nonstop HD activity-freezing

[mako6]

No, I don't trust the SMART on this disc cause it says OK or GOOD even with these lousy numbers, and believe it did from the beginning. The memory shows 871 of 1024- that normal, and with only Opera open, uses 824. After disconnect Internet, and closing Opera, took 5 minutes for memory usage to drop to 26% (almost identical to SWAP, which was about 56%) on the SYSTEM MONITOR "Resources" tab. That ain't right, is it? Now with FF open and Internet connected, only reading 50%, but lets see what happens. IOTOP is saying

1024 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  console-kit~--no-daemon
    1 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  init
    2 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [kthreadd]
    3 rt/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [migration/0]
    4 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [ksoftirqd/0]
    5 rt/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [watchdog/0]
    6 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [events/0]
    7 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [cpuset]
    8 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [khelper]
    9 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [netns]
   10 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [async/mgr]
   11 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [pm]
   12 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [sync_supers]
   13 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [bdi-default]
   14 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [kintegrityd/0]
   15 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [kblockd/0]
   16 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [kacpid]
   17 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [kacpi_notify]
   18 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [kacpi_hotplug]
   19 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [ata/0]
   20 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [ata_aux]
   21 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [ksuspend_usbd]
   22 be/4 root          0.00 B      0.00 B  ?unavailable?  [khubd]
CONFIG_TASK_DE LAY_ACCT not enabled in kernel, cannot determine SWAPIN and IO %

when I open 12 FF windows though, w Gedit, terminal, + sysmonitor, memory use goes up to 86%, though it seems SWAP is inaccessible

  TID  PRIO  USER     DISK READ  DISK WRITE  SWAPIN     IO>    COMMAND             
 1024 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  console-kit~--no-daemon
    1 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  init
    2 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [kthreadd]
    3 rt/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [migration/0]
    4 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [ksoftirqd/0]
    5 rt/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [watchdog/0]
    6 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [events/0]
    7 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [cpuset]
    8 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [khelper]
    9 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [netns]
   10 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [async/mgr]
   11 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [pm]
   12 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [sync_supers]
   13 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [bdi-default]
   14 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [kintegrityd/0]
   15 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [kblockd/0]
   16 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [kacpid]
   17 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [kacpi_notify]
   18 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [kacpi_hotplug]
   19 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [ata/0]
   20 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [ata_aux]
   21 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [ksuspend_usbd]
   22 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  ?unavailable?  [khubd]

AGAIN, how do I prevent unnecessary processes from starting up? IS there any startup control of processes? I think it is the memory use, not bad disk, cause NOW it is doing no disk writes cause it hasn't maxed out. Here's TOP. Plug in container (video, audio) uses alot and sometimes causes freezes by itself, and Xorg is big user too, but 70% of problem is browser. 400Mz DDR (1) 1gig is really expensive now: 16x modern RAM (need 2 cause have 2x 512 and 1 gig is max), and I feel like a fool to feed this old beast more, rather than find a nice Black Friday $300 powerhouse. Tough to wait in line from 5000 miles away though. You have those ultra-sales in Britannia yet?  Guy Faulks or Hastings Day?

2469 mako4     20   0  552m 129m  10m R 19.9 14.9  17:40.61 plugin-containe       
 1212 root      20   0  315m  74m 9124 R 17.9  8.6  25:58.73 Xorg                 
 2216 mako4     20   0  362m  12m 5580 S 11.9  1.4  17:40.03 gnome-system-mo       
 2300 mako4     20   0 1189m 386m  21m S  6.6 44.4   8:52.88 firefox               
 2345 mako4     20   0  318m 9.9m 6972 S  2.7  1.1   0:07.05 gnome-terminal       
   52 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  1.0  0.0   3:50.47 kondemand/0           
 1783 mako4     20   0  260m 7724 5228 S  0.3  0.9   0:05.77 metacity             
 1802 mako4     20   0 29116  364  288 S  0.3  0.0   0:05.09 syndaemon             
 1841 mako4     20   0  272m 4556 3088 S  0.3  0.5   0:30.10 sensors-applet       
 2663 mako4     20   0 19236 1404 1040 R  0.3  0.2   0:00.11 top                   
    1 root      20   0 23800 1036  540 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.79 init                 
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 kthreadd             
    3 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0           
    4 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.17 ksoftirqd/0           
    5 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 watchdog/0           
    6 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.59 events/0   

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

I reckon it's both a lack of RAM, your choice of the full blown Ubuntu, and some bad sectors on the hard drive.

but primarily a lack of RAM .. I've said it before, and I'll say it again .. fit more RAM or switch to a lighter desktop/distro .. throwing more figures at me isn't going to change that .. 1GB is stretching it with Ubuntu

SMART data comes DIRECTLY from the HDD's own firmware .. so if you think the data is incorrect, then you think the HDD's firmware is broken .. in which case replace replace the drive.

Startup Applications is where to look for apps that start at bootup .. which "processes" do you not want to start at bootup ?

I think it is the memory use, not bad disk, cause NOW it is doing no disk writes cause it hasn't maxed out.

if it hasn't used your available RAM and isn't using swap, I'm going to guess it wasn't freezing at the time either .. so how did you draw any conclusions ? .. if on the other hand you still had spare  RAM and no I/O and it WAS freezing, then the bottleneck must be the CPU.

[mako6]

But you always ask for numbers and stats- look, my problem is it worked fine: efficient, fast, no lockups or freezes for a year  and half- these problems have only been in the last 2-3 months and the RAM and I think the disk stats haven't changed. The start-up list programs, not processes, which there are maybe 60 of running (too much, I think). Is there some process startup control, maybe manually in terminal, and which can be safely shutdown- first thing people do with Windows is limit all this start-up crap. Hows about Xorg (25-30megs)? I shut down bluetooth + Ubuntu One synch service. Can Bluetooth be manually started OK? IDE drives aren't easy to find now either, thought I might rip one out of cheap new externals, but they are already all SATA. Not really any room in a lappy for adapter. Sometimes- you are right- its the CPU that's maxing out at 100%, which usually drops radically when you disconnect Internet, so think it's some script or plug-in container loop; but most problems are from these infinite disc writes.

[SeZo]

OK, I have the same processor with 2GiB memory and running ArchBang with memory usage after startup around 120MiB

You cannot just disable applications (services) like Xorg
Go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications.
This should bring up a dialog box similar to this:


Where you can disable/enable applications. But be careful what you disable.
The following might not work on 10.10
To show hidden applications run:

Code: [Select]

cd /etc/xdg/autostart/
sudo sed --in-place 's/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g' *.desktop

After changing anything you want, you can go back to the previous state:

Code: [Select]

cd /etc/xdg/autostart/
sudo sed --in-place 's/NoDisplay=false/NoDisplay=true/g' *.desktop