One frustrating problem: I/o wait

khoma · 12-15-2007, 10:27 AM

Hi all. I have a big frustrating problem since i'm using Ubuntu as my first OS on my HP laptop (DV2172). After about one or two hours of use i see the I/O wait time going very high in my system monitor gnome applet, the system slow down becoming unstable. The only thing i can do is give a CTRL+ATL+BACKSPACE to solve the problem. The problem remains also after a format so i think is due to my hardware config. Hard disk should be a SAMSUNG HM120JI.
Any idea? Thank you.

jailbait · 12-15-2007, 02:18 PM

This could be a swap problem. A few minutes after booting try this command:

swapon -s

to display your swap activity under normal conditions. Then when the problem occurs issue the command again to see how swap is behaving during the problem.

--------------------
Steve Stites

paulsm4 · 12-15-2007, 05:01 PM

Hi -

Also consider running "top" in a separate command window, and leave it running. Sort your processes by memory usage (<Shift-M>). I suspect that when the problem occurs:

1. You'll see a very high "load average"
2. Very low "memory free"
3. A process at (or very near) the top of the process list
consuming a lot of memory and using very little CPU ("memory bound")

Good luck .. PSM

khoma · 12-17-2007, 05:39 PM

i think i've solved the problem. it was due to a compiz-f memory leak. i'm running it with --indirect-rendering and everything is perfect!