Very slow Toshiba Satellite C855D-S5357

[GS3]

I was tasked by my HQ (AKA "wife") to have a look at a couple of nephews' laptops which were too slow.

I proceeded with my general protocol which is to (1) replace HDD with SSD, (2) expand RAM and (3) dump Windows and install LM Cinnamon.

Both are old machines with dual core processors. One has an Intel processor and now works fine with the newly installed LM. But the other one is still way too slow.

Toshiba Satellite C855D-S5357 with dual core AMD E-300 processor and Radeon HD6310 graphics which I believe is, basically, the CPU doing all the video work. The machine just can't keep up and I suspect it is the video that is overloading it. In System Monitor I see the two cores are always near 100%

I feel bad because, on my advice, they bought the SSD and RAM and the machine is still unusable.

Any advice? Should we just scrap the laptop?

Obviously it is not possible to change the processor or GPU so we are stuck with that. Why would an AMD processor compare so badly with an Intel processor?

Maybe there is some use that would not require much video and where it could still be useful? Or should we just dump it?

[Pjotr]

Please post the output of:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxxxpmrz

[RollyShed]

Toshiba Satellite C855D-S5357

If it helps, you are not the only one with that problem -
https://www.linux.org/threads/slow-tosh ... mon.46138/

[GS3]

Please post the output of:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxxxpmrz

Code: Select all

$ sudo inxi -Fxxxpmrz
      
System:
    Kernel: 6.2.0-34-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A
    Desktop: Cinnamon 5.8.4 tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: muffin dm: LightDM 1.30.0
    Distro: Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: TOSHIBA product: Satellite C855D v: PSCBQU-007005 serial: <filter>
  Mobo: TOSHIBA model: Portable PC v: MP serial: <filter>
    UEFI-[Legacy]: Insyde v: 6.20 date: 01/09/2013
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 36.8 Wh (100.0%) condition: 36.8/47.5 Wh (77.4%)
    volts: 10.8 min: 10.8 model: PA5024U-1BRS type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Full
Memory:
  RAM: total: 15.21 GiB used: 1.19 GiB (7.8%)
  Array-1: capacity: 16 GiB slots: 2 EC: None max-module-size: 8 GiB voltage: 3.3
  Device-1: DIMM 0 size: 8 GiB info: single-bank speed: spec: 1600 MT/s
    actual: 533 MT/s type: DDR3 detail: synchronous unbuffered (unregistered)
    bus-width: 64 bits total: 64 bits manufacturer: N/A part-no: N/A
  Device-2: DIMM 1 size: 8 GiB info: single-bank speed: spec: 1600 MT/s
    actual: 533 MT/s type: DDR3 detail: synchronous unbuffered (unregistered)
    bus-width: 64 bits total: 64 bits manufacturer: N/A part-no: N/A
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: AMD E-300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics bits: 64
    type: MCP smt: <unsupported> arch: Bobcat rev: 0 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 1024 KiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 780 min/max: 780/1300 boost: disabled volts: 1.4 V
    ext-clock: 100 MHz cores: 1: 780 2: 780 bogomips: 5190
  Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310] vendor: Toshiba driver: radeon
    v: kernel ports: active: LVDS-1 empty: HDMI-A-1,VGA-1 bus-ID: 00:01.0
    chip-ID: 1002:9802 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Importek TOSHIBA Web Camera - HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 3-4:2 chip-ID: 10f1:1a43 class-ID: 0e02
  Display: server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 driver: X: loaded: ati,radeon
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: radeon display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.2x8.0") s-diag: 414mm (16.3")
  Monitor-1: LVDS res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 101 size: 344x194mm (13.5x7.6") diag: 395mm (15.5")
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD PALM (DRM 2.50.0 / 6.2.0-34-generic LLVM 15.0.7)
    v: 4.5 Mesa 23.0.4-0ubuntu1~22.04.1 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD FCH Azalia vendor: Toshiba driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1022:780d class-ID: 0403
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k6.2.0-34-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter driver: rtl8192ce
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 3000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8176 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp2s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: Toshiba
    driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 2000
    bus-ID: 06:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8136 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp6s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: vmnet1 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-2: vmnet8 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 447.13 GiB used: 36.28 GiB (8.1%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Crucial model: CT480BX500SSD1 size: 447.13 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 056 scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 438.55 GiB used: 36.27 GiB (8.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 512 MiB used: 6.1 MiB (1.2%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 56.4 C mobo: N/A gpu: radeon temp: 56.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: apt: 2209
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list
    1: deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-earth-pro.list
    1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com victoria main upstream import backport
    2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/umang-indicator-stickynotes-jammy.list
    1: deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/umang-indicator-stickynotes-jammy.gpg] https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/umang/indicator-stickynotes/ubuntu jammy main
Info:
  Processes: 208 Uptime: 3h 9m wakeups: 1 Init: systemd v: 249 runlevel: 5
  Compilers: gcc: 11.4.0 alt: 11/12 Shell: Sudo (sudo) v: 1.9.9 default: Bash
  v: 5.1.16 running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.13

[PaulL]

You have a 6.2.x kernel installed; is that on purpose?

[zcot]

it should be Xfce on that one at the most!

dual core 1.3GHz, yea, for sure.

I would use mint 20.x too honestly. 21 is heavier, go with the lesser requirement.

You could tweak it heavily too. bluetooth? printing? what else? you shave off 4 or 5 processes and gain an extra 186mb of ram(the lesser gain), not like it's anything, but on a dual-core 1.3GHz, yea, it means something.

[GS3]

You have a 6.2.x kernel installed; is that on purpose?

I am not sure what you mean by "on purpose" but I just installed LM.21 and never did anything with the kernels (that I am aware of). Or maybe I installed it without being aware together with other updates.

I see it also has 5.15.0-86. Would you recommend I delete #6 and revert to this one?

[GS3]

it should be Xfce on that one at the most!

dual core 1.3GHz, yea, for sure.

I would use mint 20.x too honestly. 21 is heavier, go with the lesser requirement.

You could tweak it heavily too. bluetooth? printing? what else? you shave off 4 or 5 processes and gain an extra 186mb of ram(the lesser gain), not like it's anything, but on a dual-core 1.3GHz, yea, it means something.

Thanks. I have pretty much given up on the idea of getting any use out of this system.

I might try Xfce just for the fun and learning experience as I have never used it.

[PaulL]

. . .

I see it also has 5.15.0-86. Would you recommend I delete #6 and revert to this one?

Try booting with 5.15.0-86 and see what happens. It is the LTS kernel, after all. (The 6.2.x kernel, as I understand things, is intended to support the lastest hardware that isn't in the LTS kernel.) If it works, great; if it doesn't, then there's some other problem. Don't uninstall 6.2.0-34 until you are sure that the LTS kernel works.

If the LTS kernel doesn't work, either, you can always set your system to boot off the later kernel again.

[MiZoG]

Low performance is not related to kernel.
That processor is simply a piece of crap.
Meets the minimum requirements to run Mint only in name.
It performed worse than Celerons released 5 years earlier.
16GB of ram a total waste on it. It supports only single channel...
Forget about Cinnamon. Meaningless to even try.
Mate / Xfce will definitely give you a more responsive desktop but running actual apps...

[spamegg]

With old hardware and weak CPU like that I'd consider other lightweight distros like Bodhi, antiX, Mabox etc. Maybe plain vanilla Debian 12 with LXQt? But running a modern browser is still gonna be a challenge on that. Although it does have a lot of RAM...