Jerky/choppy window movement after hours of system uptime

[Yfrwlf]

After leaving two different computers on for a long while, both with Linux Mint 17.1, I will come back to them to find that moving windows around the screen is extremely jerky/choppy/slow. When I check top or System Monitor while doing this, I see that Cinnamon has one CPU core pegged at 100% use, but only when dragging a window. Eventually after a few minutes of this (not sure if I'm doing something that knocks it out of it), it stops doing it. Window movement is once again completely smooth, and CPU use for Cinnamon for a single CPU core is back to normal (in the 3-25% range depending if dragging a window or not).

Is anyone else seeing this on 17.1? If so, what drivers do you have installed, what GPU chipset are you using, what is your kernel version, and are you using Xorg Edgers?

My specs:

GTX 680 w/ 4 GB VRAM
driver 349.12
xorg edgers enabled and updated
16 GB RAM
i7-3770K@3.5GHz

Other computer has a different motherboard, 8GBs RAM, different nVidia GPU, but it is also using Xorg Edgers with the same 349.12 driver. I saw the same issue with the 346 driver as well, however.

Thanks in advance for any input!

[Pjotr]

First of all: the xorg-edgers PPA is dangerous and should only be used with great care. Only install the Nvidia driver you need from it, and *do not install updates from it*. Because it contains more packages than just the Nvidia driver, which put your entire system "on the edge".

A safer PPA is the mamarley PPA, which contains only the latest Nvidia drivers and nothing more. That's why it's not as risky as xorg-edgers.

Your problems may stem from having installed updates from xorg-edgers. Another cause may be a memory leak in Cinnamon, which might be fixed by some updates for Cinnamon which are already "in the pipeline".

[Yfrwlf]

First of all: the xorg-edgers PPA is dangerous and should only be used with great care. Only install the Nvidia driver you need from it, and *do not install updates from it*. Because it contains more packages than just the Nvidia driver, which put your entire system "on the edge".

A safer PPA is the mamarley PPA, which contains only the latest Nvidia drivers and nothing more. That's why it's not as risky as xorg-edgers.

Your problems may stem from having installed updates from xorg-edgers. Another cause may be a memory leak in Cinnamon, which might be fixed by some updates for Cinnamon which are already "in the pipeline".

Thanks for the reply!

Yes, it may be my Xorg Edgers stuff, or it may be something else. I normally do just install the driver out of it and then disable it instead of updating from it as one time that messed up my system, but currently I've done updates and left it enabled with no apparent instability to my system. That's the reason I asked for others to post if they have that in case anyone else has this problem and find this forum thread. If no one responds with this issue I will probably just wait until 17.2 is released and do fresh installs and leave it in the default state without Xorg Edgers to see if the problem is fixed!

Here's hoping!


P.S. As a side note, I really hope 17.2 will have updated nVidia drivers in the default repos, or at least some easier way for users to install them, because right now I think that is one of the biggest stumbling blocks new Linux Mint users have. The drivers in the default repos are just too old. I get 17.* is supposed to be older and more stable, but I believe the updated drivers fix quite a few issues in games so new drivers are needed.

[KeithF89]

I have this same Issue with my laptop. My system is an AMD A-8 6410 With R5 graphics and 4 gigs of ram. After a day of use when dragging windows it becomes very choppy and things slow down. Tried the amd proprietary drivers and the open source driver available in mint and both still have the same issue. Im running Linux Mint 17.1 64bit.

[Pjotr]

You might enable the Romeo repository, install the new Cinnamon 2.4 updates and then disable Romeo again. The new Cinnamon 2.4 updates contain many bugfixes, among which a fix for a memory leak in Cinnamon. This might solve your problem.

Or you can wait a couple of days, until those updates will be released in the normal repo's.... Then they're tested. Romeo contains beta software which still needs testing, because it may contain new bugs. That said, I have installed those updates a couple of days ago, and all is well on my machine.

[Yfrwlf]

I have this same Issue with my laptop. My system is an AMD A-8 6410 With R5 graphics and 4 gigs of ram. After a day of use when dragging windows it becomes very choppy and things slow down. Tried the amd proprietary drivers and the open source driver available in mint and both still have the same issue. Im running Linux Mint 17.1 64bit.

Does the choppiness go away after a while though? It doesn't seem like this is a typical memory leak, or something is "fixing" it after a while, because I will find it in a choppy state for several minutes, but then it will eventually go away.

[KeithF89]

I have this same Issue with my laptop. My system is an AMD A-8 6410 With R5 graphics and 4 gigs of ram. After a day of use when dragging windows it becomes very choppy and things slow down. Tried the amd proprietary drivers and the open source driver available in mint and both still have the same issue. Im running Linux Mint 17.1 64bit.

Does the choppiness go away after a while though? It doesn't seem like this is a typical memory leak, or something is "fixing" it after a while, because I will find it in a choppy state for several minutes, but then it will eventually go away.

If I log out and sign back in it sems to correct itself for awhile until it does it again. But if I just let it go eventually the system will just freeze up completely and I have to hold the power button down. Its very frustrating because I just bought the laptop. Im thinking it might be the graphics drivers maybe with AMD. If I use Any Distro Based on 14.04 it has this issue and it doesnt go away until I use a distro based on 15.04. My hardware might just not be supported yet in 14.04. Ive tried newer kernels and that doesnt help either.

[Yfrwlf]

I have this same Issue with my laptop. My system is an AMD A-8 6410 With R5 graphics and 4 gigs of ram. After a day of use when dragging windows it becomes very choppy and things slow down. Tried the amd proprietary drivers and the open source driver available in mint and both still have the same issue. Im running Linux Mint 17.1 64bit.

Does the choppiness go away after a while though? It doesn't seem like this is a typical memory leak, or something is "fixing" it after a while, because I will find it in a choppy state for several minutes, but then it will eventually go away.

If I log out and sign back in it sems to correct itself for awhile until it does it again. But if I just let it go eventually the system will just freeze up completely and I have to hold the power button down. Its very frustrating because I just bought the laptop. Im thinking it might be the graphics drivers maybe with AMD. If I use Any Distro Based on 14.04 it has this issue and it doesnt go away until I use a distro based on 15.04. My hardware might just not be supported yet in 14.04. Ive tried newer kernels and that doesnt help either.

Check the RAM use in System Monitor or top. It may be related to my issue here but it may be a separate issue because mine eventually goes away. However, I'm using systems with 8 and 16 GBs of RAM, but it will eventually start going smoothly for me after a few minutes and I never have a complete freeze like you're talking about.

Sounds like upgrading Cinnamon as noted in the above comments may fix your issue. I'm also curious to see if 17.2 will fix either of our issues.

[Director]

Yes I'm having this issue as well. I know nothing about XORGs or whatever, I did install the nvidia driver but I don't remember the exact procedure. (I'm new to Linux ) This is on my desktop which if fairly new, Intel I54690 GTX570 16gb ram.

[Pjotr]

Yes I'm having this issue as well. I know nothing about XORGs or whatever, I did install the nvidia driver but I don't remember the exact procedure. (I'm new to Linux ) This is on my desktop which if fairly new, Intel I54690 GTX570 16gb ram.

Please generate an overview of your system like this:
- launch a terminal window and make it fullscreen, to avoid chopped lines;
- copy/paste this command into the terminal:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

(if you type: the letter F is a capital letter)

Press Enter.

Copy/paste the output in your next message.

[Director]

Here you go.

System: Host: paul-desktop Kernel: 3.13.0-37-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Machine: Mobo: ASRock model: H97 Performance Bios: American Megatrends version: P1.10 date: 04/28/2014
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5-4690 CPU (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 28001.5
Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 800.00 MHz 3: 800.00 MHz 4: 3501.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF110 [GeForce GTX 570] bus-ID: 01:00.0
X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: nvidia (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,nouveau) Resolution: 1920x1200@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: GeForce GTX 570/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 4.4.0 NVIDIA 331.113 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1: C-Media CMI8788 [Oxygen HD Audio] driver: snd_oxygen port: d000 bus-ID: 04:01.0
Card-2: NVIDIA GF110 High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-37-generic
Network: Card: Intel Ethernet Connection (2) I218-V driver: e1000e ver: 2.3.2-k port: f040 bus-ID: 00:19.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 2376.5GB (57.0% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: ST2000DX001 size: 2000.4GB
2: id: /dev/sdb model: Samsung_SSD_840 size: 120.0GB 3: id: /dev/sdc model: Crucial_CT256MX1 size: 256.1GB
Partition: ID: / size: 95G used: 12G (13%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 17.13GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:43C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 174 Uptime: 1 min Memory: 998.3/16000.9MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4


It also seems a bit jerky when minimising/maximising windows.

[Pjotr]

Everything seems to be in order.... Maybe the kernel is a bit old for your very new hardware. You might therefore try these easy generic solutions: https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/10

Does that help any?

[Director]

Thanks I update the kernel to 3.16 and it seemed to help a bit. Dragging windows around the desktop is still a bit jerky but overall things seem smoother. (So far. )

Thanks for the help.

[Pjotr]

Thanks I update the kernel to 3.16 and it seemed to help a bit. Dragging windows around the desktop is still a bit jerky but overall things seem smoother. (So far. )

Thanks for the help.

But it's still not as it should be, unfortunately.... I advise to try some newer nvidia drivers, by means of the mamarley PPA:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... nvidia-PPA
(item 1, left column)

After installation of a newer driver, reboot your computer.

[Director]

Hey thanks again!
I updated the nvidia drivers as per the links and everything seems quite smooth now.

[lurkatron]

im having a similar problem too, with a nvidia gtx 670

i can cope with the choppy movement of windows when i move them on the desktop but its the jerky scrolling that bugs me out. i can scroll quite smoothly for a few cm then suddenly it scrolls 5cm in one nano second, this mostly occurs in browsers but also when scrolling in for example nemo. and this doesent just happen after a few hours, it happens from the second i start cinnamon.

ive tried pretty much every suggestion ive found on this forum:
-upgrading nvidia drivers from the mamarley ppa
-disable compositing for full screen window
-adding CLUTTER_PAINT=disable-clipped-redraws:disable-culling
CLUTTER_VBLANK=True in /etc/enviroment
-enabling tripplebuffer in xorg.conf (this is a trick i used in KDE to avoild tearing in videos - thought it was worth trying here too)
-etc

might have to abandon cinnamon, shame cos its so pretty

[inertnet]

I managed to get rid of the freezes by removing the sound applet from my task bar. I noticed that it sometimes switched from 'available' to 'unavailable' and back, so I assumed that it was talking to the hardware too much. After removing it my Cinnamon desktop is smooth again. Using an NVIDIA GTX970 card on an ASUS P8P67 MB. HTH