XFCE System slowdown and lag

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RTPDr

XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

I am using acer aspire OD270 with atom N2600 dual core; Cedartrail platform;2GB RAM. XFCE LM13 was running smoothly with all updtae. Few days back system begin to slow down. I followed the tips like clean apt, used bleachbit and cleaned everything and rebooted. Now here are the screenshots of task manager and terminal . I tried it after killing chrome and libreoffice. Problem is still persisting. The mouse takes a while to show the ation hand and the folder takes a a few seconds to open and close.I noticed that Inside the chrome window the mouse is very responsive. any suggestions form the gurus ?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
cwsnyder

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by cwsnyder »

You don't say how many tabs you are attempting to keep open in your browser. If you have over 5 tabs, that MAY be your problem. If you are attempting to keep multiple tabs open and keep LibreOffice open, that may be your problem. LibreOffice and multiple tabs on Firefox/Chrome/Chromium are absolute pigs for eating up memory, and you only have 2G RAM.

You may also have reached a critical stage where your swap space on your hard drive is being fully utilized and your RAM is filled, so you have no place to expand. Also, check for automatic backups in the background. LibreOffice will try to automatically backup your work every few minutes to keep you from losing your work. If you are getting over 90% filled on your hard drive and LibreOffice or another similar program is attempting to save your work automatically, that can absolutely kill your speed.
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

Thank you so much. I ve tried the following.
I killed chromium and libreoffice and problem still persisted whie opening and closing windows, navigating menu items and while typing this mail.
I notice that while I am opening firefox or any other window, the top command in terminal shows cpu usage by xorg in the range of 10- 73% (The memory usage never went above 1.2Ggigs as per the free -m command) So I tried to upgrade all the package with xorg and rebooted. It persisted.
My disk is divided into 4 partitions- sda1 30GB with LM13 in ext4 format, sda2 250GB home folder in ext4, sda3 NFTS formatted for windows (never used) and sda5 swap of 4GB.

I decided to re install LM13. While in the live usb of LM13 I noticed that the mouse is very snappy and windows are opening very fast and there is no delay. I uninstalled the LM13 and reinstalled it into reformatted sda1 while mounting sda2 as home. All the desktop shortcuts reappeared as it was. I updated and added the additional cedarview drivers and vaapi drivers. Rebooted

To much dismay the problem still persisted.
In the task manager usr/bin/X :0 -audit 0 auth/var/lib/mdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt8 is showing the most CPU and memory usage intemittently.
I tried to reinstall mdm and the problem still persist.
Now I am at my wit's end. The only minor issue I can recall is while booteg, it showed 5-6 bad sector message which present even b4 my curent problem when the system was running nicely.
One last thing I noticed..may be significant. The mouse is not working via touchpad. Looks like it is not functioning. But it is woking via the wireless mouse that I am using. Keyboard responsed are also delayed intermittently
I am looking forward for the rescue helicopters form LM forum....
cwsnyder

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by cwsnyder »

Are you using software compositing for fancy window effects, or do you have a video system which has hardware acceleration?

Because you re-installed Mint and still have the problem, I am going to guess that the problem lies either in a program which you install at startup, or a setting stored in your /home/<username>/ folder somewhere, and I am thinking you turned on desktop effects. Try turning them off, or if you have a video system which will support it, turn on hardware video acceleration, and see if the responsiveness returns.
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

Thanks a lot man. You are God !
I ve installed compiz but it never apperared anywhere in menu. I completly removed it via synaptic. The window manager and window manager tweaks are seen on menu but not making appearance on clicking.
I changed the resolution to 800X600 form 1200 X800 and the problem seemed to alleviate by 70%.
How can I make the windows tweaker appear?
Can you tell me simplest way of enabling vd acceleration ? I seached and all of them are vry complex

Thanking you once again
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

Hi cwsnyder,
It seems your suggestions have improved my system. I think the problem is reduced by 80%. Xorg is still showing 70% cpu some times. The system details shows renedering is enabled. Is it the vedio acceleration ? I want my sytem to be very snappy. Is it possible with the 2GB RAM ? I am using minimal apps on start up.
Thanking You
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

Dear cwsnyder

Please come back. The problem is persisting. Ive reinstalled all the packages with Xorg, graphic drivers and mdm. The xorg is not using excesssive memory. The total cpu usage is never above 25% and total memory never went above 50%. I am desperate.
Nilla Wafer

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by Nilla Wafer »

I'm too much of a novice in Linux to know how or why, but I have experienced a lot of the very same extreme lag with Mint Xfce 13. And my very old Celeron computer has only a half gig of RAM. Not enough to run Mint 13 Xfce on, really.

I had read that Mint 13 Xfce is built from another Linux called Xubuntu 12.04. I love my Minty fresh Xfce and didn't really want to go try LXDE or some other "light weight" thing that wouldn't be as nice, but even Xfce Mint is too much for my computer.

Hoping to at least keep Xfce, I burnt a copy of [url=http://xubuntu.org/getxubuntu/]Xubuntu 12.04 LTS[/url] (it still fits on a CD!) and installed it, and much to my great delight and relief it works awesomely. It's very fast and very responsive even on my poor ancient computer. It's definitely not as Minty fresh and pretty, but it's plenty fast on a machine that is less than half of what yours is.

You get Abiword and Gnumeric in place of LibreOffice, and other "light weight" defaults aimed at older hardware. I feel really bad saying so on Mint's own forum, but Xubuntu soars where Mint crawled. Mint is built from Xubuntu so I don't know what changes they make or why whatever they did slowed down my computer so much. I only know that Mint's additions and modifications handicap it on my computer, and as they say, "your mileage may vary."

~nilla
cwsnyder

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by cwsnyder »

@RTPDr, I have a 60+hr/week job, so I don't get on the forum much during the week.

'Rendering is enabled' does not mean you have video hardware acceleration, it basically means you are trying to get the nice 'video effects', even using your precious RAM and processor cycles, if needed. You do have a video processor built-in with the Cedar Trail processor with some hardware acceleration, and should have Intel GMA 3600/3650 graphics drivers installed and in use. One note about Cedar Trail: You are sharing video memory with your processor, so the higher your video resolution is set, the less RAM you have for other uses.

Chrome/Chromium should not slow down your computer more than Firefox.

Note: Another thread http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=139004 details slowdown and screen lag caused by problems with updates.
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Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by I2k4 »

You seem to me to be having much too much trouble. I've been running Mint 15 XFCE RC on a little netbook with half your specs for a month, on a thumb drive via Persistent Live USB, and it's quite snappy even that way. (I won't install a 9 month supported version on my hard drive.)

I'd suggest trying Live USB, and not updating and not "tweaking" your install. Bleachbit is very good, and I recommend running it but disabling the items that it warns you about.
TRUST BUT VERIFY any advice from anybody, including me. Mint/Ubuntu user since 10.04 LTS. LM20 64 bit XFCE (Dell 1520). Dual boot LM20 XFCE / Win7 (Lenovo desktop and Acer netbook). Testing LM21.1 Cinnamon and XFCE Live for new Lenovo desktop.
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

Dear cwsnyder
I ve tried every twaeaking described on net. I ve tried xubuntu, meego for cedartrial netbooks. Both showed proken pipe message at beginning and failed to boot up after update or installing cedartrail graphic card. I am fed up and finally bac again to mint 13 with all updates and no broken package the lag is still persisting. what to do ? I hate to go back to windows. Its like sending me to pluto..I switched off the touchpad mouse and it lag is still there.
bobafetthotmail

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by bobafetthotmail »

Intel support for cedartrail graphics sucks. They managed to get the GMA 3600 run worse than the GMA 3150 on linux, and not at all on 64-bit, either windows or linux. Which is sad. It is a powerful (relatively speaking) igpu for its power draw.

Yours is likely a graphics driver issue. cedartrail graphics is a pain to get working on linux.

Try installing driconf and playing with the settings.

Also, [url=http://souriguha.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/installing-ubuntu-12-10-or-12-04-on-systems-based-on-intel-n2600-cedartrail/]this article[/url] might help too if you install new and then refuses to boot.

Also from [url=http://www.eeevolution.it/guida-ubuntu-driver-grafici-eeepc-cedar-trail/]here[/url] for Ubuntu 12.04: (translated by me)
install repository:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:sarvatt/cedarview && sudo apt-get update

Install drivers:
sudo apt-get install cedarview-graphics-drivers libva-cedarview-vaapi-driver cedarview-drm


It will take 10-15 minutes;

It seems that Lightdm, these drivers and Lubuntu don't work that well together; if you don't want to get ”broken pipe” errors at any kernel or driver update, Irecommend to install a package called "gdm", and then select gdm from the menu that will appear during its install.

Next step depends from your hardware
If you get black screen during boot or remains in text mode, open a shell with CTRL-ALT-F1, and write:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Find the line with:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
and change it to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="video=LVDS-1:d"
Then
sudo update-grub2
sudo reboot now



These drivers aren't working with PAE kernels. Change kernel to a non-PAE one.

If you want to try different configurations like different values after LVDS- without making it permanent (and locking down everything if you screwed up), press “e” at boot menu and add your new options close to “quiet splash”.
If you like the config, make it permanent as explained above.

Now you should be able to play 720p videos with 30% CPU, which means it's not yet full acceleration (windows gets away with 10% CPU), but ram consumption will decrease and the system will be more snappy.

To do better for video playback (and get decent 1080p playback), you can install a mplayer version that uses vaapi acceleration

Sudo apt-add-repository ppa:sander-vangrieken/vaapi && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mplayer-vaapi

Will say that it's conflicting with mplayer2 (that can be removed later with apt-get) and will install some dependencies.

This version is a bit more unstable than the normal version, but it can actually harness hardware acceleration provided by GMA 3600, so in the end it should be worth it.

Then open Gnome Mplayer and go in preferences, find Mplayer tab and add

-vo vaapi -va vaapi

in the Extra Options

Then close.

Now 720p videos should run with 3-4% CPU and 1080p with less than 10%.
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

Thanks a lot mate !

I ve installed this 3 drivers form synaptic and is showing being installed. Now Pixie live says it is having inbuit GMA support ..." As usual the gma500 (a.k.a. poulsbo, psb) is supported (using the emgd-1.16 driver)"

How do you see this ? will these work on LM13 ?
when I tried that saarvat stuff, message said it already in repository and try to install form there .

LM15 64 bit seemed to working fast, but the software redshiftgui for reducing brighness is not working in that as I need super reduced brightness.

I shall try dirconf. I am thinking to install Meego/Pixie live side by side and gradualy make it to look like LM !

Thanks a lot
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

If I change the refresh rate to a digit here (screenshot) will it help ? Can u suggest a number ? resolution at preent is 1024 x 600 with refresh rate 60. I am afraid the screen will go blank !
bobafetthotmail

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by bobafetthotmail »

Mint 13 is based on ubuntu 12.04, so yeah, what I said above should work fine.

Force the install from that ppa, I used their drivers to revive a netbook like yours so they worked for me. The ones in standard repos... not so much.

Here the slowdown is likely caused by the linux drivers for the GMA 3600, which are exactly the same for any distro, as they are proprietary (i.e. only Intel can develop them). Intel seems to have discontinued that for marketing reasons after netbooks were replaced by tablets, so the ones for linux that are available are barely beta.

Nothing stops you from trying other distros, but afaik, the only OS that runs without hacking on atom N2XXX series is Windows 7 32-bit. Also, GMA 500 is NOT GMA 3600.

Refresh rate isn't relevant as it's usually ignored. Try to disable features from the driconf non-advanced settings. That should be safe, at most will slow down the system until you undo the change.
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

Thanks bob
I ve done exactly as you said. I force installed the saarvatt drivers and the system is snappy by a factor 0f 70% probably. When I tried ti install redshiftgui it showed a dependency -libwsbm1_1.1.0+20091210-0ubuntu1_i386- and I installed it form syanptic (actualy I downloaded and then installed). I didnt perform any update. Updates were showing the last version of cedarview. To improve perfomance I ve shifted the read write of temp files to RAM and changed swappiness to 10. It still lags at times and during these xorg is showing consumption upto 50% cpu as seen by top command in terminal.any advice ?
RTPDr

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by RTPDr »

Not much diff between sarvaat and repo drivers. It lags at times. Programs load very slower..planning to leave linux and take up windows again (I hate it). Any solutions ?
bobafetthotmail

Re: XFCE System slowdown and lag

Post by bobafetthotmail »

Is your distro 32 or 64-bit? Their crappy drivers should work decently for 32-bit distros.

I would consider selling the netbook on Ebay and buy another with a GMA3150 IGPU (that is indeed crappier but has good driver support in both 32 and 64 bit) or if you really care about graphic acceleration, an AMD APU (which laughs at the GMA and can also accelerate flash now as of official statements and https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=166593).

Netbooks still sell like hot cakes for very nice prices (for a used device) there.
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