Hello:

I did an apt-get update, upgrade and dist-upgrade a few days ago, and since then I've noticing that the cpu% is running too high (better than 50%) even when nothing is running. This is very unusual in my box with Antix, and it used to be around 5-8%. Ram use is fine and I can't see (using htop) what's driving the cpu speed.

The system does feel sluggish, especially with opera and it has also become somewhat unstable with freezes. I noticed that some part of x-org was updated when I did the last update/upgrade.

Any thoughts as to what might be the problem and how to fix it?

Here's a copy of my inxi -F

System: Host: laptop1 Kernel: 3.3.0-8.dmz.1-liquorix-686 i686 (32 bit)
Desktop: Fluxbox 1.3.2 Distro: antiX-full Edelweißpiraten 22 August 2012
Machine: System: Dell (portable) product: Inspiron 1721
Mobo: Dell model: 0UK441 Bios: Dell version: A07 date: 04/21/2008
CPU: Dual core AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-60 (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB flags: (lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 svm)
Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 800.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series]
X.Org: 1.12.4 drivers: radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1440x900@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: N/A GLX Version: N/A
Audio: Card-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver: snd_hda_intel
Card-2: Plantronics driver: USB Audio
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.24
Network: Card-1: Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX driver: b44
IF: eth0 state: down mac: 00:1d:09:af:32:c4
Card-2: Broadcom BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n driver: b43-pci-bridge
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: 00:1e:4c:88:b9:64
Drives: HDD Total Size: 250.1GB (33.9% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_HM250JI size: 250.1GB
Partition: ID: / size: 9.7G used: 5.7G (62%) fs: ext3 ID: /home size: 219G used: 79G (38%) fs: ext3
ID: swap-1 size: 1.05GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 46.5C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 147 Uptime: 21 min Memory: 197.8/1896.1MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 1.8.32


Thanks.

Pedro

Do you need to reinstall the driver?

Anti,
Thanks for the suggestion. Is that best done through smxi?

Pedro

Your GPU is no longer suported by AMD and your post show that you don't have any 3D acceleration. Boot in console (mode 3) and try command :

sgfxi -N radeon

This will install the free Xorg driver instead of ATI proprietary fglrx. It works good enough. Also, if you have at least 1 Gb RAM mem. allocate in BIOS 128 Mb (max. as I know) to the videocard. Or try to make your ballance between mule-power vs. graphics...(joking).

I had similar problem after upgrading from Ubuntu 10.10. Unsupported Radeon 9200 SE. And it also occured on AntiX. I did this on AntiX:

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo"
linktext was:"http://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo"
====================================


$ su
$ apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-ati
$ dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Now glxgears -info shows:
..
GL_RENDERER = Mesa DRI R200 (RV280 5964) x86/MMX+/3DNow!+/SSE2 TCL DRI2
GL_VERSION = 1.3 Mesa 8.0.5
GL_VENDOR = Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
..

@Eperbab : Generally I try to avoid inadecquate advices. Your post :"GL_RENDERER = Mesa DRI"... Google could be your No. 1 friend...
MESA is an software renderer, not using GPU capabilities at all... Long to explain but your approach is useless for anything more than web browsing or writing a text...
I prefer to think twice and act once... sorry

Edit: If you followed the previous post your line should look like :

GL_RENDERER = Gallium 0.4

Good luck

According to my system changes logfile called Mantix.txt, I did what I said. Screenshot on glxgears -info:

Thanks for the replies. I did find out about the unsupported video card and loaded the xorg-radeon driver. It did not make much difference. Also tried the sugestion of allowed 128M to video as opposed to the default (auto) and that also did not make much difference.

Oh well, thanks anyway. I guess I should look for laptops with Nvidia cards.

As an update, just after I had given up on fixing this, I did another apt-get update & upgrade & dist-upgrade and rebooted. Unexpectedly, the problem fixed itself and now I'm back at 7 or 8% cpu at rest. I don't really know what fixed it but I'm happy the system is back. The magic of linux I guess!

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Probably a new xorg-radian.

Have a look in /var/log/apt/history.log

I thought this problem was fixed but it's not.

What I have noticed is that after boot up, CPU use will remain high (50% or more) over a two or three days. With Opera open it can jump up to over 90%, same with LibreOffice. At that point the system is very slow and unresponsive.

If I leave the laptop on consecutively, in about 3 days, it drops down to 6-7% cpu time. I have no clue why this is but it's obviously very frustrating. Below is my inxi, showing the radeon driver for my card.


System: Host: laptop1 Kernel: 3.7.0-4.dmz.1-liquorix-686 i686 (32 bit)
Desktop: Fluxbox 1.3.2 Distro: antiX-full Edelweißpiraten 22 August 2012
Machine: System: Dell (portable) product: Inspiron 1721
Mobo: Dell model: 0UK441 Bios: Dell version: A07 date: 04/21/2008
CPU: Dual core AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-60 (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB flags: (lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 svm)
Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 800.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series]
X.Org: 1.12.4 driver: radeon Resolution: 1440x900@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on ATI RS690 GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.5
Audio: Card-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver: snd_hda_intel
Card-2: Plantronics driver: USB Audio
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.7.0-4.dmz.1-liquorix-686
Network: Card-1: Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX driver: b44
IF: eth0 state: down mac: 00:1d:09:af:32:c4
Card-2: Broadcom BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n driver: b43-pci-bridge
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: 00:1e:4c:88:b9:64
Drives: HDD Total Size: 250.1GB (36.3% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_HM250JI size: 250.1GB
Partition: ID: / size: 9.7G used: 8.1G (89%) fs: ext3 ID: /home size: 219G used: 85G (41%) fs: ext3
ID: swap-1 size: 1.05GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 48.5C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 152 Uptime: 4:39 Memory: 325.7/1895.3MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 1.8.38


Any suggestions as to what's going on?

thanks.

Pedro

Not sure, but maybe it is a kernel issue or a mixture of the kernel and driver.
Could you try with another kernel (older or later than your present one - liquorix, antiX, siduction and Debian kernels all work in antiX)

Anti,
Thanks for the suggestions. I had tried an older liquorix kernel and the antix kernel and had the same issue. I installed the newest debian kernel and the problem persists. I'll leave the laptop on to see if it follows the pattern of settling down about a few days. I would think it's not so much a kernel issue but a grapchis driver issue.

Pedro

Just wondering if you have run htop or something similar to view what is using the cpu? I am not sure if it will show anything helpful.
Maybe do the following as root
when you first start the computer:
ps -ef > started-usage.txt
then after the first day do:
ps -ef > day1-usage.txt
then after the second day do:
ps -ef > day2-usage.txt
then after the 3rd day do:
ps -ef > day3-usage.txt
then when the cpu drops do:
ps -ef > normal-usage.txt

Then you can compare the proccesses in the various txt files to see what is causeing it.
Again I am not sure if this will actually show it, but It is something I would try to gain some headway.

EDIT: You may wish to use a method of sorting by cpu usage, to make it a little easier to see what is consuming the most CPU and easilly compare them.

Dave:
Thanks for the suggestion. I find it difficult to read the output. Don't really know what it means? which one deals with CPU use?

ID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD

Thanks.