Very sluggish performance *FIXED*
 

My computer:
AMD64 3000+ 939 pin
Abit AN8 939 pin nForce motherboard
1 gig of ram
Geforce 6800GT 256MB PCI-e

Linux Distribution:
Debian 3.1 (Sarge) using Gnome

Graphics Driver:
Linux IA32 1.0-8762
(downloaded from http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html)

uname -a
Linux debian 2.4.27-2-386 #1 ........ i686 GNU/Linux


I have a serious lag issue in Debian with any program that involves consuming bandwidth. This isn't limited to just telelag, I mean it's like the computer was just put on pause. It isn't just little jolts of lag here and there - my computer almost locks up completely for at least 10 seconds or so when it's trying to load a webpage in Firefox for example and it takes forever to load webpages. After the webpage has loaded though, I don't get any more freezeups & I can scroll up and down without any computer lag. It isn't just Firefox either, I've tried other web browsers included with Debian and it's the same issue. I also pinged the debian computer and it's latency is roughly 300 even every time, yet other computers on my network ping normal. Games, OpenOffice, etc. run just fine without any Computer lag what-so-ever which doesn't make sense to me. Any ideas?

Crack open a terminal and run top. That should show you which processes are using too much memory/CPU time.

When I hit refresh on this page and monitor top, everything pretty much freezes but when it comes out of "the freeze" mozilla is using 25% of the processor. After the webpage has loaded though, it goes down to around 3%

Weird. Is your hard disk going crazy at all?

What does your /etc/resolv.conf file look like?

Sounds like it could be a dns issue.

cs-cam: I hit refresh on this page and look at my HDD LED and it doesn't flash or anything, so I guess the answer is no. Is that what you mean by the harddrive going crazy?

rickh:

cat resolv.conf
search
nameserver 192.168.0.1

I don't recall setting that as a nameserver. I don't even have a nameserver, it's just this computer and another computer on the network hooked up to a linksys router.

I think that's your problem, but I can't quite remember what the permanent fix is. If you have DSL, I think that may have something to do with it. For a temporary fix, try deleting both lines leaving an empty /etc/resolv.conf file.

Then connect to the net with firefox. I think that will rewrite the resolv.conf file correctly. After you connect, (if it works) look at the file again. You'll see what it should look like. I suspect however that the correct configuration won't survive a reboot.

Maybe searching these forums for "resolv.conf" will turn up a permanent solution.

I deleted both lines and after I did, firefox wouldn't connect to the internet. So I rebooted, and resolv.conf changed the nameserver back to 192.168.0.1

I have DSL, a dynamic IP, using DHCP and I'm using a Linksys router. Maybe that will help. I'm still getting the very sluggish performance (computer lag and tele-lag) while browsing the web in Firefox. Anyone?

This is the output on my windows XP computer and everything connectionwise is working fine on it.
ipconfig /all
This is the output on my Linux computer
ifconfig

It definitely sounds like a timeout. If you are seeing a delay with no disk-drive activity, it could be that a particular application is frozen and isn't dealing with the GUI.

Check the usual suspects, like /var/log/messages (and other files in that directory).

Otherwise... "what changed?" When did this problem first appear?

I don't know if this is what you mean by what changed but, resolv.conf changed the nameserver to 192.168.0.1 - This is what it was at before I deleted the entries in resolv.conf as requested in a few posts up.

This started yesterday when I installed Debian 3.1 (Sarge)

I copied a chunk of the log from /var/log/messages and /var/log/kernel

/var/log/messages
I used cat /var/log/kernel and it scrolled forever, I waited 2 minutes and it was still scrolling from yesterday with errors all looking somewhat like this:

/var/log/kernel

You're on the right track with the resolv.conf issue. That file needs to contain a real dns server, not 192.168.0.1

Is this a new dsl setup, at least new to Linux? Your dsl modem obviously has a built in firewall which is not playing nice with Linux. I have seen that several times lately with dsl ISPs. If you look in your router via the browser interface, you should see the correct ip information for dns servers.

I've had this DSL modem for about 2 years. It's a Speedstream 5100 - I hope that is what you mean by asking if it's a new DSL setup to Linux. I used mozilla to log into my modem. I looked everywhere and didn't see anything that even remotely looked like there was a Firewall; it was all just connection related information such as Upsptream, Downstream, Connection Status, DNS Servers, etc.

Alright this what I just tried doing: I unplugged my router and I'm plugged straight into the DSL modem just to rule out a possible problem factor. My DSL modem's IP is 192.168.0.1 This is my guess why it is wanting to use the DSL Modem (192.168.0.1) as a nameserver. I still had the same lag issue. I then tried changing the DNS Server IP to the the one my modem had listed; I am still having the lag issue. Any ideas as to why I'm still getting this serious computer + tele lag when I'm browsing the Internet but not get lag what-so-ever using programs such as OpenOffice, various built-in games, etc.? Even when I just ping different websites (such as www.google.com) the ping is 300ms

As said, it's a network issue ie resolv.conf.
Initially connect PC to DSL modem and manually enter ISP search domain and nameservers (should be 2 of them).
I think you need to reboot to make it take effect (ie it's not dynamically updated).
Alternatively, do
sevice network restart
or equiv on your system.

How do I make resolv.conf not go back to 192.168.0.1 when I reboot? It resets itself when I reboot despite entering the dns server

I don't have a specific answer, but if you do a "Search Titles Only" (Advanced Search), from the Search button at the top of this page, You'll get a lot of hits with various suggestions about resolving this issue.