Arch Linux

yingwuzhao

Member

Registered: 2009-01-13

Posts: 109

What is the CPU usage of X and cpu temp on your Arch?

I just installed the new arch 2009 02. Everything seems to be perfectly out of box, I have lxde DE.

But I noticed that in idle X is using around 2~3% cpu compared to below 1% in the old Arch I had before. It seems there is a little lag in the desktop experience, not obvious though, but not as responsive as my old Arch. Also the cpu temperature under lm_sensors gives me 43 constantly compared to 39 in my old Arch?! This is not some random sample of temperature, I constantly monitored it to realize it indeed runs hotter.

Also, when I open one mplayer, it uses 40% cpu + 20% for X. If I open 2 mplayer, fan will go noisy and cpu hit full and both videos become choppy! This never happened in my old Arch. I search the forum for quite a while, but have not found exactly the reason.

Some help or information? Greatly appreciate it.:D

My Hardware:
Shuttle XPC sn68sg2
Athlon x2 5200+ 2.7Ghz
Corsior 2G Ram
Asus Nvidia Geforce 7600GS
WD 250G x2

Last edited by yingwuzhao (2009-02-21 20:57:51)

CheesyBeef

Member

Registered: 2008-06-04

Posts: 190

Re: What is the CPU usage of X and cpu temp on your Arch?

Hmm interesting.  How old was the "old arch" you are talking about?

Because if it was quite a while ago that you ran Arch and recorded those temperature readings, I might wonder if your hardware is aging or dust is gathering inside your computer case, decreasing air flow and increasing temperature.

My laptop also runs almost constantly around 43 degrees and about the same at X idle.  This seems normal to me though.

Last edited by CheesyBeef (2009-02-21 21:12:13)

yingwuzhao

Member

Registered: 2009-01-13

Posts: 109

Re: What is the CPU usage of X and cpu temp on your Arch?

It's not that old, it's just 2008.06 version of it.
Overall I feel the new Arch is a little, somehow, slower than my previous one. Temperature is not my real concern, it's about the cpu usage of X, and 2 mplayer will make the video playback very choppy, which never happen in my old Arch, where I often open 2 or 3 mplayers.

Procyon

Member

Registered: 2008-05-07

Posts: 1,819

Re: What is the CPU usage of X and cpu temp on your Arch?

$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature
temperature:             40 C

It seems to be like this at all times, even after hours of 2+ cpuload (on dual core).

yingwuzhao

Member

Registered: 2009-01-13

Posts: 109

Re: What is the CPU usage of X and cpu temp on your Arch?

That is not you real cpu temperature, you need to use lm_sensors to see it.
Take a look at here:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lm_sensors

yingwuzhao

Member

Registered: 2009-01-13

Posts: 109

Re: What is the CPU usage of X and cpu temp on your Arch?

I realized it's not a problem of X, but from cpufreq, which keep staying at the lowest level even mplayer is playing choppy videos!!

See this post:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=64135

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,549

Re: What is the CPU usage of X and cpu temp on your Arch?

It's not that old, it's just 2008.06 version of it.

Arch doesn't have versions; it's rolling release. 2008.06, etc. are just the version numbers of the installer and ISO

Skripka

Member

From: 2X1280X1024

Registered: 2009-02-19

Posts: 555

Re: What is the CPU usage of X and cpu temp on your Arch?

That is not you real cpu temperature, you need to use lm_sensors to see it.
Take a look at here:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lm_sensors

Even then lm_sensors isn't known for being perfect...even on Arch