Arch Linux

Nipsky

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-10-03

Posts: 26

X eats up my RAM

Hey guys,

my X server is eating up more and more of my memory the longer the system runs. I read this could be connected to applications with bad memory managment not cleaning up their pixmaps, but I don't think this is the reason because my netbook has pretty much the same software running all the time (slim, awesome wm, thunderbird, firefox, guake, dropbox, skype, some thunar instances) and X's memory consumption is at around 120mb after weeks of uptime – here on my desktop machine it is at 750mb after some days now!

Can somebody give me hint where to look at or how to inspect this further? It's quite annoying to have to reboot the system because the memory is leaking out of it step by step...

Is there a chance this can be related to my graphics card (Radeon HD 6550D) using the xf86-video-ati driver?

Regards,
Nipsky

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Re: X eats up my RAM

Post to some pastebin somewhere the output of the commands "ps aux" and "free" when you see things getting stuffed up and let us know where the info is.

---

Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

Nipsky

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-10-03

Posts: 26

Re: X eats up my RAM

Hey lagagnon,

here is the output of "ps aux":
http://pastebin.com/L1kF8vv8
I killed everything I didn't need before to make the list a bit shorter. As you can see down there, X is taking up 835mb RAM at the moment.

and here is "free":
http://pastebin.com/h5chTvqC

btw, here the output of xrestop, if it helps anything:
http://pastebin.com/ZaiVKUhD

Gonna reboot now...

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: X eats up my RAM

Have you tried with catalyst?

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Re: X eats up my RAM

I cannot see anything obvious from your data, but X obviously is using way too much RAM. Is there anything obvious in your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file?

---

Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

illusionist

Member

From: localhost

Registered: 2012-04-03

Posts: 498

Re: X eats up my RAM

Is there any startup script of some kind in a while loop or something similar ?

---

  Never argue with stupid people,They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.--Mark Twain
@github

Nipsky

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-10-03

Posts: 26

Re: X eats up my RAM

Sorry for the delay, I thought I had found the culprit (I had a systemd script for setting some power management options for my graphic card enabled) but now I'm back here with 500mb hogged up by X after a few days of hope...

So there are no startup scripts running, but wouldn't these show up as seperate processes instead of somehow silently adding up to X's memory usage in the backround?

I cannot see anything obvious from your data, but X obviously is using way too much RAM. Is there anything obvious in your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file?

I didn't see anything special in my log files: http://pastebin.com/vBvX17LT

Have you tried with catalyst?

I'm actually considering that but isn't the HD 3850 regarded as legacy by now?

Theres another thing that came to my mind regarding this problem: My system has an onboard graphics chip (Radeon HD 6550D) which, however, I don't use. Could this be a problem?

Nipsky

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-10-03

Posts: 26

Re: X eats up my RAM

Well, in the meantime, I
- removed my graphics card and use the internal graphics chipset (Radeon HD 6550D)
- set up a fresh ArchLinux system
- switched from Awesome WM to MATE Desktop Environment

... and guess what: This memory hole is still bugging me...