Kubuntu slowing to an absoulute crawl after being left for several hours
 

Several times recently, i've left Kubuntu 7.10 on my PC logged on, downloading distros etc. with ktorrent, for around 7 hours while i go to the pub. When i come back to it, the mouse cursor and every program is sluggish, and it won't even shutdown properly, i end up holding the power button in. I've tried the setting vmswappiness to a lower figure, currently at 45, but still same thing happened again. The only other program left open is Amarok. This is really bugging me, anyone any ideas?

My system spec:
ASUS k8-UX mobo
AMD 2800+ Sempron
1256MB ram
nvidia FX5200
3 hard drives: 20gb (windows), 160 (ext3), 200Gb (ext3 Kubuntu with seperate home partition)

Can you run ksysguard or top to see what is using memory and CPU time? That will be a step towards solving this.

Rob

Do you have beagle running?

I am having similar (I have taken to calling it "molasses mode") & possibly related problems on SimplyMEPIS 6.0 running KDE 3.5.3 -- in fact I am in the middle of a related problem as I type. Although I cannot get to the Google searches & results, I found web references that suggest that this is a known KDE issue.

explodingzebras,
Which ver. of KDE does Kubuntu 7.10 use?
How much swap?
Can you get to tty1-6 (Ctrl-Alt-F1 etc.) & is the box responsive once you finally get there?
If so you can run top, or possibly htop, there.

nx5000,
I'm intrigued, what do you think beagle might have to do w/ this?

Yes, there are at least 5 instances of beagled & 1 of kerry showing up in htop.


I am in a position to do a little experimenting, e.g. kill beagle, & report the results.

This system:
(orig.) Tyan K7 thunder
2 x 1200 Athlon
1 GiB DDR RAM
2.5 GB swap in 3 partitions on 2 spindles
SimplyMEPIS 6.0
KDE 3.5.3

I don't know..
http://www.google.com/search?q=beagle+hog
:)

I tried Beagle (1year ago or so), left my PC untouched for maybe 2h and then was unable to do anything but powering off.
I removed Beagle, no more problem.

I didn't take the time to investigate because I didn't need Beagle, so I removed it. Maybe the default configuration was not good with respect to my hard-disk, I'm not blaming the software but as default install on my debian, it was a bit like "using norton antivirus on xp" :)

disabled beagle
 

The first time it happened i had beagle running and firefox was open, (and i couldnt get ksysgaurd or ctrl alt f1, or ctrl alt delete or anything to work, the keyboard would not respond when it happened) same thing happened again without beagle running.

I'm now running gnome desktop instead without any problems and beagle is enabled. I'm running 7.10 (fresh install) with all repositories enabled, plus automatix.