Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uiatma.atmos.uiuc.edu!bowman From: bowman@uiatma.atmos.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix Subject: Sluggish behavior of IBM 6000/320 Message-ID: <1990Dec17.224518.5188@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 17 Dec 90 22:45:18 GMT Sender: Kenneth P. Bowman Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 32 Originator: bowman@uiatma.atmos.uiuc.edu I have a model 320 with 16 MB of real memory configured with 64 MB of swap space. For the last week the system response has gotten extremely sluggish. Logging in this morning at the console and starting X required 3 minutes, 50 seconds. The system will make long pauses (several minutes), during which there is very little disk activity. This occurs in the middle of window updates, backups (no X running), compiles, etc. Previously, the system did not behave this way, and to the best of my knowledge I have made no configuration changes to cause this. My only information about the problem I have is that ps shows a kernel process using about 98% of the cpu time. (process 514 below) USER PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME COMMAND root 0 0 120 13:25:45 ? 0:05 swapper root 1 0 0 13:26:02 ? 0:46 /etc/init root 514 0 120 Dec 31 ? 181:32 kproc root 771 0 0 13:25:45 ? 0:07 kproc . . At this point, the system had been up for 186 minutes. I don't know whether this is normal or not. Another system on campus shows the same pid (with the same strange start time), but much lower cpu use. My SE is on vacation, everyone else from IBM is out of town. Any help on how to diagnose or cure the problem would be appreciated. Ken Bowman (Not a Unix guru, regretting becoming a Unix system manager.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Kenneth P. Bowman, Assistant Professor bowman@uiatma.atmos.uiuc.edu Department of Atmospheric Sciences bowman@uiucvmd.bitnet University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 217-333-7105 105 S. Gregory Avenue 217-244-4393 fax Urbana, IL 61801