linux maxing CPU on quality hardware

cad-guy · 08-28-2021, 03:04 PM

Hello folks;
This may be a topic covered before but I haven't found a close enough parallel. Online searches have not provided enough.
My %CPU is running slow despite a high quality motherboard and plenty of ram. Both websites and offline programs take several seconds for typed words to propogate.
Here is what the system looks like:
Quad core Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor
16Gb ram with 7Gb swap drive
running Linux Mint (this slowdown was also happening with the previous distro which was Deepin Linux) on an SSD.
Running 'Top' shows 12% CPU, 83 id, and 0.0 wa

If there is any information here that is needed, I'm happy to provide

jefro · 08-28-2021, 07:33 PM

Mint should have a gui performance monitor that may offer more clues.

https://community.linuxmint.com/soft...system-monitor

Mill J · 08-28-2021, 07:33 PM

Does the preinstalled System Monitor give you any clues? It should give you a graph of all four cpu's, memory/swap usage, and the network usage. You can also switch to the Proccesses tab and see which programs are taking up resources.

Your GPU could also be a factor. I've never had a problem with AMD graphics cards but I have run into NVidea stuff that didn't play very nice with any linux distro.

mrmazda · 08-28-2021, 07:48 PM

Using code tags around your paste, please provide input/output from inxi -CGSayz and pastebinit /var/log/Xorg.0.log here.

syg00 · 08-28-2021, 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cad-guy

Running 'Top' shows 12% CPU, 83 id, and 0.0 wa

Whatever the issue is, it doesn't look like CPU usage - that's about half of one core. Show us top with say the first 10 processes.

cad-guy · 08-30-2021, 09:12 PM

I meant to post this immediately. Here is what top looks like with only one LibreOffice document and five tabs open on Firefox

cad-guy · 08-30-2021, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmazda

Using code tags around your paste, please provide input/output from inxi -CGSayz and pastebinit /var/log/Xorg.0.log here.

Code:

inxi -F
System:
  Host: LinuxLargeScreen Kernel: 5.4.0-81-generic x86_64 bits: 64 
  Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Precision M6800 v: 00 
  serial: <superuser/root required> 
  Mobo: Dell model: 0XD1M5 v: A00 serial: <superuser/root required> 
  BIOS: Dell v: A23 date: 02/01/2018 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-4700MQ bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
  Speed: 199 MHz min/max: 800/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 293 2: 229 
  3: 229 4: 308 5: 320 6: 342 7: 349 8: 216 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics driver: i915 
  v: kernel 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GK104GLM [Quadro K3100M] driver: N/A 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: modesetting 
  unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) 
  v: 4.5 Mesa 21.0.3 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio 
  driver: snd_hda_intel 
  Device-2: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio 
  driver: snd_hda_intel 
  Device-3: NVIDIA GK104 HDMI Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-81-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I217-LM driver: e1000e 
  IF: eno1 state: down mac: ec:f4:bb:56:f5:81 
  Device-2: Intel Wireless 7260 driver: iwlwifi 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: f8:16:54:34:a5:ee 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 851.19 GiB (72.8%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD10JPVT-22A1YT0 
  size: 931.51 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Samsung model: SSD PM830 2.5 7mm 256GB 
  size: 238.47 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 64.04 GiB used: 52.89 GiB (82.6%) fs: ext3 dev: /dev/sdb5 
  ID-2: swap-1 size: 7.26 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb6 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 45.0 C mobo: 47.0 C sodimm: 46.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2283 
Info:
  Processes: 250 Uptime: 3d 6h 10m Memory: 15.55 GiB used: 2.79 GiB (18.0%) 
  Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.38

unfortunately pastebin only brought an error msg that is beyond my understanding (I did install pastebin though)

Code:

pastebinit /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Failed to contact the server: <urlopen error [Errno 32] Broken pipe>

cad-guy · 08-30-2021, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mill J

Does the preinstalled System Monitor give you any clues? It should give you a graph of all four cpu's, memory/swap usage, and the network usage. You can also switch to the Proccesses tab and see which programs are taking up resources.

Your GPU could also be a factor. I've never had a problem with AMD graphics cards but I have run into NVidea stuff that didn't play very nice with any linux distro.

I'm including here a screenshot of the system monitor.

Thank you in advance everyone for your input :-)

syg00 · 08-30-2021, 10:21 PM

What about the data requested in post #4 ?. - posts crossed in flight.

There is a lot of junk on the web these days - expecting everybody to have equipment that can handle it. Have a read of this diagnostic page.

mrmazda · 08-30-2021, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cad-guy

Code:

inxi -F

This omits data I'm interested to know that may have a bearing on solving this, which inxi -CGSayz would provide.

Quote:

Code:

...
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics driver: i915 
  v: kernel 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GK104GLM [Quadro K3100M] driver: N/A 
...

Intel + NVidia spells Optimus, which requires special driver installation. Do you have nvidia-prime or bumblebee installed?

Quote:

unfortunately pastebin only brought an error msg that is beyond my understanding (I did install pastebin though)

I just tried. Apparently it's broken. You can upload to various locations suited to the task from a web browser:

cad-guy · 08-31-2021, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmazda

This omits data I'm interested to know that may have a bearing on solving this, which inxi -CGSayz would provide.

Intel + NVidia spells Optimus, which requires special driver installation. Do you have nvidia-prime or bumblebee installed?

I just tried. Apparently it's broken. You can upload to various locations suited to the task from a web browser:

when I tried inxi -CGSayz the error report was

Code:

 inxi -CGSayz
Error 10: Unsupported value: 0 for option: y

I thought that inxi -f would be enough. After looking through at it more carefully, I tried just eliminating the 'y' and that gave a return

Code:

 inxi -CGSaz
System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-81-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-81-generic 
           root=UUID=c0e0d017-4fcb-4d16-8d1a-76c4c0058401 ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.20 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
           Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-4700MQ bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Haswell family: 6 
           model-id: 3C (60) stepping: 3 microcode: 28 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 38311 
           Speed: 205 MHz min/max: 800/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 442 2: 471 3: 456 4: 423 5: 467 6: 448 
           7: 445 8: 387 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 
           mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:0416 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GK104GLM [Quadro K3100M] vendor: Dell driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0 
           chip ID: 10de:11b6 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 21.0.3 compat-v: 3.0 
           direct render: Yes

I don't know how to check whether I have nvidia or bumblebee. I found this site, but I don't want to purge software without more understanding of the issue.

enigma9o7 · 08-31-2021, 09:46 AM

Your problem is your computer has two GPU, and you only have a driver installed for the low power intel one.

If you enabled proprietary drivers during installation, then a `sudo ubuntu-drivers install` will probably fix this...

cad-guy · 08-31-2021, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by enigma9o7

Your problem is your computer has two GPU, and you only have a driver installed for the low power intel one.

If you enabled proprietary drivers during installation, then a `sudo ubuntu-drivers install` will probably fix this...

Thank you Enigma. I think that you've isolated the cause of the problem. Thank you MrMazda for your suggestion. Here is what I did
I went here where the site suggests that Linux Mint users install nvidia-driver-440
the code returned from the ppa

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

(obtained through this site )is

Code:

 ## Current Status

Current long-lived branch release: `nvidia-430` (430.40)

There's also a warning

Code:

 ## WARNINGS:

This PPA is currently in testing, you should be experienced with packaging before you dive in here:

but perhaps that suggestion is obsolete.

I also checked the linux mint GUI (enclosed is a screenshot) which does show the old Nvidia 390 driver but doesn't have an option for the 430/440

So in terminal I just did: sudo apt install nvidia-driver-450

Will respond again after update

cad-guy · 08-31-2021, 11:06 AM

After installing Nvidia 450, this shows up in terminal

Code:

 ubuntu-drivers devices
WARNING:root:_pkg_get_support nvidia-driver-390: package has invalid Support Legacyheader, cannot determine support level
== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000010DEd000011B6sv00001028sd000015CDbc03sc00i00
vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
model    : GK104GLM [Quadro K3100M]
manual_install: True
driver   : nvidia-driver-390 - distro non-free recommended
driver   : nvidia-340 - distro non-free
driver   : nvidia-driver-418-server - distro non-free
driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin

There is no mention of nvidia-450 in the terminal code above and the GUI driver manager says 'your computer does not need any additional devices' without displaying an option to change the driver.

ondoho · 08-31-2021, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cad-guy

I meant to post this immediately. Here is what top looks like with only one LibreOffice document and five tabs open on Firefox

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...2&d=1630375897

Welcome to the WWW of 2021 - it can bring even a "quality" CPU to its knees.
Try disabling javascript in FF, just to see what happens. I daresay CPU will go closer to 10%.
But alas, sometimes even pure CSS can make your browser really hot and bothered.
In a nutshell, it depends a lot on those 5 tabs.