Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:18:55 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:18:46 -0500 Received: from avocet.mail.pas.earthlink.net ([207.217.120.50]:17876 "EHLO avocet.prod.itd.earthlink.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:18:37 -0500 Message-ID: <3C295D5C.50EE365D@home.com> Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:17:16 -0500 From: Paul Boley X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.17 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: severe slowdown with 2.4 series w/heavy disk access Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org I have been having this problem with the whole 2.4 kernel series.. Under heavy disk access, the entire system will slow down and almost all of my memory, save 5 megs, gets used up, never to return. I am currently running 2.4.17 on a machine with 416 megs of ram, Duron 750, not overclocked. Cpu temp does not exceed 107 deg F ever, so I don't think its a heat issue. I have an MSI K7T Pro2 motherboard, using the KT133 chipset. Anyway, the following is how I can duplicate the problem, in about 5 minutes. I only used mozilla for this because I was working with it when I decided to isolate the problem. Also note this happens more than just with tar, and sometimes it happens for no apparent reason at all. *** free and ps -ax, before the slowdown: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 417472 30104 387368 0 1264 21748 -/+ buffers/cache: 7092 410380 Swap: 136544 0 136544 PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND 1 ? S 0:04 init 2 ? SW 0:00 [keventd] 3 ? SWN 0:00 [ksoftirqd_CPU0] 4 ? SW 0:00 [kswapd] 5 ? SW 0:00 [bdflush] 6 ? SW 0:00 [kupdated] 63 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/syslogd 66 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/klogd -c 3 78 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/atd -b 15 -l 1 90 tty1 S 0:00 -bash 91 tty2 S 0:00 -bash 92 tty3 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux 93 tty4 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux 94 tty5 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux 95 tty6 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux 192 tty2 S 0:00 top 200 tty1 R 0:00 ps -ax *** I then rm -rf'd mozilla, and tar -zxvf mozilla-source-0.9.7.tar.gz, *** and immediately after, ran free and ps -ax again. The system started *** losing memory and slowing down about 10 seconds into the *** decompression. total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 417472 412192 5280 0 20632 315680 -/+ buffers/cache: 75880 341592 Swap: 136544 0 136544 PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND 1 ? S 0:04 init 2 ? SW 0:00 [keventd] 3 ? SWN 0:00 [ksoftirqd_CPU0] 4 ? SW 0:00 [kswapd] 5 ? SW 0:00 [bdflush] 6 ? SW 0:02 [kupdated] 63 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/syslogd 66 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/klogd -c 3 78 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/atd -b 15 -l 1 90 tty1 S 0:00 -bash 91 tty2 S 0:00 -bash 92 tty3 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux 93 tty4 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux 94 tty5 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux 95 tty6 S 0:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux 192 tty2 S 0:01 top 207 tty1 R 0:00 ps -ax - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/