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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
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Newbie Poster
My computer seems bogged down lately. Even with my good computer specifications (see profile), things are running slow.
Even with 2GB memory, 99% is being used up most of the time, and I am only using two or three programs that should not be sucking up all that memory. What should I do?
Secondly, file retrieval has been needlessly slow. Should I defrag my harddrive using fsck? If so, how do I do it? Should I back up all my files first? If I need to use a different drive in order to fsck my harddrive, how do I do that?
Even with 2GB memory, 99% is being used up most of the time, and I am only using two or three programs that should not be sucking up all that memory. What should I do?
Secondly, file retrieval has been needlessly slow. Should I defrag my harddrive using fsck? If so, how do I do it? Should I back up all my files first? If I need to use a different drive in order to fsck my harddrive, how do I do that?
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Join Date: Aug 2006
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Posting Shark
Well. Go into a terminal and post the output of:
(Use code tags for the output, please)
You might have a runaway process that's using 99% of your memory.
top -n 1 -b
(Use code tags for the output, please)
You might have a runaway process that's using 99% of your memory.
Toshiba M115 ● 1.49 GB DDR-2 RAM ● 1.6 GHz Centrino Duo ● 80GB HDD ● Windows XP Media Center Edition
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
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Originally Posted by linux 
Well. Go into a terminal and post the output of:
top -n 1 -b
(Use code tags for the output, please)
You might have a runaway process that's using 99% of your memory.
top - 17:33:47 up 33 days, 3:01, 1 user, load average: 2.73, 1.30, 0.80
Tasks: 169 total, 1 running, 168 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 3.8%us, 1.8%sy, 0.1%ni, 88.1%id, 0.6%wa, 0.9%hi, 4.6%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 2062848k total, 2048060k used, 14788k free, 8132k buffers
Swap: 2031608k total, 1180576k used, 851032k free, 144876k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
18734 bushidoh 20 0 264m 103m 12m S 23 5.1 16:34.31 npviewer.bin
3240 root 20 0 929m 514m 11m S 6 25.6 1036:34 Xorg
20373 root 20 0 14708 1016 712 R 4 0.0 0:00.02 top
272 root 15 -5 0 0 0 D 2 0.0 3:42.38 kswapd0
3020 root 39 19 413m 192m 4404 D 2 9.5 78:53.37 yum-updatesd
18521 bushidoh 20 0 1147m 424m 22m S 2 21.1 36:38.42 firefox-bin
1 root 20 0 10328 564 536 S 0 0.0 0:12.73 init
2 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 kthreadd
3 root RT -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:03.01 migration/0
4 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 1:15.32 ksoftirqd/0
5 root RT -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:01.71 watchdog/0
6 root RT -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:01.88 migration/1
7 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:12.66 ksoftirqd/1
8 root RT -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:01.78 watchdog/1
9 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:20.27 events/0
10 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:11.50 events/1
11 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 khelper
60 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:05.94 kblockd/0
61 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:05.90 kblockd/1
64 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpid
65 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpi_notify
202 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 cqueue/0
203 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 cqueue/1
205 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ksuspend_usbd
211 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 khubd
214 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kseriod
325 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/0
326 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/1
470 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kpsmoused
506 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 1:37.43 ata/0
507 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 1:42.14 ata/1
508 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ata_aux
515 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_0
516 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_1
517 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_2
518 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_3
522 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 6:29.50 scsi_eh_4
523 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_5
536 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ksnapd
547 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 6:36.64 kjournald
575 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.09 kauditd
616 root 16 -4 14696 476 400 S 0 0.0 0:00.78 udevd
1089 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_6
1094 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:09.89 usb-storage
1096 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_7
1097 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 2:36.68 usb-storage
1579 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kmpathd/0
1580 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kmpathd/1
1604 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kjournald
1720 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 3:04.06 kondemand/0
1721 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kondemand/1
1980 root 20 0 6668 520 408 S 0 0.0 0:00.13 dhclient
2055 root 17 -3 19240 564 476 S 0 0.0 0:01.91 auditd
2057 root 17 -3 13924 608 448 S 0 0.0 0:00.29 audispd
2080 root 20 0 6784 552 484 S 0 0.0 0:02.75 syslogd
2083 root 20 0 4676 364 320 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 klogd
2095 root 20 0 6464 316 252 S 0 0.0 2:22.07 irqbalance
2117 rpc 20 0 19528 496 452 S 0 0.0 0:01.18 rpcbind
2146 rpcuser 20 0 11012 524 520 S 0 0.0 0:00.05 rpc.statd
2179 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rpciod/0
2180 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rpciod/1
2188 root 20 0 45112 264 236 S 0 0.0 0:00.45 rpc.idmapd
2207 dbus 20 0 21532 880 480 S 0 0.0 0:01.97 dbus-daemon
2218 root 20 0 14028 696 692 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 hcid
2224 root 20 0 9492 480 476 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 sdpd
2247 root 10 -10 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 krfcommd
2304 root 20 0 21020 500 476 S 0 0.0 0:18.43 pcscd
2418 root 20 0 9388 356 352 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 hidd
2532 root 20 0 94096 816 660 S 0 0.0 0:44.80 automount
2551 root 20 0 60416 700 460 S 0 0.0 0:01.94 hpiod
2556 root 20 0 167m 2996 1112 S 0 0.1 0:27.32 python
2571 root 20 0 47348 420 416 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 sshd
2582 root 20 0 134m 1912 1296 S 0 0.1 0:17.34 cupsd
2594 root 20 0 22504 524 520 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 xinetd
2608 ntp 20 0 24040 972 844 S 0 0.0 0:03.56 ntpd
2639 root 20 0 74576 1024 1020 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 mysqld_safe
2699 mysql 20 0 179m 2208 792 S 0 0.1 15:05.72 mysqld
2741 root 20 0 67464 776 564 S 0 0.0 0:42.63 sendmail
2749 smmsp 20 0 53988 660 528 S 0 0.0 0:00.27 sendmail
2806 root 20 0 247m 888 848 S 0 0.0 0:30.58 httpd
2817 root 20 0 3900 284 280 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 nasd
2828 root 20 0 30100 1292 1120 S 0 0.1 0:00.17 console-kit-dae
2902 root 20 0 84216 640 576 S 0 0.0 0:05.85 crond
2965 xfs 20 0 22188 2288 624 S 0 0.1 0:12.25 xfs
2986 root 20 0 19588 320 296 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 atd
3009 root 20 0 8204 552 508 S 0 0.0 0:53.08 dhcdbd
3032 avahi 20 0 23224 724 720 S 0 0.0 0:00.13 avahi-daemon
3033 avahi 20 0 23104 132 128 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 avahi-daemon
3044 nobody 20 0 167m 592 588 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 fyre
3055 haldaemo 20 0 24332 1992 1240 S 0 0.1 0:17.13 hald
3056 root 20 0 17408 736 732 S 0 0.0 0:00.04 hald-runner
3068 haldaemo 20 0 12292 676 644 S 0 0.0 0:11.83 hald-addon-keyb
3069 haldaemo 20 0 12292 640 636 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 hald-addon-keyb
3070 haldaemo 20 0 12292 640 636 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 hald-addon-keyb
3071 haldaemo 20 0 12292 640 636 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 hald-addon-keyb
3102 root 20 0 19520 768 764 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 hald-addon-cpuf
3103 haldaemo 20 0 12288 624 620 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 hald-addon-acpi
3108 root 20 0 12880 580 532 S 0 0.0 20:10.39 hald-addon-hid-
3114 root 20 0 19512 812 724 S 0 0.0 1:07.40 hald-addon-stor
3116 root 20 0 19512 804 720 S 0 0.0 1:08.68 hald-addon-stor
3118 root 20 0 19512 812 724 S 0 0.0 1:06.96 hald-addon-stor
3120 root 20 0 19512 812 724 S 0 0.0 1:08.90 hald-addon-stor
3125 root 20 0 19512 804 720 S 0 0.0 8:05.90 hald-addon-stor
3146 root 20 0 11852 456 296 S 0 0.0 0:00.43 smartd
3151 root 20 0 3772 380 376 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 mingetty
3152 root 20 0 3772 380 376 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 mingetty
3153 root 20 0 3772 380 376 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 mingetty
3154 root 20 0 3772 380 376 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 mingetty
3155 root 20 0 3772 380 376 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 mingetty
3156 root 20 0 3772 380 376 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 mingetty
3157 root 20 0 185m 1860 1840 S 0 0.1 0:00.08 gdm-binary
3236 root 20 0 198m 1708 1656 S 0 0.1 0:02.27 gdm-binary
3239 root 20 0 185m 596 532 S 0 0.0 5:23.51 gdm-binary
3299 bushidoh 20 0 270m 4072 3556 S 0 0.2 0:10.45 gnome-session
3402 bushidoh 20 0 34156 224 192 S 0 0.0 0:05.18 ssh-agent
3405 bushidoh 20 0 15148 380 376 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 dbus-launch
3406 bushidoh 20 0 21372 680 508 S 0 0.0 0:02.15 dbus-daemon
3408 bushidoh 20 0 95300 3000 1444 S 0 0.1 12:08.98 gconfd-2
3411 bushidoh 20 0 372m 242m 2116 S 0 12.0 201:50.99 at-spi-registry
3414 bushidoh 20 0 194m 1960 1404 S 0 0.1 0:00.44 bonobo-activati
3419 bushidoh 20 0 12980 568 564 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 gnome-keyring-d
3421 bushidoh 20 0 291m 4268 3712 S 0 0.2 6:01.94 gnome-settings-
3425 bushidoh 20 0 208m 8652 6276 S 0 0.4 15:58.90 metacity
3426 bushidoh 20 0 487m 38m 7080 S 0 1.9 6:15.02 gnome-panel
3428 bushidoh 20 0 925m 78m 6896 S 0 3.9 40:00.58 nautilus
3432 bushidoh 20 0 315m 4880 4876 S 0 0.2 0:00.30 gnome-volume-ma
3437 bushidoh 20 0 151m 1788 1784 S 0 0.1 0:00.18 gnome-vfs-daemo
3441 bushidoh 20 0 184m 3804 3384 S 0 0.2 0:00.37 bluetooth-apple
3448 bushidoh 20 0 386m 5796 5156 S 0 0.3 0:00.60 nm-applet
3458 bushidoh 20 0 414m 9248 6348 S 0 0.4 0:03.98 puplet
3465 bushidoh 20 0 182m 2972 2792 S 0 0.1 0:14.84 pam-panel-icon
3466 bushidoh 20 0 347m 5960 5000 S 0 0.3 0:24.54 gnome-power-man
3471 root 20 0 13040 588 528 S 0 0.0 0:38.00 pam_timestamp_c
3481 bushidoh 20 0 8560 664 628 S 0 0.0 0:10.99 mapping-daemon
3487 bushidoh 20 0 8784 1020 800 S 0 0.0 0:58.63 gam_server
3494 bushidoh 20 0 394m 5924 5360 S 0 0.3 0:01.57 trashapplet
3496 bushidoh 20 0 395m 36m 6912 S 0 1.8 38:49.30 wnck-applet
3501 bushidoh 20 0 398m 7088 4752 S 0 0.3 32:47.64 /usr/bin/sealer
3516 bushidoh 20 0 325m 6252 5360 S 0 0.3 0:01.52 fast-user-switc
3519 bushidoh 20 0 332m 6180 5388 S 0 0.3 0:01.52 notification-ar
3521 bushidoh 20 0 461m 27m 5588 S 0 1.3 2:47.10 clock-applet
3523 bushidoh 20 0 355m 8852 6040 S 0 0.4 24:32.38 mixer_applet2
3525 bushidoh 20 0 328m 6836 5664 S 0 0.3 89:31.01 multiload-apple
3527 bushidoh 20 0 499m 15m 6472 S 0 0.8 3:31.49 gweather-applet
3533 bushidoh 20 0 237m 5832 4728 S 0 0.3 2:02.06 notification-da
3537 bushidoh 20 0 185m 3672 2668 S 0 0.2 23:09.73 gnome-screensav
10611 bushidoh 20 0 286m 2996 2412 S 0 0.1 16:55.92 xmms
12710 bushidoh 20 0 166m 1644 984 S 0 0.1 8:21.20 artsd
15169 bushidoh 20 0 352m 8588 5820 S 0 0.4 17:15.29 sensors-applet
16165 bushidoh 20 0 317m 1720 1716 S 0 0.1 0:00.56 evolution-data-
16191 apache 20 0 247m 368 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 httpd
16194 apache 20 0 247m 368 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 httpd
16195 apache 20 0 247m 368 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 httpd
16196 apache 20 0 247m 368 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 httpd
16197 apache 20 0 247m 368 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 httpd
16198 apache 20 0 247m 368 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 httpd
16199 apache 20 0 247m 368 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 httpd
16200 apache 20 0 247m 368 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 httpd
20246 root 20 0 0 0 0 D 0 0.0 0:00.00 pdflush
20302 bushidoh 20 0 317m 18m 11m S 0 0.9 0:00.85 gnome-terminal
20305 bushidoh 20 0 10600 632 528 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 gnome-pty-helpe
20306 bushidoh 20 0 74836 1692 1248 S 0 0.1 0:00.07 bash
20314 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 pdflush
20343 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 pdflush
20344 root 20 0 108m 1324 1040 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 su
20347 root 20 0 74840 1676 1240 S 0 0.1 0:00.14 bash
27553 bushidoh 20 0 613m 46m 10m S 0 2.3 19:11.80 gedit
27555 bushidoh 20 0 10600 484 480 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 gnome-pty-helpe
27556 bushidoh 20 0 74836 1488 1160 S 0 0.1 0:01.78 bash
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Canada
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npviewer.bin is part of the Adobe Flash plugin for Linux, and there's a known bug which causes the Linux version to use up oodles of CPU even when idling. Adobe hasn't bothered to fix it, so basically the only workaround, short from uninstalling it, is to kill the npviewer.bin process when you notice it hogging a lot of CPU cycles. From the command line this can be accomplished by running
kill pid , replacing 'pid' with the process ID of npviewer.bin. You can use 'top' to find the process ID. There's probably some GUI utility which can accomplish this too, but I don't have the energy to find it. Like always, Google is your friend. tuxation.com - Linux articles, tutorials, and discussions
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Join Date: Feb 2008
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npviewer.bin has not been a problem despite its quirks. Generally when Firefox crashes or hangs up, there is another npviewr.bin task listed, but that is easily killable. Secondly, as I was using top, the browser was open, and this page had an advertisement that was using flash, so npviewer.bin is off the hook.
What else could be hogging the memory?
What else could be hogging the memory?
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Join Date: Apr 2006
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Ah, my bad, I forgot we were talking about memory here!
Anyway... from the 'top' output, there are two main memory hogs: Firefox, and Xorg. Firefox is hogging over 400 megabytes of memory, while Xorg grabs a whopping 525 megabytes. While that's not 99% of your memory, that's definitely not good, either. Web browsers ideally shouldn't be taking up more than ~100 megabytes of memory under normal circumstances, but Firefox is an exception because it leaks more memory than a sieve.
Xorg is big and bloated from too many add-ons and too few optimizations. In short, you might want to try recompiling both of them, disabling unneeded components/modules and adding optimization flags whenever possible. Recompiling your kernel wouldn't hurt either.
Anyway... from the 'top' output, there are two main memory hogs: Firefox, and Xorg. Firefox is hogging over 400 megabytes of memory, while Xorg grabs a whopping 525 megabytes. While that's not 99% of your memory, that's definitely not good, either. Web browsers ideally shouldn't be taking up more than ~100 megabytes of memory under normal circumstances, but Firefox is an exception because it leaks more memory than a sieve.
Xorg is big and bloated from too many add-ons and too few optimizations. In short, you might want to try recompiling both of them, disabling unneeded components/modules and adding optimization flags whenever possible. Recompiling your kernel wouldn't hurt either.
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