machine load extreme peaking for short periods....mouse not moving etc.

[JD]

On 01/15/2013 01:30 PM, Peter Teuben wrote:
> On my old 2GB memory 32-bit Ubuntu 12.04 laptop I "frequently" encountered
> debilitating periods of extremely high load (>10) and a completely
> useless system
> for extended periods.  As this never occurred on earlier versions of
> Ubuntu and
> Fedora, I blaimed this on Unity/Compiz,  as the event where it was
> triggered usually
> was some mouseclick in either the browser or picasa..
>
> I figured my new i7 based 4GB memory SSD on / based laptop would make
> this history.   I can't
> believe this is still happening. Admittedly, 4GB on a 64bit machine is
> theoretically
> not much better than 2GB on a 32bit machine, but this is really crazy
> that I have
> to wait for the mouse to respond again for good fraction of a minute.
> What is going on here,
> is this is problem others have seen as well?
>
> peter
>
Hi peter,
Open a terminal, exdpand it to full screen, and run
top

Wait for a while and click the mouse.
You should be able to see what's hogging the cpu.