[Bug 582264] Re: lucid lynx going into disk activity frenzy, stalls for minutes

[Romano Giannetti]

apport information

** Tags added: apport-collected

** Description changed:

  Sometime, more or less every 3-4 minutes or when I start a new program, with a relatively light load (chromium browser, thunderbird, one VirtualBox session) the computers went into frenzy disk activity and grind to a practical halt for the next minute or so. Very unresponsive, triggers the "this page do not respond" warning from chrome or OOffice... then it resume. 
  I tried to track the culprit without any luck. Reducing vm.swappiness from 60 to 10 did not help. Cumulative atop for disk usage says: 
  
  
      NPROCS  SYSCPU  USRCPU  VSIZE  RSIZE  RDDSK WRDSK RNET SNET  MEM CMD     1/4   
       1   1.06s   0.08s   1.0G 836.0M    280   480    0    0  42% VirtualBox
       8   0.07s   0.25s   1.2G 174.7M    232     0    0    0   9% chrome
       1   0.03s   0.13s 246.6M 112.0M      0     0    0    0   6% Xorg
       1   0.00s   0.02s 340.5M 74156K  15072     8    0    0   4% thunderbird-bi
       1   0.00s   0.00s 93692K  9256K      0     0    0    0   0% nautilus   
       1   0.01s   0.01s 48844K  5616K   1184    24    0    0   0% gnome-terminal
       1   0.00s   0.00s 41928K  5136K      0     0    0    0   0% wnck-applet   
  
  and free:
  
  (0)pern:~% free
               total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
  Mem:       2027004    1977144      49860          0       1184      50012
  -/+ buffers/cache:    1925948     101056
  Swap:      3903752     342976    3560776
  
  
  This is a Dell n-series, core2 cpu, 2G ram, running a 32 bit kernel, ATI card with fglrx module.
  
  Never happened such a thing with Karmic, same load (I know, virtualbox
  use half of the memory, but that was the same in Karmic, with no problem
  at all).
  
  The system is pretty unusable for work.
  
- Will try to reboot in an older kernel, using firefox, and downgrade
- virtualbox to try to find why, but if anyone has a suggestion, it's very
- welcome.
+ Will try to reboot in an older kernel, using firefox, and downgrade virtualbox to try to find why, but if anyone has a suggestion, it's very welcome.
+ --- 
+ AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
+ Architecture: i386
+ ArecordDevices:
+  **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
+  card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
+    Subdevices: 2/2
+    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
+    Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
+ AudioDevicesInUse:
+  USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
+  /dev/snd/controlC0:  romano     1559 F.... pulseaudio
+ CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
+ Card0.Amixer.info:
+  Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xfebdc000 irq 16'
+    Mixer name	: 'Analog Devices AD1984'
+    Components	: 'HDA:11d41984,10280211,00100400'
+    Controls      : 30
+    Simple ctrls  : 18
+ DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
+ Frequency: Once a day.
+ HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=75c5b06d-24c3-4a8e-a0f3-cf3b519c35ad
+ IwConfig:
+  lo        no wireless extensions.
+  
+  eth0      no wireless extensions.
+  
+  vboxnet0  no wireless extensions.
+ MachineType: Dell Inc. OptiPlex 755
+ NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
+ Package: linux (not installed)
+ ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=fe469c02-94bf-4a0f-a430-32767942a34d ro xforcevesa quiet splash
+ ProcEnviron:
+  LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
+  PATH=(custom, user)
+  LANG=en_GB.utf8
+  SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh
+ ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.36-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
+ Regression: Yes
+ RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.34
+ Reproducible: No
+ RfKill:
+  
+ Tags: lucid  regression-release needs-upstream-testing
+ Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
+ UserGroups: adm admin audio cdrom dialout dip fax floppy fuse lpadmin netdev plugdev sambashare scanner tape vboxusers video
+ WifiSyslog: Jun  8 10:24:26 pern kernel: [54110.681761] warning: `VirtualBox' uses 32-bit capabilities (legacy support in use)
+ WpaSupplicantLog:
+  
+ dmi.bios.date: 08/04/2008
+ dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
+ dmi.bios.version: A11
+ dmi.board.name: 0DR845
+ dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
+ dmi.chassis.type: 3
+ dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
+ dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA11:bd08/04/2008:svnDellInc.:pnOptiPlex755:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0DR845:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct3:cvr:
+ dmi.product.name: OptiPlex 755
+ dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

** Attachment added: "AlsaDevices.txt"
   http://launchpadlibrarian.net/49941319/AlsaDevices.txt

-- 
lucid lynx going into disk activity frenzy, stalls for minutes 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/582264
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