What is hogging the CPU's -- SOLVED

Message

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 6:40 pm

I have a dual Opteron system. If I run HTOP before logging into gnome, I see usage around 1%. Immediately after logging in both CPU's show usage averaging well over 50% for both CPU's (using HTOP). The big users shown by HTOP are

/usr/bin/X at about 6%
/usr/lib64/mozilla-firefox at about 2 to 8%.
gnome-session at 3%
/usr/bin/dbus-daemon at 2%
htop at 1%
/usr/libexec/gnome-settings at 1%

Everything else is at 0%. I'm looking for ideas for what might be keeping the CPU's so busy or perhaps what is making them look busy. For what it is worth the gnome-system-monitor shows the same sort of thing. Thanks,
Fred

energyman76b · Post by **energyman76b** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:51 am

if you use ps aux instead of htop I am sure you will see some process using 100% cpu for a very short period.

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 4:30 am

I ran ps aux into a file 186 times. There was no entry that was bigger than 6.0. For the moment I'm hoping for another explanation. But thanks,
Fred

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:02 pm

I should have added --- If I check usage before entering gnome, not much CPU is used. Checking just after entering gnome shows the problem. Logging out of gnome, and checking again shows very little CPU being used. So presumably it has something to do with X, gnome, or the nvidia driver. And I've just noticed that ps and htop show no sign of anything with nvidia in it. I'm running nvidia-drivers-185.18.14. Does that seem like a possible culprit do anyone? Thanks,
Fred

pappy_mcfae · Post by **pappy_mcfae** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:12 pm

Post the results of emerge --info.

Blessed be!
Pappy

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 8:16 pm

Here it is -- thanks.

Portage 2.1.6.13 (default/linux/amd64/2008.0, gcc-4.3.3, glibc-2.10.1-r0, 2.6.30-gentoo-r2 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: Linux-2.6.30-gentoo-r2-x86_64-AMD_Opteron-tm-_Processor_242-with-gentoo-2.0.1
Timestamp of tree: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:00:01 +0000
app-shells/bash: 4.0_p24
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7-r1, 2.1.8-r1
dev-lang/python: 2.5.4-r2, 2.6.2-r1
dev-util/cmake: 2.6.4
sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.1
sys-apps/openrc: 0.4.3-r3
sys-apps/sandbox: 2.0
sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.63-r1
sys-devel/automake: 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.2, 1.11
sys-devel/binutils: 2.19.1-r1
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1
sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.6a
virtual/os-headers: 2.6.30
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=opteron -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/lib/hsqldb"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/udev/rules.d"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=opteron -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="distlocks fixpackages parallel-fetch protect-owned sfperms strict unmerge-orphans"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org http://ftp.ucsb.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/gentoo http://cudlug.cudenver.edu/gentoo http://gentoo.binarycompass.org"
LANG="en_us"
LC_ALL="C"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"
LINGUAS="en"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage/layman/devnull"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="3dnow 3dnowext X a52 aac acl administrator aiglx alsa amd64 apache2 auctex audiofile bash-completion bcmath berkdb blas bonobo bzip2 cairo calendar cdrom clamav clamd cli clisp colordiff consolekit cracklib crypt ctype cups dbus debugger deprecated dga discouraged divx-linux dri dvd dvdr dvdread emacs emul-linux86 esd fam fastcgi fbcon ffmpeg flac fortran ftp gd gdbm glut gmail gnome gnome-keyring gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk hal iconv imagemagick ipv6 isdnlog java javascript jpeg kerberos kpathsea latex latin1 leim lesstif libclamav libnotify libwww logrotate mad maildir mbox mcal midi mime mmx mmxext mng mouse mozcalendar mozilla mpeg2 mpi mudflap multilib mysql mysqli nat ncurses nls nocd nosendmail nptl nptlonly nsplugin nvidia objc offensive ogg opengl openmp osc oscar pam pcre pdf perl png policykit pop pop3d portaudio posix ppds pppd preview-latex python query-browser readline reflection regex replytolist rtc samba sasl session sharedmem sockets sound source sox speex spl sse sse2 ssl svg symlink sysfs tcltk tcpd tetex thunderbird truetype unicode usb vhosts vorbis wxwindows xcomposite xine xmail xorg xulrunner xvid" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic auth_digest authn_anon authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock dbd deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers ident imagemap include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation proxy proxy_ajp proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_http rewrite setenvif so speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia vesa fbdev"
Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

pappy_mcfae · Post by **pappy_mcfae** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:35 am

You have three video cards listed. Which one are you using? Once you decide that, set VIDEO_CARDS to that one, and then emerge libdrm && emerge mesa && emerge xorg-server && emerge $(qlist -IC x11-drivers). That should quiet xorg's CPU demands. It is best to choose the drivers for the type of card you have (ati, nvidia, etc), since that will give you the best X functionality.

Blessed be!
Pappy

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:18 pm

Thanks for the suggestion, but with just nvidia in the list (emerge --info has VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia") there is no noticeable change.

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:07 pm

I thought I'd try some other nvidia-drivers. Masking nvidia-drivers-185.18.14, gave nvidia-drivers-180.60 which had the same problem. Masking that one and emerge tried nvidia-drivers-180.29. and that failed with

echo " ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid."; \
echo " include/linux/autoconf.h or include/config/auto.conf are missing."; \
echo " Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it. \

Following these instructions (running in /usr/src/linux) I remade the kernel. Trying the emerge after a reboot gave the same error. I'm running kernel 2.6.30-gentoo-r2. I'm giving up for now.

aricart · Post by **aricart** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 6:29 pm

Hey, could it be possible that your CPU usage is being reported incorrectly? You should try with different utilities, and see if there are any other discrepancies. After that, then maybe tweaking a few CPU related settings in your kernel config will clear things up. Just a thought.

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 6:34 pm

It is possible that the usage is reported incorrectly, but the system does feel a bit sluggish. If it is reported incorrectly it is only reported incorrectly when inside gnome/X. Did you have specific utilities in mind? Thanks,
Fred

aricart · Post by **aricart** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 7:03 pm

First take a look at "top" then "ps" then "htop" output. If they all report the same high CPU usage, then it's probably not an issue with the utilities. Next, try "iotop", it will report any unusual disk activity that may account for the increased CPU usage. If all else fails, you should change some CPU related settings in your kernel to see if this goes away.

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 8:07 pm

Top shows a bit less CPU usage than does htop, but it still at about 40% on a system that is quiet. Iotop was a bit more interesting it show gconfd-2 very busy doing disk writes at about nearly 40 K/s. Ps shows nothing using lots of time (same as top and gtop), but does not have a statistic on CPU usage. I don't know where gconfd-2 is doing the writes. Thanks.

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:19 pm

I finally found the problem. It was vino. After an emerge -C vino, and killing the vino process still running CPU usage is normal, iotop shows nothing special, and I am now a happy camper.

Fred Krogh · Post by **Fred Krogh** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 11:11 pm

This is all weird. I emerged vino and rebooted. The vino-server shows up in ps, and everything is normal. Draw you own conclusions; I have none.

pappy_mcfae · Post by **pappy_mcfae** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 5:02 am

I guess that vino was the problem...that's what that says to me.

Blessed be!
Pappy