poor performance in x
 

specs:

P3 600EB
via apollo pro chipset
via apollo onboard sound
512mb ram
geforce 2 mx 32mb ram
slackware 10 (kde)

i have disabled all the animations, effects , etc .

sometimes when i do a simple thing such as change window view it takes way too long, sometimes the window freezes.

mozilla feels very slow and sluggish, and just now it almost froze and all i was doing was typing in this thread.

do i have to get chipset drivers or something? ive looked on the via site but they have none.

i thought slackware was spose to be fast and stable, this is feeling slower then when i had this system running under xp.

also, i disabled the system sounds in desktop settings wizard or something but they are still here. and how do i make a folder keep its view.

eg, everytime i open up my home dir it reverts back to tile view and i have to select tree everytime.

and sound cracks/pops every now and then even if nothing is using the sound. getting stupid now, everytime i set icons to tree view, the window locks up. just started doing it now, must be some conflict with the icon theme i just changed to.

What kernel are you using ? I found on my server (same VIA chipset) that some kernels 2.4.26 and earlier were not performing very well on that chipset, specially the disc performance was very poor. I resolved it by installing a 2.4.27 kernel. This could be the case on your machine as well.

im using 2.4.26

what kernel do u recommend i should use?

The latest stable 2.4 . Right now that is 2.4.27 , but there is no Slackware package. So you'll have to compile it from scratch. But do some testing before jumping to conclusions, you could do some brief testing using hdparm -tT /dev/hd[a-d] .

actually 2.4.27 is in -current.

Another idea is to install nVidia's 3D drivers. I think they still support the GF2....yes, they do.

hdparm gives me around 34 mb/s. which seems just right.

so the hd section of the chipset drivers is fne but its still possible the agp part is msessed up i guess.


should using the nvidia drivers speed things up?

I would try the 2.6.9 kernel, with prempt feature enabled, it definitivly improves X
speed

i agree with WMB. download/install the nvidia graphics drivers...it makes a big difference. I wouldnt go crazy recompiling kernels, you shouldnt have to do that. Also check out what processes you have running. If you did a complete install with slackware there is a chance you have things running that you dont need. If thats the case start removing the execute permission in the /etc/rc.d/rc.* scripts (the ones you dont need to startup).

Whenever my system runs sluggish (not often) the first thing I do is run top to see if there is any process hogging CPU. Actually, I have gkrellm running so I can catch it without running top. My personal experience with nvidia is that 2d performance is no different with either driver. 2.4.26 vs 2.4.27 was a wash as well. Of course, my hardware is different.

YMMV

chipset is actually via apollo pro 133 and 686a.

this is the board.

http://www.chaintech.de/PRODUCTI/mai...lot1/6ATA2.htm