Very strange hardware quirk?

David2010 · 05-19-2011, 09:59 PM

Ok this was a very strange one.

I posted this in Hardware because I am almost positive it had nothing to do with the software and MAYBE nothing to do with Linux.

I have been running Gentoo Linux on this machine for quite some time now and its still just as blazing fast as when I installed it.

This is a laptop with an "Intel passed" overclocked CPU.

I am using it as a desktop of sorts plugged into an exterior monitor with an exterior keyboard and mouse. I have my reasons.

Of course I have the laptop propped up on the sides to ensure maximum air flow into its three fans on the bottom.

I have this laptop hooked right into the wall. No battery.

This laptop is left on for days at a time. Not usually a problem with the hardware nor Linux.

After I got back from my cousins graduation ceremony I got on my laptop as usual and went back to game programming in C++.

It didn't take long for me to realize that the computer was running abnormally slow. It wasn't unbearable at first so I just ignored it.

Then it just got slower and slower until it took several seconds to move the mouse cursor. O.o

All the while the CPU was at 100%.

I shutdown the computer with Linux and it went through the normal shutdown procedure.

What was really strange is the monitor turned off but the laptop was still going.

Nothing was going on but the CPU fans were spinning as fast as they could.

I held the power button on the laptop to stop it but nothing happened.

I had to pull the power plug right from the laptop to kill it. O.O

After waiting a couple minutes I started it back up and its just as blazing fast as when I got it...

Very strange indeed.

Anyone else experienced anything quite like this?

Could this be a preemptive hardware failure?

MrCode · 05-19-2011, 10:38 PM

Have you checked what process(es) is/are taking up all that CPU time? Try opening a terminal and running "top" to see what's taking up 100% CPU. There's likely something running in the background that shouldn't be.

David2010 · 05-20-2011, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrCode

Have you checked what process(es) is/are taking up all that CPU time? Try opening a terminal and running "top" to see what's taking up 100% CPU. There's likely something running in the background that shouldn't be.

Well I am going to call it a fluke (for now) because at of this very moment its running smoothly.

Also why is Linux using swap when there is PLENTY of RAM to use? Doesn't make any sense to me.

Here is the output of "top"

Code:

top - 18:42:44 up  3:01,  3 users,  load average: 1.05, 1.26, 1.28
Tasks:  83 total,   1 running,  81 sleeping,   1 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 1.9%us,  8.9%sy,  0.0%ni, 63.0%id,  3.3%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.3%si,  0.0%st
Mem:    756856k total,   707840k used,    49016k free,    57440k buffers
Swap:   987992k total,     2616k used,   985376k free,   475776k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                
18512 root      20   0 42928  12m 5016 S  1.9  1.7  15:55.72 /usr/bin/X -noliste
    1 root      20   0  1748  488  452 S  0.0  0.1  11:28.66 init [3]           
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [kthreadd]         
    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.19 [ksoftirqd/0]      
    4 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [kworker/0:0]      
    6 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [migration/0]      
    7 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [khelper]          
  142 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.04 [sync_supers]      
  144 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [bdi-default]      
  146 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [kblockd]          
  149 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [kacpid]           
  150 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [kacpi_notify]     
  151 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [kacpi_hotplug]    
  247 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.04 [kseriod]          
  346 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [rpciod]           
  362 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [khungtaskd]       
  363 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:01.67 [kswapd0]          
  364 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [fsnotify_mark]    
  365 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [aio]              
  366 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [nfsiod]           
  367 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [xfs_mru_cache]    
  368 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [xfslogd]          
  369 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [xfsdatad]         
  370 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [xfsconvertd]      
  371 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [crypto]           
  403 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [i915]             
  528 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [iscsi_eh]         
  556 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [kpsmoused]        
 2729 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.60 [kworker/u:1]      
 5281 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.27 [kworker/u:2]      
 8500 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [scsi_tgtd]        
 8938 root      20   0  182m 115m  13m S  0.0 15.6   1:03.66 /usr/lib/opera/oper
 8949 root      20   0  112m  22m  11m S  0.0  3.0   0:33.04 /usr/lib/opera//ope
 8950 root      20   0  2980  208  148 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 /usr/lib/opera//ope
 8960 root      20   0  5428 2452 1952 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.30 xterm              
 8962 root      20   0  3136 1620 1320 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.43 bash               
 8966 root      20   0  2440  996  776 T  0.0  0.1   0:00.02 top                
 8978 root      20   0  110m  11m 9812 S  0.0  1.5   0:01.85 pcmanfm             
 9035 root      20   0  1956  656  540 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 gnome-pty-helper   
 9036 root      20   0  3136 1500 1248 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.01 /bin/bash          
 9041 root      20   0 91152  10m 8640 S  0.0  1.4   0:00.68 gcalctool          
 9210 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [cciss_scan]       
11011 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [khubd]            
11671 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [usbhid_resumer]   
12003 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [khpsbpkt]         
12671 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [kstriped]         
13383 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [ksnapd]           
14760 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [jfsIO]            
14761 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [jfsCommit]        
14762 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [jfsSync]          
15540 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.57 [kjournald]        
15640 root      16  -4  2148  480  296 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.63 /sbin/udevd --daemo
15722 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:05.59 [kworker/0:2]      
15834 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [cfg80211]         
15836 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [pccardd]          
15856 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 [phy0]             
16355 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.71 [flush-3:0]        
17419 root      20   0  1736  184  144 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 /sbin/netplugd -i e
18265 root      20   0  1752  440  436 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.01 /usr/sbin/acpid    
18379 root      35  15  3340 1384  876 S  0.0  0.2   0:02.39 /usr/sbin/preload -
18415 messageb  20   0  2604  460  376 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemo
18460 haldaemo  20   0 14200 1776 1468 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.60 /usr/sbin/hald --us
18461 root      20   0  3592 1048 1028 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.05 hald-runner        
18465 root      20   0  3664  940  852 S  0.0  0.1   0:03.27 hald-addon-input: L
18467 root      20   0  3660  844  844 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /usr/libexec/hald-a
18468 root      20   0  3660  844  844 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /usr/libexec/hald-a
18475 root      20   0  3656  868  868 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /usr/libexec/hald-a
18476 root      20   0  3656  868  868 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /usr/libexec/hald-a
18480 root      20   0  3664  892  848 S  0.0  0.1   0:02.54 hald-addon-storage:
18494 root      20   0  9788 3688 2516 S  0.0  0.5   0:01.14 /usr/bin/slim      
18517 root      20   0  1788  592  588 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /sbin/agetty 38400 
18518 root      20   0  1788  592  588 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /sbin/agetty 38400 
18519 root      20   0  1788  592  588 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /sbin/agetty 38400 
18520 root      20   0  1788  592  588 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.01 /sbin/agetty 38400 
18521 root      20   0  1788  592  588 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /sbin/agetty 38400 
18522 root      20   0  1788  592  588 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 /sbin/agetty 38400 
18530 root      20   0  9660 3044 2360 S  0.0  0.4  37:00.54 fluxbox            
18538 root      18  -2  2144  336  156 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 /sbin/udevd --daemo
18540 root      18  -2  2144  180    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 /sbin/udevd --daemo
18570 root      20   0  1940  112    4 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 dhcpcd wlan0

cascade9 · 05-20-2011, 04:12 AM

Could be overheating, that can cause the issues you describe.

BTW, 2616k of swap use, sometimes thats the way swap works. You could possibly get rid of it by playing with sappiness, but I wouldnt bother.

onebuck · 05-20-2011, 07:17 AM

Hi,

If this happens again then I would check the logs in '/var/log/'. Your just shooting in the dark with 'top'. If it is overheating then something should show up.

Book-ending the laptop is not the way to insure proper operation since the unit is designed to operate horizontally or slight angle off. You could use a laptop cooler to extend the life.