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

[Peter Teuben]

On 01/15/2013 03:42 PM, JD wrote:
>
> 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.
>
>

I've done that in these cases, and it's nothing particularly striking,
other than compiz at not even 100%

My "clicking the mouse" isn't a very reliable way to get the system to
respond badly I should add,
but it's not like starting some known app, it's when I'm in the middle
of something seemingly innocent.
Not something that I would expect to eat up my swap.


I'm planning to expand to 16GB anyways, this problem surely better go away.

peter