[SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

meph · 2011-06-09 22:18:20

Hey everyone,

So, I've installed Arch on my new laptop. Running GNOME 3 and it works just fine except one thing, which is quite a strange stuttering. I'll try to describe it in detail in a few points.

* For example, when I'm browsing filesystem in terminal and I want to TAB to autocomplete directory names, sometimes it takes like 3 seconds after I hit the key before anything happens. Cursor keeps blinking, I can still move the mouse cursor, but the action is just delayed.
* Again in terminal, I want to open some regular config file in a text editor, let's say nano. I enter the command and again, cursor keeps blinking and nothing happens, and after a few seconds it "unfreezes" and nano opens. Please note that it doesn't happen because of obvious reasons, for example while browsing a directory with huge amount of files inside, or opening a big file with nano. It happens with regular everyday usage, for example opening a few-lines config file.
* Closing any window in GNOME. You hit the "X" button to close any random program, then have to keep staring at the window for like 3 more seconds and then it closes. Again, I'm talking about lightweight applications.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture how the problem looks like. It doesn't happen everytime, when I try to reproduce it then it happens maybe 1 out of 10 tries when I repeat the same action over and over again. But it happens during everything I do, in every application I use, and you can imagine how annoying it is. I've never experienced any similar problem and I have no idea where should I start.

Here are my dmesg.log, lspci -v and xorg log:
dmesg: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=4XXhY6WQ
lspci: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=DLD5LJDU
xorg: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=yXS2fufx

I'd very much appreciate any guidance you can give me. I tried to do some research, but didn't find anyone with similar problem and really don't know where to look anymore. Needless to say, I'll provide any additional info required. Anyone who could point me in the right direction will be my new personal hero

Thanks

Last edited by meph (2011-06-10 21:21:29)

kofrad · 2011-06-10 04:25:55

I'm really not sure what could be causing this problem but I have a few ideas.

What are your system specifications? Your system could just be a little underpowered in some way.

Try changing different X server settings. Make sure you have direct rendering enabled. Try turning off compositing if enabled.

Maybe even install a different window manager, something lightweight without any extra bells & whistles. This way you can see if this lag is specific to Gnome3.

bwat47 · 2011-06-10 04:43:52

I have the issue where closing a window lags for 3 seconds, but for me it only happens with the gnome system monitor, all other windows close instantly.

Aventinus · 2011-06-10 05:19:27

bwat47 wrote:

I have the issue where closing a window lags for 3 seconds, but for me it only happens with the gnome system monitor, all other windows close instantly.

Indeed closing the system monitor takes a couple of seconds but except that, everything else runs smoothly.

meph · 2011-06-10 07:51:16

kofrad wrote:

I'm really not sure what could be causing this problem but I have a few ideas.
What are your system specifications? Your system could just be a little underpowered in some way.

It's a brand new laptop. Low end, but still it should be more than enough. Acer Extensa 5235 to be specific - dual core Intel Celeron, 4 gigs DDR3, Intel graphics. Not most powerful setup indeed, but I intend to use it for small stuff only - emails, browsing net, messaging, etc.
I already considered performance issues, but as I wrote before, the problem is sort of intermittent. 10 times I do something without any problems whatsoever and then it freezes on me like that. And then it goes back to normal and something else gets stuck. That makes me think it's not a bottleneck issue, but I could be wrong there.

kofrad wrote:

Try changing different X server settings. Make sure you have direct rendering enabled. Try turning off compositing if enabled.

Could you be a bit more specific there? What different settings specifically? I have to admit that I didn't look into these since we've had one big xorg.conf, never actually had to, setting the most basic stuff was always good enough.

[meph@meph-ntb ~]$ glxinfo|grep direct
direct rendering: Yes

I'm on vanilla GNOME3, no fluff enabled. It has this problem since I've first started it.

kofrad wrote:

Maybe even install a different window manager, something lightweight without any extra bells & whistles. This way you can see if this lag is specific to Gnome3.

Always wanted to give fluxbox a go, maybe now it's the time to do it Will try it later today.

Indeed, important thing is to find out whether it's caused by gnome or it is deeper and gnome is just caught in the crossfire. In fact, as I think about it I can't even be sure that it's related to X server. Not that I would see anything strange with X shut down, but whatever is giving my system the hiccups might be just less obvious when there's no big mean WM running. And I have no idea how to find out. But I'll start out with trying different WM and see if it gets me somewhere.

It's definitely not application specific, but system wide. If it only affected handful applications I would blame them. But it affects everything.

Appreciate the input. Thanks guys

meph · 2011-06-10 09:11:31

Ok so I started fluxbox. First time I wanted to close firefox it lagged again and then a few other things stuttered. So either it is caused by X server or it's even not related to that. How do I find out?

kofrad · 2011-06-10 17:52:17

I suppose the best way to check if this is X related or system-wide would be to try running some commands on one of your tty's without X running. If the problem is system-wide I would check out top or iotop to see if something is eating up all your cpu/ram or maybe even causing lag through heavy IO on one of your disks.

If the problem appears to be X related, I would start by going through the entire archwiki article about setting up X, paying special attention to the troubleshooting section. I would also look into more specific setup articles/howtos for your specific graphics card.

Other than that, I am slightly at a loss on how to find the root of the problem. Just trying to give ideas and help work this out with you.

meph · 2011-06-10 18:47:43

It's exactly what I need, thanks a lot. I'm probably done with trying to outsmart the problem, ran out of ideas. Spaghetti method is next, will throw it all against a wall and see what sticks

First I'll try to mess with the system a bit outside of X and see what happens. To confirm where the problem is, to start with.

Thanks again

brebs · 2011-06-10 19:54:16

You haven't said whether there's a flurry of hard drive activity during the delay. If so, try commit option.

meph · 2011-06-10 21:19:42

When I was editing fstab to try out the commit option I realized that I don't have noatime set. So I tried that too and right now I'm still testing (and holding my breath), but it seems that the problem is gone. One way or another, your suggestion helped, thanks a lot I will post here again if the problem does occur again, but now it looks really good.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-06-09 22:18:20

[SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#2 2011-06-10 04:25:55

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#3 2011-06-10 04:43:52

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#4 2011-06-10 05:19:27

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#5 2011-06-10 07:51:16

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#6 2011-06-10 09:11:31

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#7 2011-06-10 17:52:17

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#8 2011-06-10 18:47:43

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#9 2011-06-10 19:54:16

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

#10 2011-06-10 21:19:42

Re: [SOLVED] Stuttering in GNOME 3

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