In addition to Toms excellent advise. Try the <CTRL> - <ALT> - F2 key
combination to bring up a different Term. Login there then run "top". It may be
quicker if X is sluggish.
Alternatively, if things are not that sluggish, you may want to use a GUI
version like kpm (under KDE). Open it and have a look while things are normal.
Mine (running MDK7.1) is in
Applications > Monitoring > "Process Management"
The PID (Process ID) is the task number of each running program. You can kill
any programs from the menus if you are root, or kill any of your own if you are
a user.
Have fun
Michael
Tom Brinkman wrote:
>
> On Sunday 17 March 2002 10:45 am, jquandt3 wrote:
> > Well, I have the same problem on occasion. I cannot say if it is
> > related to being online since I have a cable connection, but RAM is
> > not my problem. I have 512 MB DDR and my system never touches the
> > swap file. I intentionally tried to make it hit the swap file and
> > had a hard time getting it below 150 MB.
> > Similar symptoms to the previous message. Everything slows down to
> > a crawl until reboot. it takes 2 mins for the clock icon to leave
> > a program opening in KDE and then it may not actually pop up for
> > another 30 sec to 1 min. Even if I just want to open a terminal.
> > It does not seem to be related to length of logon time, as it has
> > occurred soon after a reboot and after several hours.
>
> One often cause for symtoms like this is a runaway process(es).
> When your system gets sluggish, open a terminal and run 'top'.
> <Shift+P> will show proccesses usin the most cpu time. Rarely should
> it be much over 10% total, much less any one process. Runaway
> procceses often show 60% or more and need to be killed ASAP. Which
> is what you did with a reboot. 'kill -9 <pid>' would'a fixed it.
>
> A way to constantly monitor, is to use lm_sensors and a GUI for
> it (GKrellm). I configure Gkrellm to show just cpu temp which also
> displays a little cpu load gauge. I've got it in a window (always on
> top, all desktops) less than 1/4" high, about an inch long on the top
> right side of my screen (just fits on open windows title bars).
> When/if I see cpu temp go to the max, and/or the little cpu gauge
> turn red, peg to the right and stay there... I start 'top' and see
> who the offender(s) is.
>
> Often I already know tho ;) It's normal to see high cpu usage
> during somethin like a kernel && modules compile. It's not normal
> tho even when you have dozens of open and running apps, 'cept maybe
> for a few seconds here'n there. I've got a dozen running apps right
> now, including 2 simultaneous d/l's going over a Net connection...
> and the cpu gauge is bouncing on low to -0-, cpu temp is normal.
>
> For Windoze users the whole deal is actually a lot simpler ... the
> system just crashes ;)
> --
> Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
I feel partially hydrogenated!
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