[SOLVED] High cpu utilisation for X process in -current

rpedrica · 08-13-2009, 04:26 PM

I only just noticed this after popping the plasma cpu monitoring applet onto my desktop so I'm not sure how long it has been going on, but my X process runs continuously with a high utilisation, almost pegging one of my 2 cpu cores. After starting my X session, things appear to be normal and it's only after a while that this starts happening ( perhaps after starting certain apps? ). I've done some digging around and one of the options for NVidia users is to add:

Option "RenderAccel" "on"
Option "UseEvents" "on

to xorg.conf. This has helped a bit but not by much. If I switch my compositing type from OpenGL to xrender, things don't change much for utilisation ( things slow down a lot! ).

I've also read on the GSB site that there is a problem with high cpu and X with X.org 1.4.2 in 12.2 and they offer a patched version. I'm wondering if this problem is still in X.org 1.6.3 in -current? I'm also not sure if this problem was there before adding gsb to my installation.

I currently have:
nvidia 7300gt with 185.18.29 driver
athlon x2 5000+
-current up to date
gsb 2.26.3

I've attached some top output files:

1. no ffox or tbird
2. just tbird
3. tbird and ffox

I can't recall X ever running this high especially under 12.2/kde 3.5.x. Any help appreciated ...

Regards, Robby

rpedrica · 08-15-2009, 05:21 AM

Some further information: when the problem starts occurring ( after a few days of uptime ), I can close all gnome apps ( like tbird and ffox ) and after about a minute, X will go back down to about 1-5% usage which is normal.

However the slowdown in the plasma interface stays - just selecting a launch menu will take 5 seconds or more.

Also Firefox and Thunderbird will normally not expire normally if I close them - I often have to kill the actual process.

This is a fresh install of -current as of last month so no big changes recently.

Regards, Robby

rpedrica · 08-18-2009, 08:00 AM

Any ideas are welcome.

Regards, Robby

dugan · 08-18-2009, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rpedrica

I've also read on the GSB site that there is a problem with high cpu and X with X.org 1.4.2 in 12.2 and they offer a patched version. I'm wondering if this problem is still in X.org 1.6.3 in -current?

Ask them.

They'll support Slackware 13, so they'll have been keeping track of whether the -current requires patching as well.

What I can personally tell you is that I don't have that problem on -current, and I don't have GSB installed.

rpedrica · 09-21-2009, 09:08 AM

Ok finally got this sorted and it was quite simple. Things started getting pretty bad when my work machine ( 32-bit ) also started doing the same thing and I hadn't installed any extras on it ...

"System Monitor" plasma widget!!! removed it and my whole system came back to normal. Can't believe it kills the X process like it did but I'll send a bug note to the kde guys