[solved] open 2 web browsers system unresponsive or locks

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Smiff2

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Smiff2 »

i am going to tentatively say that vm.min_free_kbytes = 128000 has improved things greatly.
there are still times when the system is unresponsive for a few seconds, or even longer, but i seem to be able to get out of them now without a hard reset.
I have NOT changed vm.swappiness from the default 60 (as any scientist knows, you change one variable at a time and maybe i got lucky here!)

@users
if you have similar problems try:

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sudo sysctl -w vm.min_free_kbytes=100000
(this means leave 100MB free)
if this helps, make permanent by

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gksudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
and adding vm.min_free_kbytes=100000 to that file

@mint devs (or further upstream?)
would suggest raising the default value of vm.min_free_kbytes= dramatically, at least for larger memory systems, the default was a 4 digit number which seems to be far too low (around 5MB on a 2GB system?) perhaps a % of total RAM would be a good way to choose e.g. somewhere in range of 2 to 5% ?

I believe the issue is that as the system runs out of RAM it doesn't have enough time to swap programs to disk i.e. the RAM requirements grow faster than disk writes can be finished. there needs to be a buffer to allow time to page. this explanation could be wrong as i am in no way an expert on this!

this is still a workaround as it doesn't resolve the issue of why the system becomes unresponsive during this activity.
(Windows has a setting to disable paging executive (prevent paging of kernel) - is there a linux equivalent for X.org or whatever might affect input handling??)

worth noting performance in general is stellar (outside of this issue, general responsiveness is far better than XP).

apologies for posting this in newbie forum when it should have been elsewhere..
Smiff2

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Smiff2 »

more good reading, seems to show i'm on right track:

http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhelv5-l ... 00095.html
http://rudd-o.com/en/linux-and-free-sof ... o-fix-that
http://rackerhacker.com/2008/12/03/redu ... er-at-bay/
http://www.tolaris.com/2008/09/28/makin ... ntu-linux/

i'm starting to think the Mint/Ubuntu defaults are just really bad for high memory desktop systems (my 2GB being relatively large in this case).
(does anyone test this stuff? ;)

another setting to play with

vm.vfs_cache_pressure

(default is 100 in mint, 50 seems to be recommended)
lmintnewb

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by lmintnewb »

Would be curious to know what your Mint 11 OS is running at idle. If ya feel like it next time you boot up, open terminal and type free -m ... hit enter and look at the second line that comes up. +/- cache and buffers. ???
Smiff2

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Smiff2 »

actually i just had to reboot from another lock up (couldnt even CTRL+ALT_BACKSPACE from this one, HDD light had gone out, nothing)
noticed the memory used was 384MB on a clean boot and logon.
lmintnewb

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by lmintnewb »

That isn't bad really. The rest of it sounds like it is. You've got some real issues going on. Simon mentioned to you that the ubuntu, LM based Mint 11 on has some quirks. That isn't LM's fault and that new kernel has wrought havoc on many a person. Told ya, might want to either roll back to trying the 32bit Mint 11 or more likely try something else Linuxy Minty. Doesn't sound like Mint 11 is getting along well with your comp. The exact cause of it ? ... Dunno, could be a ton of things. Might want to go ahead and roll further back. Use Mint 10 or even Mint 9 while waiting for Mint's next LTS release to come out. If you're an adventurous person might try some of Mint's other stuff. Though they make it pretty plain it has a steeper learning curve for people and some rough edges if you went with something LM Debian based.

Really wouldn't hurtcha to try some of them out. See if you have a smoother experience. Cause obviously something is not working right with your system. Locking up is not normal. Safer and smarter to try one/some of the others instead imo. That's of course up to you to decide though and just a nix newbs opinion on it.
Smiff2

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Smiff2 »

but see.. it works so well right up until it doesn't :D

i reserved a partition on the SSD for another linux install.. not sure what to try though. if it's an older release and doesn't support my audio etc i'd rather learn to avoid lockups than spend days installing ppas and such to get things working.
but yeah.. thanks. i'll think about it.

before anyone asks.. yes i've done memtestx86 numerous times and the system has been stable for YEARS literally.

will try moving the swap to another drive though (is having it on my software RAID array bad?)
lmintnewb

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by lmintnewb »

Am nix newbish, despite my 1000+ posts and the pointless orange rank bars. Not overly sure, could suggest tons of poss things to explore to fix ya up. All of em could very well turn out to be wrong too. In my view if something isn't working, trying something else seems like a likely prospect. Many people flat out just aren't happy with Mint 11. LM ... makes some good software. But you'd have to waste, errrr spend as much time as us forum fanatics to be able to follow along.

Ubuntu has some issues with quality control it seems. Mint's closely based on ubuntu so ends up inheriting bugginess from canonical/ubuntu. I'd say the best chances for things running smoothly is to go with Mint LTS releases. Imo, that goes double for ubuntu. It's opensource weirdness that you have to spend way to much time here and sitting in front of a computer to likely grasp. Debian, ubuntu and LM have this weird love triangle going on. Am not sure I really understand it. Only thing I'm 100% sure of is I'll never have anything. Even ubuntu LTS software on any comp I have.

Would just say and just my opinion, try some of Mints other stuff. Liked Mint 10 fine, it ran fine on this old dinosaur. Seems like it won't hurt someone to stick with things that are more stable and less buggy ... aka: LTS stuff. Not sure when Mint's next one is due out. Can't be all that far off. Sometimes seems like a smart move to make it take advantage of the great software LM puts out while ya wait for them and/or ubuntu to iron out ubuntu's bug probs. Or ya can always really dig in and search the hades out of these forums for people having similar probs with Mint 11. Visiting the ubuntu forum and searching them is a good idea in that too. LM 11 and ubuntu 11.04 have ALOT in common. Ubuntu has a bigger userbase and more active forum. Just something to think on ....

coupla of edits: I THINK Mint 11, is based on ubuntu 11.04 ... might be on another one. Whichever it is same thing applies. When ubuntu puts out buggy software and judging from people I trusts experiences. Ubuntu puts out A LOT of buggy releases. Mint gets hit with the probs and bugs with the buntu software they use to make Mint. As mentioned above, it's my opinion the LTS releases are likely to be more stable and less buggy.

When it comes to swappiness=value. Don't think it's exactly a 1 to 1 thing. The lower your swappiness value though ( and general recommendation around the web for desktops seems to be vm.swappiness=10, lower the number, less prone your OS is to use swap until no RAM is available. A good thing in my view cause writing, reading and swapping stuff in n out of a swap partition on a hdd is slower and has to impact system responsiveness in some way etc.
Last edited by lmintnewb on Thu Jul 21, 2011 1:36 am, edited 4 times in total.
Inkit

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Inkit »

I'm not saying that what I'm suggesting will help, but have you tried disabling javascript. If you have so many tabs open at the same time,and heavy duty ones at that, there may not be a need for you to be running the scripts all the time. if you do want java functionality you can try using noscript in firefox. it allows you to choose which sites you want to run the scripts on. It has made a huge difference to me in terms of memory usage, especially when I have a number of tabs open.
Another thing I've noticed with both firefox and chrome is that it is generally not the browser that consumes so much memory but system monitor. I found that when I had browser pages open for some time this happens. I found that minimising the browser when I do other work helps although I don't know if this will work for you. When I started running with java not enabled by default, this problem just went away.
Lastly change the settings in system monitor. I don't remember what the default settings are, but I remember that just having system monitor open with it refreshing every second would take up approximately 10% of my 1 GB ram.
Like I said earlier, my suggestions may not work, but it you think it's worth a try, give it a shot.
Smiff2

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Smiff2 »

thanks both of you!

performance aside from this one severe issue is good enough that i'm going to stick with Mint11 64bit Gnome for now and try to work through it.

btw, performance of this forum is terrible though.. :p
lmintnewb

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by lmintnewb »

Would spend some time doing as Simon already suggested. Looking at logs and run the command dmesg in terminal and look through the output. Could be a driver or hardware issue. Things like that .. best I can think to suggest for interpreting dmesg output errors is google anything that looks likely. I can somewhat follow along with errors in the output. But far from really understanding many of them and what the hades they mean ... etc.

Might check and see if a kernel upgrade is avail or firmware. One way poss to do that is open synaptic ( package manager.) Click on custom filters in the lower lefthand corner, then click on upstream upgradeable in the list that comes up. Or ya might also run this command in terminal ... uname -r. It'll tell ya what version number the kernel you're using is. Then search for those numbers in synaptic ... Remember most the time synaptic will tell ya which software package is installed and beside it whether its the latest. Could search for firmware too like that etc.

All the tweaks I'd been talking about will help someones system run much smoother. Esp if it's due to low RAM or similar. But not if the underlying cause of the prob is something hardware related or has to do with a major bug in the OS itself. Which people can thank ubuntu to any major bugs that crop up in LM me thinks.
Smiff2

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Smiff2 »

yes there's a kernel minor update but doesn't look relevant. i don't go installing kernels just for fun ;)

just noticed something interesting.. right now system is using 1.6GB of 2GB, and swap (in System Monitor) is showing 0
swappiness is set to default 60 (tried 100). v.min_free_kbytes is 100,000
shouldn't it be using some swap at this point?

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             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          2007       1878        128          0          8        175
-/+ buffers/cache:       1694        312
Swap:            0          0          0
get the feeling system monitor's display of swap usage is incorrect.
lmintnewb

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by lmintnewb »

If at 1st you don't succeed. Try, try ... again ?

:D
Last edited by lmintnewb on Thu Jul 21, 2011 1:39 am, edited 5 times in total.
wyrdoak

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by wyrdoak »

From my notes:

I've been known to have a brain fart or two, just in case I forget to make a swap file.

Debian, and Ubuntu have an incredibly convenient package that creates a swap file in any directory. Install with:
sudo apt-get install dphys-swapfile
The installation process with automatically create the swap file. Then just enable it with:
sudo swapon -a
Viola, a fully function swap file that is not on a separate partition.
aes2011
Level 4
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Posts: 498
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:39 pm

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by aes2011 »

Smiff2 wrote:thanks but i'm really not here for a discussion of my work habits or OS choice. i was using Xp until it died, and Mint is the most recommended "newbie" free OS. ...
i'm using Mint, have a problem with Mint, now I have Mint installed, this is a relatively straightforward problem, and I want to continue using Mint. is that ok? :)
...
Less attitude might help. Folks are making every attempt to help but you keep tossing in comments that don't ...
lmintnewb

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by lmintnewb »

Ahhh, forgettaboutit.

If at 1st you don't succeed. Try, try ... again. :D
Last edited by lmintnewb on Thu Jul 21, 2011 4:50 am, edited 4 times in total.
AlbertP
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Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by AlbertP »

Smiff2: perhaps you can enable the swap by:

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sudo swapon -a
If this does not enable swap, make sure that there's indeed a swap partition, and please post the output of:

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cat /etc/fstab
Registered Linux User #528502
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Smiff2

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Smiff2 »

oops i'd occidentally done swapoff and not reenabled.
now resized swap partition to 512mb and will try that for a bit
sorry, ignore last few posts!

yes it is using swap now

hdparm -t shows read speed on swap as 40MBs which is ok, not sure how to test write speed?
AlbertP
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Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by AlbertP »

That read speed should be OK - it's not very fast but for an older computer, it looks good. It's not really necessary to test write speed. Does your system still lockup when opening too much programs?

Edit. If your system is not as responsive as you'd like it to be, you can put some more RAM memory into your computer. You can buy laptop RAM at a local computer shop (512 MB should be enough) and here's a how-to on installing RAM: http://www.computermemoryupgrade.net/in ... emory.html
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Smiff2

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Smiff2 »

mate, i'm new to Mint11 but i've building and maintaining PCs since 1996 :) (windows, linux since 2009) and this is a desktop (although actually i have almost identical performance issue on my Mint9 netbook..)

surely write speed is very relevant since its during paging writes that the system is struggling..

need to find a way to reduce firefox memory usage as well! one thing that irritates me is that closing tabs in firefox still does not give back the ram (only restarting firefox does that) despite this being firefox 5 and this being known about for years.

back to the main point: how to keep the system responsive (to keyboard and mouse) during heavy paging.
imagine if an Apple employee said to Steve Jobs "oh yeah, if the user opens too many apps, they may have to wait half an hour to be able to do anything" he'd go nuts.
if we want linux to succeed on the desktop, this sort of thing is not acceptable. i realise this is likely not Mint but a kernel issue somewhere.

or perhaps there is just something wrong with my SATA controller..? (AMD 690V built in thing.. still need to try moving swap to RAID1 because that benchmarks 95 MB/s read, but worried about messing with RAID mirror in Gparted until i have a backup!)

found the following SB600 issues listed on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_690_chipset_series

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Southbridge issues(SB600)

Linux platform:

    USB freeze when multiple devices are connected through hub (related to AMD Product Advisory PA_SB600AL1)[4]
    SATA soft reset fails when PMP is enabled and devices will be not detected(does not apply to A11 and A12 revisions)
    SATA internal errors are ignored because SATA will set Serial ATA port Error when it should not
    SATA commands in AHCI mode are limited to 255 sectors per command because of NCQ problems
    SATA controller does not support MSI
hmm interesting.. not sure if any of these could be causing my problems?
don't see any references to workarounds, amd, (other than cpu), sb600, or sata in logs.


update: found stuff in logs

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Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.661157] ahci 0000:00:12.0: version 3.0
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.661182] ahci 0000:00:12.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.661208] ahci 0000:00:12.0: controller can't do 64bit DMA, forcing 32bit
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.661301] ahci 0000:00:12.0: AHCI 0001.0100 32 slots 4 ports 3 Gbps 0xf impl RAID mode
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.661304] ahci 0000:00:12.0: flags: ncq sntf ilck pm led clo pmp pio slum part ccc 
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.661681] r8169 0000:02:0f.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 23
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.661711] r8169 0000:02:0f.0: (unregistered net_device): no PCI Express capability
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.662198] scsi0 : ahci
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.662863] r8169 0000:02:0f.0: eth0: RTL8169sc/8110sc at 0xffffc9000034e000, 00:1a:4d:73:39:bb, XID 18000000 IRQ 23
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.663148] scsi1 : ahci
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.663273] scsi2 : ahci
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.663344] scsi3 : ahci
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.663455] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe02f000 port 0xfe02f100 irq 22
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.663459] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe02f000 port 0xfe02f180 irq 22
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.663463] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe02f000 port 0xfe02f200 irq 22
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.663466] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 abar m1024@0xfe02f000 port 0xfe02f280 irq 22
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.664098] scsi4 : pata_atiixp
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.664168] scsi5 : pata_atiixp
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.664738] ata5: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0xf900 irq 14
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.664740] ata6: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xf908 irq 15
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.671048] e1000 0000:02:07.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 21 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.840514] ata5.00: ATAPI: _NEC DVD_RW ND-3540A, 1.WB, max UDMA/33
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.880025] usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    1.880482] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/33
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.031686] hub 1-4:1.0: USB hub found
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.031999] hub 1-4:1.0: 4 ports detected
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.150032] usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.210023] ata1: softreset failed (device not ready)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.210027] ata1: applying SB600 PMP SRST workaround and retrying
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.210048] ata2: softreset failed (device not ready)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.210052] ata2: applying SB600 PMP SRST workaround and retrying
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.210070] ata4: softreset failed (device not ready)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.210072] ata4: applying SB600 PMP SRST workaround and retrying
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.210089] ata3: softreset failed (device not ready)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.210092] ata3: applying SB600 PMP SRST workaround and retrying
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.212525] e1000 0000:02:07.0: eth1: (PCI:33MHz:32-bit) 00:0e:0c:c6:6b:7a
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.212529] e1000 0000:02:07.0: eth1: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.330130] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410034] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410066] ata3: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410088] ata2: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410110] ata4: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410594] ata3.00: ATA-8: WDC WD6400AAKS-07A7B2, 01.03B01, max UDMA/133
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410598] ata3.00: 1250263728 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410601] ata3.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410717] ata1.00: ATA-7: SAMSUNG MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA, PS105006, max UDMA/100
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410720] ata1.00: 125045424 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410722] ata1.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410891] ata1.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410893] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410984] ata4.00: ATA-8: WDC WD6400AAKS-00A7B0, 01.03B01, max UDMA/133
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410987] ata4.00: 1250263728 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.410990] ata4.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.411050] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      SAMSUNG MCCOE64G PS10 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.411223] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.411359] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 125045424 512-byte logical blocks: (64.0 GB/59.6 GiB)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.411452] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.411456] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.411492] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.411965] ata4.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.411969] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.412061] ata3.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.412065] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.412277]  sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 < sda5 sda6 >
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.412679] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.454991] ata2.00: HPA detected: current 625140335, native 625142448
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.454997] ata2.00: ATA-7: ST3320620AS, 3.AAC, max UDMA/133
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.454999] ata2.00: 625140335 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.455003] ata2.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513283] ata2.00: SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513285] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513394] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST3320620AS      3.AA PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513539] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 625140335 512-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513568] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513586] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513589] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513609] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513694] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC WD6400AAKS-0 01.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513825] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.513929] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC WD6400AAKS-0 01.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514049] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514128] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] 1250263728 512-byte logical blocks: (640 GB/596 GiB)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514167] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] 1250263728 512-byte logical blocks: (640 GB/596 GiB)
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514212] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514215] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514250] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514253] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514264] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.514374] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.515261] scsi 4:0:0:0: CD-ROM            _NEC     DVD_RW ND-3540A  1.WB PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.516684] sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Jul 20 17:51:35 CENTRE kernel: [    2.516687] cdrom: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20


swap is currently on the ST3320620AS
not sure what effect "SB600 AHCI: limiting to 255 sectors per cmd" has
ditto for "controller can't do 64bit DMA, forcing 32bit"
interface speeds look correct though.
anyone know the significance of these? unlikely..
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Reorx
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Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:14 pm
Location: SE Florida, USA

Re: open 2 web browsers - system unresponsive or locks hard

Post by Reorx »

Smiff2;

I too am not new to tinkering with computers - I've been in up to my elbows for over 20 years... DOS, Windows, and now (new to) Linux,,, I am very impressed with the performance I have seen using Linux (mostly Mint 9) on modest hardware. Your hardware seems more than adequate to do what you are trying to do... As I read thru your multiple posts of various, somewhat complicated, tweaks, I found myself wondering "where's the beef"... I currently run multiple computers (laptops) using Linux Mint 9 main edition - 32 bit... None are "screamers" but all run pretty nicely on modest hardware... because I am a relative newb to Linux, I have hesitated to chime in on this thread... but I just couldn't resist... so, for what it's worth, heres my 2 cents...

As I mentioned, all my laptops are running LM9 main 32 bit version... One of my laptops is rather similar to your hardware, AMD dual core, 3 GB of RAM, etc... Initially, I installed the 64 bit version of Mint on it... I noticed 2 thing that made me switch it to the 32 bit version. One thing is that, on my system, the 64 bit version seemed to be more memory hungry and it also seems to not perform as well as I had expected... nothing as dramatic as you describe but not up to my expectation... the other thing is that I tried to install a piece of (proprietary) software that I had installed several times on other 32 bit systems and it would not install on my 64 bit version of Mint.... which beings me to my (newb-ish) recommendation - if possible, shrink a partition or 2 and make room for a 32 bit installation of Mint... install the 32 bit version (plain old vanilla install) in the newly created "test space" and boot to it... then try your open 2 browsers trick and see what happens to performance... If everything works great you can just remove the partitions for your mint installations and use the newly created (larger) space for a 32 bit installation that'll perform as you expect... I realize this is somewhat of a "radical" approach but if it actually works, I think that you'll be better off in the long run...

In your OP you mention opening Firefox and Chrome browsers and the subsequent performance hit... what happens if you open 2 incarnations of Firefox? the same thing?... I just opened 4 incarnations of FF with multiple tabs each and notice no performance hit to speak of on a lesser machine (celeron processor, 1 GB of ram, etc...)

ETA: Just did a quick experiment with my 32 bit / 1GB laptop (at work) - clean boot @ desktop = 172 MB of RAM used. Open Firefox = 203 MB in use... open 3 more tabs = 249 MB used... Open 2 more incarnations of FF each with 4 tabs open = 288 MB (total) of RAM in use... at no point was there any "swap" used... FWIW... :D
Full time Linux Mint user since 2011 - Currently running LM21C on multiple Dell laptops - mostly Vostro models.

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