Poor memory management

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Timbot2000

Poor memory management

Post by Timbot2000 »

Hi Guys,

Recently, I have had to hard restart my laptop several times per day as the system freezes up with heavy writing to disk cache (as if it were reading/writing several gigs), freezing the screen and mouse sometimes for longer than 15 minutes. Any clues or suggestions?

A few technical notes:

6G RAM
Intel graphics
Swappiness = 10
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Cosmo.
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Re: Poor memory management

Post by Cosmo. »

It would definitely help you, if you would provide more detailed info.
At first about the system and the hardware. Open a terminal for this and enter

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz
Paste the output here.

At second about the situation / circumstances / usage. With 6 GB RAM and swappiness=10 it would be very astonishing (but not impossible), if swap would be used. So, what applications did you use at that time? How did you determine, that the system was writing to disk cache?
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xenopeek
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Re: Poor memory management

Post by xenopeek »

15 minutes is too much. Is the system responding to anything during that time?
- Can you toggle numlock/capslock keyboard lights?
- Can you switch to a virtual console (ctrl+alt+f1, usually ctrl+alt+f7 or f8 to go back to the graphical desktop)

This article may be explaining what is happening, though I'm doubtful with 15 minutes for this to be the cause (that sounds too long): http://lwn.net/Articles/572911/. With default configuration Linux Mint would not start writing data to be written to a storage device until 5% of your memory worth of data were buffered, and at that time it will write all that. This can cause a system freeze as you describe.

You can tune this with the parameters in the file /etc/sysctl.conf or by creating a new something.conf file in /etc/sysctl.d/. On my system I have these two parameters configured in /etc/sysctl.d/vm.conf:

Code: Select all

vm.dirty_background_bytes = 104857600
vm.dirty_bytes = 209715200
That sets the limits to 100MB as the limit at which data will start to be written to a storage device and 200MB as the limit at which a program writing data will be blocked and forced to wait till data is written to a storage device.

I have fast SSDs so if you have slower storage devices, you may want to lower these numbers (perhaps half them).
Image
Timbot2000

Re: Poor memory management

Post by Timbot2000 »

Cosmo. wrote:It would definitely help you, if you would provide more detailed info.
At first about the system and the hardware. Open a terminal for this and enter

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz
Paste the output here.

At second about the situation / circumstances / usage. With 6 GB RAM and swappiness=10 it would be very astonishing (but not impossible), if swap would be used. So, what applications did you use at that time? How did you determine, that the system was writing to disk cache?
Here is the output
inxi -Fxz

Code: Select all

System:    Host: timbot2000-HP-Pavilion-17-Notebook-PC Kernel: 3.13.0-34-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) 
           Desktop: Cinnamon 2.6.13  Distro: Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela
Machine:   System: Hewlett-Packard (portable) product: HP Pavilion 17 Notebook PC version: 0883100000305B10000620100
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1977 version: 96.25 Bios: Insyde version: F.14 date: 10/04/2013
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i3-4000M CPU (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 9577.2 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 2400.00 MHz 3: 800.00 MHz 4: 800.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1600x900@60.2hz 
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
           Card-2: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:03.0 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-34-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller 
           driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 4000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless Network Adapter driver: rtl8188ee port: 5000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 750.2GB (30.9% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: HGST_HTS541075A9 size: 750.2GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 682G used: 216G (34%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 6.35GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
RAID:      No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 53.0C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 201 Uptime: 6 min Memory: 1948.6/5884.7MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4 
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.11) inxi: 1.9.17 
Applications are almost entirely web browsers. I ascertain that there is some kind of writing to disk going on as the HD read/write light stays solid ON during these non-responsive periods. As to when it happens.....hard to say...just suddenly does sometimes, often on object-heave web pages
Timbot2000

Re: Poor memory management

Post by Timbot2000 »

xenopeek wrote:15 minutes is too much. Is the system responding to anything during that time?
- Can you toggle numlock/capslock keyboard lights?
- Can you switch to a virtual console (ctrl+alt+f1, usually ctrl+alt+f7 or f8 to go back to the graphical desktop)

This article may be explaining what is happening, though I'm doubtful with 15 minutes for this to be the cause (that sounds too long): http://lwn.net/Articles/572911/. With default configuration Linux Mint would not start writing data to be written to a storage device until 5% of your memory worth of data were buffered, and at that time it will write all that. This can cause a system freeze as you describe.

You can tune this with the parameters in the file /etc/sysctl.conf or by creating a new something.conf file in /etc/sysctl.d/. On my system I have these two parameters configured in /etc/sysctl.d/vm.conf:

Code: Select all

vm.dirty_background_bytes = 104857600
vm.dirty_bytes = 209715200
That sets the limits to 100MB as the limit at which data will start to be written to a storage device and 200MB as the limit at which a program writing data will be blocked and forced to wait till data is written to a storage device.

I have fast SSDs so if you have slower storage devices, you may want to lower these numbers (perhaps half them).
Implemented your suggestions....will see. Thank you

[EDIT] After reading through your link this seems like exactly like my problem, just with the HD, not USB stick. Hopefully a fix to the 64-bit kernel will be implemented soon
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Pjotr
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Re: Poor memory management

Post by Pjotr »

You might try the easy generic solutions:

a. Install the latest kernel from the 3.13 series:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... el-updates
(item 3, right column)

Then reboot.

b. When no improvement: install the latest kernel from the 3.16 series.

Then reboot.

c. When no improvement: install the latest kernel from the 3.19 series.

Then reboot.

d. When still no improvement: check for a newer BIOS / UEFI and when available, install it.
Tip: 10 things to do after installing Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
Keep your Linux Mint healthy: Avoid these 10 fatal mistakes
Twitter: twitter.com/easylinuxtips
All in all, horse sense simply makes sense.
Timbot2000

Re: Poor memory management

Post by Timbot2000 »

Thanks guys,,

It happened again, but always seems associated with a Chrome browser page becoming unresponsive and crashing, somehow tying up the system resources
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xenopeek
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Re: Poor memory management

Post by xenopeek »

Try disabling hardware acceleration on Chrome's advanced settings. Usually that is the cause of Chrome freezes.
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Timbot2000

Re: Poor memory management

Post by Timbot2000 »

xenopeek wrote:Try disabling hardware acceleration on Chrome's advanced settings. Usually that is the cause of Chrome freezes.
Thanks Zenopeek, after running sever "crash tests" I determined that chrome was indeed the culprit, so I implemented you suggestion. Problem did not happen until fairly recently, perhaps intel driver and Chrome do not like each other anymore ;)
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