
> disables the proprietary driver and uses the base one and that was OK!
> That’s all from me.

x11failsafe uses the “/etc/X11/xorg.conf.install” file. Copy it to
xorg.conf and you should be able to use X11 normally.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

No man, you don’t get it. I don’t need x11failsafe thing. It works ok, but it’s wrong to me. It’s displayed wrong and it doesn’t do many things i need it to do. In fact, i’ve really found what the problem is. It’s Nvidia driver after all. Somehow it’s different for each distro. On debian it gave me no troubles, on opensuse - bummer. And i’m saying i’m sure, cause i’m on my integrated ATI now. It doesn’t give me no troubles. It works totally differently. Although i need Nvidia, but… if there’s no other way to make Nvidia drivers work on Opensuse… i guess i’m forced to stay on ATI from now on. Or i can still try installing the driver from official Nvidia website. But like i said, it’s definitely the driver this time.

Well obviously it depends from which version of source code the driver in the repo was built. I think the driver in openSUSE repo should be more recent but I don’t know.

You should try to compile the source from Nvidia website as it might help. One of my friends with nvidia GPU using Gentoo had constant system crashes after 1 or 2 days of uptime because of some bug in the driver. He had to build the driver from the Nvidia nightly builds until at some point he hit a version that was stable for him and he doesn’t touch the driver since.