[Solved] (Celeron 2.4GHZ, 256MB RAM) high CPU usage

gimmejimmy · posted: 2009-11-28 18:32

Hi, I just installed antiX M-8.2 on an old laptop with a 2.4GHz Celeron processor and 256MB of RAM. Things are running very slowly with CPU at 70-100%. The two biggest processes are iceweasel at ~35% and X at ~11%. Memory usage is at ~59%. It's slow as it is but when I try running Synaptic things slow to a crawl with CPU at 100%.
Is this normal? I saw another topic here about 100% CPU but that problem resolved itself and according to the poster his machine didn't seem to slow down. What can I do to fix this? Thanks!

anticapitalista · posted: 2009-11-28 19:14

Post the output of
inxi -F

If you have intel drivers, this is probably the cause and you'll need to use vesa in xorg.conf

gimmejimmy · posted: 2009-11-28 23:33

I left the laptop running iceweasel and aptitude for a few hours. When I came back CPU, RAM and swap were almost maxed. Here's the output of inxi -F:

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System:    Host mepis1 Kernel 2.6.27-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M8 Intifada! 12 February 2009
CPU:       Single core Mobile Intel Celeron (UP) cache 256 KB flags (sse2) bmips 4789.48 clocked at 2393.993 MHz 
Graphics:  Card Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device X.Org 1.4.2 Res 1024x768@60.1hz
Audio:     Card Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller driver Intel ICH at ports 1000 1880 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.17
Network:   Card-1 Intel 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller driver e100 at port cf40 
           Card-2 RaLink RT2600 802.11 MIMO driver rt61pci v: 2.1.8
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 40.0GB (4.5% used) 1: /dev/hda IC25N040ATMR04-0 40.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 9.2G used: 1.7G (20%) ID: swap:/dev/hda3 size: 0.61GB 
Info:      Processes 72 Uptime 6 min Memory 106.8/232.2MB Client Shell inxi 1.0.

How do I switch to vesa? Thank you.
Edit: I booted with apic=off. That seems to have helped things.

anticapitalista · posted: 2009-11-28 23:41

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (as root)

This part:

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Section"Device"
  Identifier "Card0"
  Driver"vesa"
  BoardName"unknown"

Make a copy(just in case). Yours probably has intel for vesa.
If you are not sure, post the xorg.conf file

gimmejimmy · posted: 2009-11-28 23:54

Thanks, do you think I should make the apic=off option permanent?

anticapitalista · posted: 2009-11-29 00:04

If vesa option works without apic=off then no. Otherwise yes.
To make it permanent add it to /boot/grub/menu.lst

gimmejimmy · posted: 2009-11-29 00:58

That seems to have done it! Another tihng. when I installed I asked it to use existing partitions for /, /home and swap. It handled / and swap correctly but the partition hda2 was mounted on /mnt/hda2 instead of /home. Can this be fixed by simply editing fstab? Is this correct:

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/dev/hda2 /home ext3 defaults,noatime 1 2

and I should remove this right:

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/dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 ext3 noauto,users,exec,relatime 0 0

anticapitalista · posted: 2009-11-29 01:03

I think so yes.
(save the original, just in case)

I just noticed that you are using antiX-M8. The latest release was antiX-M8.2 and antiX-M8.5 will be out fairly soon.
Any reason why you installed antiX-M8 rather than a newer version?

gimmejimmy · posted: 2009-11-29 01:21

Actually I thought I was running the latest. I got this from linuxtracker because I prefer torrent downloads. I hadn't realized I got the wrong version until you pointed it out.

gimmejimmy · posted: 2009-11-29 14:51

It's working fine now. Although sometimes iceweasel and X still act up. (X hit 20-40% earlier!). All in all I'm very happy with antiX. I tried two other light distros but I like this one best.

anticapitalista · posted: 2009-11-29 15:33

You may want to change browser. iceape is lighter, some swear that opera works better.

secipolla · posted: 2009-11-29 19:02

I use Swiftfox in antiX-base. It's a Firefox/Iceweasel compiled for different CPU types. I think the newer CPU types may gain more.
Mine is an old CPU and so I use the swiftfox-i686 package and I think you would too.
I don't notice improvement on browsing but I do notice that when I close Iceweasel (or Seamonkey/Iceape) it takes some seconds for the used ram lower and when I close Swiftfox the ram is already down (maybe it was already and I didn't notice - must check).

To have it, it's best to add the repo line in /etc/apt/sources.list

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deb http://getswiftfox.com/builds/debian unstable non-free

then, as root

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apt-get purge iceweasel && apt-get update && apt-get install swiftfox-i686

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://getswiftfox.com/deb.htm"
linktext was:"http://getswiftfox.com/deb.htm"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false

gimmejimmy · posted: 2009-12-01 17:20

Thanks for the tips!