Linux machine slowing down to a crawl

SlipperyVagoo · April 30, 2018, 5:12pm

I am sorry for bad title but i have no idea where to start looking.

using Glances to monitor processes all i can see is ctx_sw spiking while the computer slows down to a halt, CPU and ram usage is under 50% and little no no swap is in use.

i am not sure if other things causes this to happen but i use the machine primarily to just run part of my web browsing needs as a side computer.

i don’t really know where to start looking. i know there is a week uptime but restarting the computer is not a permanent fix,
(i think it might work for a bit after restart but i am unsure for how long as i have not timed it)

i am fine with just burning it down and reinstalling the OS but it would be nice to find the source of this problem

My computer:
antergos
(taken form screenfetch)
OS: Arch Linux
Kernel: x86_64 Linux 4.16.2-2-ARCH
Uptime: 9d 22h 17m
Packages: 1090
Shell: bash 4.4.19
Resolution: 1920x1080
WM: i3
CPU: Intel Core i5-2310 @ 4x 3.2GHz
GPU: NVC8
RAM: 7961MiB

“ctx_sw: number of context switches (voluntary + involuntary) per second. A context switch is a procedure that a computer’s CPU (central processing unit) follows to change from one task (or process) to another while ensuring that the tasks do not conflict.”
Source: https://glances.readthedocs.io/en/stable/aoa/cpu.html

Firefox extensions:
Adnauseam
Dark Background and Light Text
DuckDuckGo Hide Unwanted Results
Facebook Container
Ghostery
HTTPS Everywhere
Privacy Badger
Tab Suspender
uMatrix
Vimium

Edit 2
i have tried disabling hardware acceleration which did nothing and am currently disabling all Firefox extensions to see if that does anything

Edit 3
looks like xorg is spiking in CPU usage at times, looks like it might be happening while switching to another virtual desktop

Edit 4
i am now seeing iowait also going up while doing stuff

Edit 5
Disabling all extensions did nothing

SgtAwesomesauce · April 30, 2018, 5:25pm

Context Switching is extremely CPU hungry. This happens when the CPU switches from working on Task A (be it a process or thread) to Task B. That’s probably where we’d want to start. What’s running on your system.

I’m assuming this is some sort of Fermi card. It looks like you don’t have your GPU drivers for xorg installed properly.

Make sure you’ve got xf86-video-nouveau installed.

Zerophase · April 30, 2018, 5:25pm

You could try installing the ck kernel. That might help.

SlipperyVagoo · April 30, 2018, 5:32pm

is there an easy way to export all running processes/relevant ones?

(edit the GPU is a 550ti i think just some shit which came with the system)

if not the 3190 vagoo 466 vagoo 21138 vagoo 448 root 28940 vagoo 802 vagoo 3275 vagoo 720 vagoo 1637 vagoo 703 vagoo 3126 vagoo 13829 vagoo 1 root 2 root 20 0 4 root 0 -20 6 root 0 -20 7 root 20 0 8 root -2 0 9 root -2 0 10 root -2 0 11 root -2 0 12 root -2 0 13 root rt 0 14 root rt 0 15 root 20 0 16 root 20 0 17 root rt 0 18 root rt 0 19 root -2 0 20 root 20 0 22 root 0 -20 23 root 20 0 24 root rt 0 25 root rt 0 26 root -2 0 27 root 20 0 29 root 0 -20 30 root 20 0 31 root rt 0 32 root rt 0 33 root -2 0 34 root 20 0 36 root 0 -20 37 root 20 0 38 root 0 -20 39 root 20 0 42 root 20 0 43 root 20 0 44 root 0 -20 45 root 20 0 46 root 25 5 47 root 39 19 this is the top of “top” with a freshly opened firefox
20 0 1772976 177016 81452 S 5.6 2.2 0:01.37 Web Content
20 0 200444 85812 5472 S 4.7 1.1 2:12.73 synergyc
20 0 586468 96100 4112 S 4.7 1.2 188:00.16 glances
20 0 500944 25788 15812 S 3.7 0.3 604:15.62 Xorg
20 0 441628 34112 6752 S 3.3 0.4 1:37.76 glances
20 0 1111168 40212 15528 S 2.7 0.5 8:16.47 terminator
20 0 1673956 104928 74576 S 1.0 1.3 0:00.39 Web Content
9 -11 1596360 21536 18532 S 0.7 0.3 183:02.67 pulseaudio
20 0 708460 1816 1140 S 0.7 0.0 89:57.71 conky
20 0 146456 38080 35648 S 0.3 0.5 0:10.50 i3
20 0 2940956 624276 115780 S 0.3 7.7 0:05.59 firefox
20 0 1115348 28396 20264 S 0.3 0.3 252:10.88 pavucontrol
20 0 242340 4552 2928 S 0.0 0.1 5:03.88 systemd
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.57 kthreadd
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/0:0H
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 mm_percpu_wq
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 1:10.46 ksoftirqd/0
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 7:41.48 rcu_preempt
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:40.18 rcu_sched
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rcu_bh
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 10:20.43 rcuc/0
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rcub/0
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.09 migration/0
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.00 watchdog/0
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 cpuhp/0
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 cpuhp/1
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.98 watchdog/1
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.08 migration/1
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 10:49.46 rcuc/1
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 1:13.51 ksoftirqd/1
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/1:0H
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 cpuhp/2
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.01 watchdog/2
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.09 migration/2
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 10:53.95 rcuc/2
0 0 0 R 0.0 0.0 1:22.17 ksoftirqd/2
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/2:0H
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 cpuhp/3
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.98 watchdog/3
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.09 migration/3
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 10:56.67 rcuc/3
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 1:39.79 ksoftirqd/3
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/3:0H
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kdevtmpfs
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 netns
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rcu_tasks_kthre
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.35 khungtaskd
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 oom_reaper
0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 writeback
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:25.44 kcompactd0
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ksmd
0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khugepaged

SgtAwesomesauce · April 30, 2018, 6:26pm

Well, you’ve got very few processes, so it’s almost guaranteed to be the GPU drivers for xorg.

SlipperyVagoo · April 30, 2018, 6:38pm

ok, i have installed extra/xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.15-2 (xorg-drivers), it still shows up as GPU: NVC8 in screenfetch but i guess i’ll return if the issue comes back after some use.
Thanks for the help

Edit 1
I installed it and restarted the computer so it might take a couple of days before the issue comes back

SgtAwesomesauce · April 30, 2018, 6:39pm

what driver is the GPU showing under lspci -knn?

SlipperyVagoo · April 30, 2018, 6:41pm

VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GF110 [GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores] [10de:1087] (rev a1)
Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. GF110 [GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores] [19da:2207]
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
Kernel modules: nouveau

SgtAwesomesauce · April 30, 2018, 6:45pm

Okay, good. Looks like it’s picking up the nouveau driver properly.

I’ll be here if you continue to have issues.

SlipperyVagoo · May 11, 2018, 5:20pm

after 5 fays of uptime the issue has returned.

SgtAwesomesauce · May 11, 2018, 5:32pm

Uh oh. I was really hoping it was a GPU issue.

I’m not entirely sure where to go from here.

hondaman · May 11, 2018, 5:35pm

Without kicking the bees nest, maybe you should stick with a more stable distro as your daily?

SgtAwesomesauce · May 11, 2018, 5:38pm

Telling an Arch (or derivative) user to switch distros is not just kicking the bees nest, you punted it across the field.

SlipperyVagoo · May 11, 2018, 5:59pm

If this was an important computer i would do that, but this one i just fuck around with and use to drive my need for many hundreds of browser tabs. Guess it is reinstallation time, Again thanks for everything

hondaman · May 11, 2018, 6:02pm

Make no mistake, I like Arch. It’s fun, it’s interesting, you get to play with the latest and greatest and you get to tinker with it all you want. I tried it as my daily and went about a month before an update made it so crashy it became unusable. And I’m just not smart enough to figure out why it broke, and I don’t have the patience for my main computer not to work.

Linuxephus · May 12, 2018, 4:40am

If everything appears to be in working order hardware and software wise… The problem might simply be those “hundreds of open tabs” consuming enough CPU cycles over X amount of time considering that amount of tabs is going to build a sizable cache over time to cause just that sort of problem.

Not counting the potential for any hard-drive problems of course.

SlipperyVagoo · May 14, 2018, 6:03pm

It might just be all of the tabs. i am not sure how firefox handles everything, does it have a leaking issue of some kind which might be causing it since it only happens after around 5 days of uptime?
with suspending all but currently in use tabs with https://add0n.com/tab-suspender.html how would that influence that?
i also block most stuff with uMatrix and other stuff as listed in OP

Smart says my hard drive looks fine, i know smart is not always accurate but throwing that out there.

Cobra92fs · May 14, 2018, 6:17pm

Im not a Linux guru. Are you seeing a particular process consuming a good chunk of the system’s resources, i.e CPU, RAM, or Disk?
Also may be worth checking the size of you swap partition. If you are suspending “hundreds” of firefox tabs, it may be filling up your swap.

If it were my system, I would investate for a memory leak.

SgtAwesomesauce · May 14, 2018, 6:24pm

You could check this by looking at your memory usage with glances or htop.

If your memory is full or your swap is filling up, that’s likely your issue.

If you want to share your SMART report, I can give you my opinion.

SlipperyVagoo · May 14, 2018, 6:40pm

Wops, didn’t mean to take a complete screenshot.
Not sure if there is anything better to use than gnome-disks