Hi,

My box is connected to a big network and every now and then I feel my system becomes very slow and sometimes non-responsive at all. I could see there is a HDD activity from the flashing light in the CPU. It takes > 5~10 min to come back to normal and sometimes I have to restart my system to make it work properly.
My questions are:
1- Is this normal in Ubuntu?
2- How do I know if there are some processes running in the background? I tried htop but I could see nothing abnormal!
3- How do I know if there is a network scan running?
4- Is there a "quick" way to know if someone is logged into my system without my authorization?

Thanks in advance,

faizlo

Does it happen at the same time or on the same day? ... you could start by looking into what's scheduled via cron

Sounds like swapping problems. try using gnome-system-monitor and checking 'Processes' to see if anything is using excessive memory. (esp. Nautilus)
That will also show you if you're using a lot of swap space. under 'Resources'
How much ram do you have in that box and what type of drive is it using?

Hi,

Thanks all for your replies.
This happens only few hours after I start/restart my system. As I said I start to notice a HDD activity through the blinking lights in my CPU.
I am using a 2GB ram and my drive is a WD drive. And cron is not used on my system.

I will check with the gnome-system-monitor and then post back what I get.

~faizlo