12.04 slows down when watching videos

[Jim Byrnes]

On 03/15/2015 04:51 PM, Colin Law wrote:
> On 15 March 2015 at 21:09, Jim Byrnes <jf_byrnes at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Running Ubuntu 12.04, Firefox 36.0.1 and Chromium 37.02.2062.120 all up to
>> date.
>>
>> Over the last couple of weeks when I watch youtube videos my machine
>> gradually slows down and become unusable.  The mouse gets jumpy and if I try
>> to open or close a window it does it in stages  and take 5 or 10 seconds to
>> fade in or out.  I've tried Firefox and Chromium with the same results.
>> Today I was watching a video on NHL.com with Chromium and the same thing
>> happened. If I don't watch any videos the machine will run without any slow
>> downs for as long as I care to run it.
>>
>> I took a snapshot of top when this was happening maybe it shows something.
>>
>> jfb at jims1204:~$ top
>>
>> top - 14:49:02 up  5:46,  2 users,  load average: 0.97, 1.60, 1.09
>> Tasks: 202 total,   2 running, 200 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
>> Cpu(s):  6.6%us, 16.7%sy,  0.0%ni, 73.3%id,  3.3%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,
>> 0.0%st
>> Mem:   7920416k total,  5041248k used,  2879168k free,   334336k buffers
>> Swap:  8124412k total,      172k used,  8124240k free,  2766816k cached
>>
>>    PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
>>   1810 root      20   0  301m 194m  24m S   27  2.5  14:43.91 Xorg
>>      6 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S   23  0.0   0:17.39 migration/0
>>      8 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S   13  0.0   0:40.38 migration/1
>>     17 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S   12  0.0   0:32.61 migration/3
>>   2338 jfb       20   0 1365m 255m  48m S    9  3.3  19:46.92 compiz
>>     13 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S    5  0.0   0:31.98 migration/2
>>   9789 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    5  0.0   0:02.17 kworker/3:2
>> 10189 jfb       20   0  510m  16m  10m S    2  0.2   0:01.11 gnome-terminal
>>   1373 mongodb   20   0  341m  38m 8844 S    1  0.5   3:18.10 mongod
>> 10008 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    1  0.0   0:01.23 kworker/0:0
>>   2151 jfb       20   0 25544 2596  572 S    0  0.0   1:14.42 dbus-daemon
>>   2433 jfb       20   0  590m  19m  10m S    0  0.3   3:06.79 unity-panel-ser
>>   9788 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.44 kworker/2:1
>>      1 root      20   0 24440 2352 1276 S    0  0.0   0:00.83 init
>>      2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.02 kthreadd
>>      3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:11.34 ksoftirqd/0
>>      7 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.39 watchdog/0
>>     10 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:01.90 ksoftirqd/1
>>
>> I am curious as to what those entries for migration/xx are?
>
> If you google for
> ubuntu migration process
> you will find an explanation of what they are.  I think they are more
> likely a symptom rather than the cause.

OK, thanks, I will.

   What that is I do not know.
> Is there disk activity going on when it slows down?
>
> Is there anything unusual about your flash installation?
>
> What does
> apt-cache policy flashplugin-installer
> show?
>

I believe I solved the problem while I was gathering this info. I 
watched a video to check on disk activity and the problem appeared so I 
went to shutdown but did a restart instead.  When it booted back up the 
slowness was still there.  Then I realized I restarted not shutdown and 
it made me think of heat.  I blew out the case and now the problem 
appears to be gone.

Regards,  Jim


>
> Colin
>