Re: PC Slowdowns and Lock-ups
Ok, I've just finished running memtest86 on the PC and it has returned no
errors. The next suspect is the graphics card. Are there any tests that can show
faulty graphics memory or do I need to buy another card to find out?
James Caldow
James Caldow wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have attached the output from top in case it is useful. I don't know how
> useful this will be though as it is from a time when the PC is almost behaving.
> When it stops behaving I don't have enough control over it to be able to run top!
>
> Steven Wheelwright wrote:
>
>>On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 04:45:52PM +0000, James Caldow wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It is by no means a high spec computer, (Athlon 900MHz, 512Mb PC133 SDRAM, 80Gb
>>>Hard Drive, ATI Radeon 9250 128Mb Graphics Card), but as I say it has been
>>>running well for months now.
>>
>>
>>I am no expert on hardware failures, but you may consider cleaning the
>>dust out of your case. Try running the computer for a while with the
>>case open and see if the fans on the graphics card and CPU are spinning.
>
>
> Hi Steven. This was amongst the first things that I did. The PC has been opened,
> stripped, and cleaned thoroughly. The case has been left open for the past three
> days or so, during which the PC has been mostly usable. It still suffers from
> the occasional lag and lock-up. All fans are turning merrily in the case. I have
> a background in network and pc support, so I know my way around the inside of
> the PC, but I can't see anything which is obviously worn or damaged.
>
>>
>>>I suspect it may have more to do with Hardware than the OS as I have also run
>>>Knoppix on it out of curiosity. It was equally slow.
>>
>>
>>Good idea. It does sound like a hardware problem. You didn't do any
>>major software changes, though, did you?
>>
>>I have never tried them, but I know that there are many programs that
>>can diagnose hardware problems or at least make the hardware work
>>extremely hard and fail if it is defective.
>>
>>Some words to search are memtest or mem86 and GIMPS (Great Internet
>>Mersenne Prime Search) torture test.
>>
>
> Thanks for the advice. I hadn't thought of running memtest. It would be typical
> if it turned out to be something as simple as faulty memory!
>
>>
>>>The problems begin as soon as I am logged into the system. The cursor
>>>will move very, very slowly, if at all.
>>
>>
>>This sounds like a graphics card problem. Try turning off X and doing
>>something non-graphics intensive like compiling a kernel or running a
>>torture test for GIMPS.
>
>
> Again a great idea. It certainly seems to have less of a problem when I boot
> into a recovery mode console. I will try as you suggest and see what comes of it.
>
> Many thanks for the great suggestions
>
>>
>>Good luck.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> top - 09:52:14 up 36 min, 3 users, load average: 0.97, 0.32, 0.14
> Tasks: 79 total, 1 running, 78 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
> Cpu(s): 4.7% us, 1.3% sy, 0.0% ni, 94.0% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si
> Mem: 516400k total, 342456k used, 173944k free, 20084k buffers
> Swap: 746980k total, 0k used, 746980k free, 176940k cached
>
> PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
> 3419 root 15 0 47352 31m 23m S 3.6 6.3 0:42.63 XFree86
> 3795 jcaldow 15 0 30320 13m 17m S 1.7 2.7 0:07.69 gnome-terminal
> 3802 root 16 0 2064 1060 1852 R 0.7 0.2 0:03.74 top
> 3687 jcaldow 15 0 24172 13m 21m S 0.3 2.7 0:01.39 gaim
> 3722 jcaldow 15 0 17784 8840 16m S 0.3 1.7 0:02.40 clock-applet
> 1 root 16 0 1504 512 1352 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.55 init
> 2 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
> 3 root 5 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 events/0
> 4 root 6 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper
> 5 root 15 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpid
> 36 root 5 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.05 kblockd/0
> 46 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 pdflush
> 47 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 pdflush
> 49 root 5 -10 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/0
> 48 root 25 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kswapd0
> 185 root 25 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kseriod
> 291 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.13 kjournald
> 344 root 12 -4 1492 460 1336 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.09 udevd
> 1350 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.05 kjournald
> 1351 root 18 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kjournald
> 1702 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khubd
> 2649 root 19 0 2376 864 2164 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 dhclient
> 2654 daemon 16 0 1612 460 1440 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 portmap
> 3134 root 16 0 2260 820 2092 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.02 syslogd
> 3137 root 16 0 2452 1476 1344 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.14 klogd
> 3148 messageb 16 0 2092 1004 1928 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.01 dbus-daemon-1
> 3153 hal 16 0 6368 4832 3020 S 0.0 0.9 0:01.41 hald
> 3171 root 16 0 2556 868 2120 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 dirmngr
> 3233 Debian-e 16 0 5140 1716 4764 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.00 exim4
> 3239 root 19 0 2240 724 2084 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 inetd
> 3243 lp 18 0 2464 884 2272 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 lpd
> 3252 root 18 0 3468 1504 3092 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.00 sshd
> 3276 jcaldow 16 0 3388 1944 2536 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.10 famd
> 3280 root 18 0 2376 924 2204 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 rpc.statd
> 3283 daemon 20 0 1684 628 1520 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 atd
> 3286 root 16 0 1764 816 1576 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 cron
> 3291 root 16 0 16120 7920 12m S 0.0 1.5 0:00.10 apache2
> 3296 root 15 0 9264 2368 9052 S 0.0 0.5 0:00.00 gdm
> 3298 root 16 0 9836 3008 9268 S 0.0 0.6 0:00.03 gdm
> 3319 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
> 3327 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
> 3356 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
> 3365 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
> 3374 root 16 0 1500 484 1336 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
>
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