[Mageia-dev] Strange system stalls - neep a tip

[David Sjölin]

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 7:33 PM, AL13N <alien at rmail.be> wrote:
> perhaps check the logs (/var/log/messages) for information regarding those
> downtimes.
>
> see if the ping also delays
>
> perhaps try to monitor something via ssh or in tty, to see if it's only
> the graphic card.
>
> also, check ntpd settings, do they make big jumps?
>
> etc...
>
>
> in short: logging is always the key.
>
>> Hello All -
>>
>> I am experiencing a strange problem with a specific machine running
>> Cauldron.  I am beginning to believe it is NOT a Mageia problem because
>> when I boot into Ubuntu 12.04 the problem exists as well.  I think it
>> may be hardware related but I can not find what is causing this issue.
>>
>> The machine is an Acer Aspire x3900 with a quad core ‎AMD Phenom(tm) II
>> X4 925 Processor - 6GB memory.  GeForce GT215 (GeForce 320) card. I am
>> running the x86_64 version of Cauldron.
>>
>> The problem occurs under both KDE and Gnome
>>
>> Basically, the system seems to freeze up (mouse moves) but nothing else
>> - gkrellem freezes and no errors occur - it just seems to hang - but
>> magically wake up again after some time (many seconds at a time)
>>
>> I have checked various logs and can not find any problems - so I am
>> stumped how to find the source of the problem.  I leave the machine
>> running 24x7, but don't think it is a thermal issue.
>>
>> When the system runs under Windows 7 (64bit) it appears to run fine.
>>
>> Any hints what I could check?
>>

Hello!

If you want to log cpuusage to see if some process has extra high cpu
usage during this freeze you could do something like:

while true; do date >> testfilen.txt ; top -b -n1 >> testfilen.txt ;
sleep 1; done

Then you will get top-output every second (sleep 1) or whatever time
you specify for sleep. I think there is a way to do this with top
only, without the delay but not sure which flags to use then (possibly
top -d 1 -b)

The file testfilen.txt will of course grow quite large after a while,
so you can't keep this running 24/7 maybe, but maybe you could clear
out the file regularly until you get the error situation again and
then based on the date output you should be able to find cpu usage
around the time of the problem.

Regards,

David