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#1 2010-06-08 13:45:11
- aze489
- Member
- Registered: 2009-12-23
- Posts: 19
High memory usage
Hello,
Since a few month, i have a really annoying problem with my system.
Memory usage increase gradually up to the point where i have to reboot because memory is constantly swapping and my system is very slow.
I used to never shutdown my computer. I had an uptime of 30/40 days. Now, i'm lucky if i reach a week of uptime before i have to reboot.
Even when i close Xorg and every daemon i can think of, memory usage is still really high, and ps aux doesn't show the process responsible for this.
I use gnome as desktop environment. I have a radeon card with KMS enabled and i use ndiswrapper for my wifi card.
Here is the output of some commands after 3 days of uptime:
free:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1028728 957372 71356 0 25876 75928
-/+ buffers/cache: 855568 173160
Swap: 2714944 58068 2656876
vmstat:
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa
0 0 57868 61872 28040 80640 22 21 64 58 7 17 8 2 84 5When i close Xorg, i still get surprisingly high numbers:
free:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1028728 658684 370044 0 24388 100168
-/+ buffers/cache: 534128 494600
Swap: 2714944 43084 2671860
vmstat:
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa
0 0 43084 369904 24404 100280 22 21 64 58 6 17 8 2 84 5And i can't seems to find the process responsible for this with ps, which is weird:
note: i removed all the kthreads
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.0 0.0 1708 124 ? Ss Jun02 0:02 init [3]
root 715 0.0 0.0 2116 276 ? S<s Jun02 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root 1481 0.0 0.0 2944 632 ? Ss Jun02 0:19 /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /media/somedir -o rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,users,uid=1000,gid=100,fmask=0113,dmask=0002
root 1724 0.0 0.0 5028 28 ? S Jun02 0:00 supervising syslog-ng
root 1725 0.0 0.0 5340 620 ? Ss Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/syslog-ng
root 1786 0.0 0.0 4880 60 ? Ss Jun02 0:00 wpa_supplicant -B -P /var/run/wpa_supplicant_wlan0.pid -i wlan0 -D wext -c /tmp/wpa.wlan0/wpa.conf
root 1865 0.0 0.0 1756 256 ? Ss Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond -S -l info
dbus 1875 0.0 0.0 2644 776 ? Ss Jun02 0:01 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
hal 1883 0.0 0.1 14868 1140 ? Ssl Jun02 0:02 /usr/sbin/hald
root 1884 0.0 0.0 3456 72 ? S Jun02 0:00 hald-runner
root 1907 0.0 0.0 3520 264 ? S Jun02 0:03 hald-addon-input: Listening on /dev/input/event1 /dev/input/event6 /dev/input/event3 /dev/input/event4
root 1924 0.0 0.0 3520 224 ? S Jun02 0:52 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sr0 (every 2 sec)
hal 1926 0.0 0.0 3184 72 ? S Jun02 0:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpi kernel interface /proc/acpi/event
root 1939 0.0 0.0 1708 60 tty1 Ss+ Jun02 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty1 linux
root 1940 0.0 0.0 1708 60 tty2 Ss+ Jun02 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty2 linux
root 1941 0.0 0.0 1708 60 tty3 Ss+ Jun02 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty3 linux
root 1942 0.0 0.0 1708 60 tty4 Ss+ Jun02 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty4 linux
root 1944 0.0 0.0 2404 64 tty6 Ss Jun02 0:00 /bin/login --
ntp 1952 0.0 0.0 3384 276 ? S Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/ntpd -s
root 1953 0.0 0.0 3492 92 ? Ss Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/ntpd -s
1000 1965 0.0 0.1 6328 1680 tty6 S Jun02 0:00 -bash
root 2023 0.0 0.1 18516 1644 ? Sl Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon
root 2103 0.0 0.0 5192 936 ? S Jun02 0:00 /usr/lib/upower/upowerd
root 2148 0.0 0.1 13452 1288 ? Sl Jun02 0:00 /usr/lib/udisks/udisks-daemon
root 2149 0.0 0.0 4940 200 ? S Jun02 0:27 udisks-daemon: polling /dev/sr0
root 2183 0.0 0.1 5672 1436 ? S Jun02 0:00 /usr/lib/polkit-1/polkitd
root 2573 0.1 0.0 5064 352 ? Ss Jun02 5:50 /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/somedir2 -o rw,noauto,uid=1000,gid=100,fmask=0113,dmask=0002
1000 3424 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/3 Z+ 21:06 0:00 [python] <defunct>
1000 3487 0.0 0.1 4308 1044 tty6 R+ 21:13 0:00 ps aux
root 14853 0.0 0.0 1708 84 tty5 Ss+ 12:31 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty5 linux
root 15356 0.0 0.0 4748 724 ? Ss 12:42 0:00 SCREEN -RaAdU weechat
1000 15357 0.0 0.0 6340 92 pts/3 Ss 12:42 0:00 /bin/bash
1000 15386 0.1 0.5 46632 5200 pts/3 Sl+ 12:42 0:46 weechat-curses
root 17268 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun04 0:00 [kstriped]
root 17283 0.0 0.0 2112 412 ? S< Jun04 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root 17288 0.0 0.0 2112 60 ? S< Jun04 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemonAs a comparison, here is what i get after a reboot:
without Xorg:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1028728 102072 926656 0 24352 35024
-/+ buffers/cache: 42696 986032
Swap: 2714944 0 2714944
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa
0 0 0 926544 24388 35144 0 0 374 19 125 199 1 2 88 10
with Xorg:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1028728 626636 402092 0 58428 209044
-/+ buffers/cache: 359164 669564
Swap: 2714944 0 2714944
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa
0 0 0 402124 58452 209072 0 0 599 35 743 660 8 3 73 16I would really appreciate any idea on how to find the cause of my problem.
aze489
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#2 2010-06-08 14:06:58
- nfm
- Member
- Registered: 2008-06-13
- Posts: 66
Re: High memory usage
Can your try installing 2.6.32 kernel, the lts one? Ever since 2.6.33 my memory usage went 200%~300% on all of my machines 
, I can't bisect it either since I get oopses and traces.
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#3 2010-06-08 14:07:34
- ijanos
- Member
- From: Budapest, Hungary
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 443
Re: High memory usage
First, you could use the -m switch of free to show megabytes.
Also please use top or htop (preferred) and sort the processes by memory usage (press shift-m) and show us the top 5.
Did you ever tinker with the vm.swappines value?
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#4 2010-06-08 14:34:45
- aze489
- Member
- Registered: 2009-12-23
- Posts: 19
Re: High memory usage
First, you could use the -m switch of free to show megabytes.
Also please use top or htop (preferred) and sort the processes by memory usage (press shift-m) and show us the top 5.
Did you ever tinker with the vm.swappines value?
I don't think using top would give me any more relevant information, but i will try it next time (i had to reboot today).
And no, i never modified the vm.swappiness value. It's at 60 right now.
Can your try installing 2.6.32 kernel, the lts one? Ever since 2.6.33 my memory usage went 200%~300% on all of my machines
No, i haven't tried, but i will. Do you know if other people are experiencing the same kind of problems with the 2.6.33 kernel ?
Last edited by aze489 (2010-06-08 14:38:05)
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#5 2010-06-08 15:38:48
- Vamp898
- Member
- From: 東京
- Registered: 2009-01-03
- Posts: 912
- Website
Re: High memory usage
The cause of your problem is the memory management of Linux. This used Memory gets free if a other application needs it. If not it will be clogged.
If you want to free it, write a BASH Skript which just blows the memory so it will get freed. This will make your system maybe a bit slower but you need less memory. It seems like that is what you want.
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#6 2010-06-08 16:35:56
- theDOC
- Member
- From: Aachen, Germany
- Registered: 2009-06-18
- Posts: 50
Re: High memory usage
Do you use Xorg 1.8 by any chance? Last time I tried, it had a huge memory leak on my computer. Eating up like 500mb or sth., after a couple of days.
And, can you post a ps dump from when the actual massive swapping is happening? Memory not showing up in "free" doesn't mean that newly opened programs cannot use it.
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#7 2010-06-08 17:11:01
- aze489
- Member
- Registered: 2009-12-23
- Posts: 19
Re: High memory usage
The cause of your problem is the memory management of Linux. This used Memory gets free if a other application needs it. If not it will be clogged.
If you want to free it, write a BASH Skript which just blows the memory so it will get freed. This will make your system maybe a bit slower but you need less memory. It seems like that is what you want.
I use Arch since january 2009 and i never had this problem until a few months ago. After a few days on, memory usage on my computer is over 950mb (i have 1gb of ram), swap at 300mb.
When i focus a window, i have to wait 20 seconds before it appears, and i can hear my hdd working.
I wouldn't consider that a "normal" behaviour 
Do you use Xorg 1.8 by any chance? Last time I tried, it had a huge memory leak on my computer. Eating up like 500mb or sth., after a couple of days.
And, can you post a ps dump from when the actual massive swapping is happening? Memory not showing up in "free" doesn't mean that newly opened programs cannot use it.
I'm using xorg 1.7.6.
the ps dump:
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.0 0.0 1708 176 ? Ss Jun02 0:02 init [3]
root 2 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [kthreadd]
root 3 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [migration/0]
root 4 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:03 [ksoftirqd/0]
root 5 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [watchdog/0]
root 6 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [migration/1]
root 7 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:04 [ksoftirqd/1]
root 8 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [watchdog/1]
root 9 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:31 [events/0]
root 10 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:31 [events/1]
root 11 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [cpuset]
root 12 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [khelper]
root 13 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [netns]
root 14 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [async/mgr]
root 15 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [pm]
root 16 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [sync_supers]
root 17 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [bdi-default]
root 18 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:01 [kblockd/0]
root 19 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:08 [kblockd/1]
root 20 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [kacpid]
root 21 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [kacpi_notify]
root 22 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [kacpi_hotplug]
root 23 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [kseriod]
root 26 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [khungtaskd]
root 27 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 1:26 [kswapd0]
root 28 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? SN Jun02 0:00 [ksmd]
root 29 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [aio/0]
root 30 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [aio/1]
root 31 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [crypto/0]
root 32 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [crypto/1]
root 573 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:07 [ata/0]
root 587 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:27 [ata/1]
root 601 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ata_aux]
root 618 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [scsi_eh_0]
root 622 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [scsi_eh_1]
root 626 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [scsi_eh_2]
root 628 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 1:06 [scsi_eh_3]
root 645 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [scsi_eh_4]
root 649 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [scsi_eh_5]
root 680 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:03 [jbd2/sda7-8]
root 681 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 682 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 715 0.0 0.0 2116 276 ? S<s Jun02 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root 881 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [kgameportd]
root 1067 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ksuspend_usbd]
root 1074 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [khubd]
root 1121 0.6 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 28:47 [ntos_wq]
root 1122 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ndis_wq]
root 1123 0.2 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 11:46 [wrapndis_wq]
root 1138 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [radeon/0]
root 1140 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [radeon/1]
root 1143 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ttm_swap]
root 1377 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [usbhid_resumer]
root 1463 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:28 [flush-8:0]
root 1469 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:11 [jbd2/sda8-8]
root 1470 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1471 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1472 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [jbd2/sda6-8]
root 1473 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1474 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun02 0:00 [ext4-dio-unwrit]
root 1481 0.0 0.0 2944 608 ? Ss Jun02 0:19 /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /media/somedir -o rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,users,uid=1000,gid=100,fmask=0113,dmask=0002
root 1724 0.0 0.0 5028 28 ? S Jun02 0:00 supervising syslog-ng
root 1725 0.0 0.0 5340 568 ? Ss Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/syslog-ng
root 1786 0.0 0.0 4880 60 ? Ss Jun02 0:00 wpa_supplicant -B -P /var/run/wpa_supplicant_wlan0.pid -i wlan0 -D wext -c /tmp/wpa.wlan0/wpa.conf
root 1865 0.0 0.0 1756 256 ? Ss Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond -S -l info
dbus 1875 0.0 0.0 2644 704 ? Ss Jun02 0:01 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
hal 1883 0.0 0.1 14868 1196 ? Ssl Jun02 0:02 /usr/sbin/hald
root 1884 0.0 0.0 3456 72 ? S Jun02 0:00 hald-runner
root 1907 0.0 0.0 3520 264 ? S Jun02 0:03 hald-addon-input: Listening on /dev/input/event1 /dev/input/event6 /dev/input/event3 /dev/input/event4
root 1924 0.0 0.0 3520 224 ? S Jun02 0:52 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sr0 (every 2 sec)
hal 1926 0.0 0.0 3184 72 ? S Jun02 0:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpi kernel interface /proc/acpi/event
root 1939 0.0 0.0 1708 60 tty1 Ss+ Jun02 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty1 linux
root 1940 0.0 0.0 1708 60 tty2 Ss+ Jun02 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty2 linux
root 1941 0.0 0.0 1708 60 tty3 Ss+ Jun02 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty3 linux
root 1942 0.0 0.0 1708 60 tty4 Ss+ Jun02 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty4 linux
ntp 1952 0.0 0.0 3384 272 ? S Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/ntpd -s
root 1953 0.0 0.0 3492 80 ? Ss Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/ntpd -s
root 2023 0.0 0.1 18516 1688 ? Sl Jun02 0:00 /usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon
root 2103 0.0 0.0 5192 1008 ? S Jun02 0:00 /usr/lib/upower/upowerd
root 2148 0.0 0.1 13452 1356 ? Sl Jun02 0:00 /usr/lib/udisks/udisks-daemon
root 2149 0.0 0.0 4940 200 ? S Jun02 0:27 udisks-daemon: polling /dev/sr0
root 2183 0.0 0.1 5672 1564 ? S Jun02 0:00 /usr/lib/polkit-1/polkitd
root 2573 0.1 0.0 5064 524 ? Ss Jun02 5:50 /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/someotherdir -o rw,noauto,uid=1000,gid=100,fmask=0113,dmask=0002
1000 3424 0.0 0.0 0 0 pts/3 Z+ 21:06 0:00 [python] <defunct>
root 3489 0.0 0.0 2404 916 tty6 Ss 21:13 0:00 /bin/login --
1000 3490 0.0 0.2 6328 2920 tty6 S 21:13 0:00 -bash
1000 3525 0.0 0.1 4936 1360 tty6 S+ 21:13 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/startx
1000 3542 0.0 0.0 2968 788 tty6 S+ 21:13 0:00 xinit /home/me/.xinitrc -- /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc :0 -auth /tmp/serverauth.0eQfIqbk10
root 3543 4.1 2.2 36624 23468 tty8 S<s+ 21:13 0:08 /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp
1000 3547 0.0 0.0 2068 696 tty6 S 21:13 0:00 ck-launch-session gnome-session
1000 3556 0.0 0.6 28288 7080 tty6 Sl 21:13 0:00 gnome-session
1000 3559 0.0 0.0 3128 700 tty6 S 21:13 0:00 dbus-launch --exit-with-session gnome-session
1000 3560 0.0 0.1 2704 1308 ? Ss 21:13 0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 5 --print-address 7 --session
1000 3563 0.1 0.3 8028 4036 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/GConf/gconfd-2
1000 3570 0.4 1.3 29008 14328 ? Ss 21:13 0:01 /usr/bin/gnome-settings-daemon
1000 3571 0.0 0.1 24088 1976 tty6 Sl 21:13 0:00 gnome-keyring-daemon --start --components=secrets
1000 3575 0.0 0.2 6760 2156 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd
1000 3580 1.2 1.2 25192 12536 tty6 S 21:13 0:02 metacity
1000 3583 0.0 0.2 29932 2300 ? Ssl 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs//gvfs-fuse-daemon /home/me/.gvfs
1000 3587 0.7 2.9 97252 30696 tty6 S 21:13 0:01 gnome-panel
1000 3590 0.0 0.3 42368 3412 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gdu-volume-monitor
1000 3591 1.9 2.5 125740 26348 tty6 Sl 21:13 0:04 nautilus
1000 3593 0.0 0.3 42408 3360 ? Ssl 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/bonobo/bonobo-activation-server --ac-activate --ior-output-fd=18
1000 3602 0.0 1.0 35868 10424 tty6 S 21:13 0:00 evolution-alarm-notify
1000 3603 0.0 0.7 21568 7560 tty6 S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-disk-utility/gdu-notification-daemon
1000 3605 0.0 0.5 19340 6112 tty6 S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/polkit-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
1000 3609 0.5 1.2 78108 13232 ? S 21:13 0:01 /usr/lib/gnome-panel/wnck-applet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Wncklet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=18
1000 3618 0.0 1.2 88556 12408 ? Sl 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-applets/mixer_applet2 --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_MixerApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=27
1000 3619 0.0 0.8 24616 9172 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-panel/notification-area-applet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_NotificationAreaApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=33
1000 3620 0.2 0.8 25012 8972 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-applets/multiload-applet-2 --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_MultiLoadApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=21
1000 3622 0.0 1.4 95028 14836 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-panel/clock-applet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_ClockApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=30
1000 3626 0.0 0.2 20504 2620 ? Ss 21:13 0:00 gnome-screensaver
1000 3627 0.0 0.5 34624 5960 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/evolution-data-server-1.2/e-calendar-factory
1000 3634 0.0 0.5 33600 5280 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/evolution-data-server-1.2/e-addressbook-factory
1000 3637 0.0 0.2 7212 2788 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-trash --spawner :1.9 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/0
1000 3642 0.0 0.2 6900 2148 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-burn --spawner :1.9 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/1
1000 3652 0.1 0.3 8792 3692 ? S 21:13 0:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-metadata
1000 3678 16.9 17.3 422516 178932 tty6 Sl 21:15 0:21 firefox
1000 3719 1.2 3.0 124176 31268 tty6 S 21:15 0:01 pidgin
1000 3862 1.3 1.3 83544 14008 tty6 Sl 21:15 0:01 gnome-terminal
1000 3869 0.0 0.0 1752 600 tty6 S 21:15 0:00 gnome-pty-helper
1000 3871 0.2 0.3 6388 3192 pts/0 Ss 21:15 0:00 bash
1000 3907 0.1 0.3 6260 3140 pts/1 Ss 21:15 0:00 bash
1000 3968 0.0 0.0 4616 916 pts/1 S+ 21:15 0:00 screen -RaAdU weechat
1000 3977 0.2 0.3 6260 3152 pts/2 Ss+ 21:16 0:00 bash
1000 4017 0.0 0.1 4308 1044 pts/0 R+ 21:17 0:00 ps aux
root 14853 0.0 0.0 1708 84 tty5 Ss+ 12:31 0:00 /sbin/agetty -8 38400 tty5 linux
root 15356 0.0 0.0 4748 964 ? Ss 12:42 0:00 SCREEN -RaAdU weechat
1000 15357 0.0 0.0 6340 92 pts/3 Ss 12:42 0:00 /bin/bash
1000 15386 0.1 0.3 46632 3392 pts/3 Sl+ 12:42 0:46 weechat-curses
root 17268 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jun04 0:00 [kstriped]
root 17283 0.0 0.0 2112 388 ? S< Jun04 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root 17288 0.0 0.0 2112 60 ? S< Jun04 0:00 /sbin/udevd --daemoni posted the corresponding "free" in my first message:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1028728 957372 71356 0 25876 75928
-/+ buffers/cache: 855568 173160
Swap: 2714944 58068 2656876Last edited by aze489 (2010-06-08 17:17:10)
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#8 2010-06-08 17:36:57
- Vamp898
- Member
- From: 東京
- Registered: 2009-01-03
- Posts: 912
- Website
Re: High memory usage
What does happen if you turn off your swap?
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#9 2010-06-08 19:01:01
- ijanos
- Member
- From: Budapest, Hungary
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 443
Re: High memory usage
What does happen if you turn off your swap?
The OOM Killer will go wild.
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#10 2010-06-08 19:06:29
- ijanos
- Member
- From: Budapest, Hungary
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 443
Re: High memory usage
1000 3678 16.9 17.3 422516 178932 tty6 Sl 21:15 0:21 firefox
I'm useing firefox with ~15 addons and 40+ tabs but never seen it eating that much memory. You should close it somestimes, i guess the uptime of firefox itself is long too.
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#11 2010-06-08 19:15:20
- Ramses de Norre
- Member
- From: Leuven - Belgium
- Registered: 2007-03-27
- Posts: 1,289
Re: High memory usage
@ijanos: really? I've got even more with 13 addons and 13 tabs open...
ramses 20398 15.9 8.2 469852 170240 ? Sl 20:25 7:34 firefoxOffline
#12 2010-06-08 19:16:00
- ijanos
- Member
- From: Budapest, Hungary
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 443
Re: High memory usage
I use Arch since january 2009 and i never had this problem until a few months ago. After a few days on, memory usage on my computer is over 950mb (i have 1gb of ram), swap at 300mb.
When i focus a window, i have to wait 20 seconds before it appears, and i can hear my hdd working.
I wouldn't consider that a "normal" behaviour
It is not normal behavoiur. This is exactly what happens when the system runs out of memory. Increasing (!) swappines to 100 should help a little with the response times but something is definietly leaking memory.
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#13 2010-06-08 19:18:25
- ijanos
- Member
- From: Budapest, Hungary
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 443
Re: High memory usage
@ijanos: really? I've got even more with 13 addons and 13 tabs open...
ramses 20398 15.9 8.2 469852 170240 ? Sl 20:25 7:34 firefox
Well, I'm using adblock and flashblock since years i guees that decreases the number a little, but yeah mine is around 200-350 megabytes of ram.
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#14 2010-06-08 19:19:44
- Ramses de Norre
- Member
- From: Leuven - Belgium
- Registered: 2007-03-27
- Posts: 1,289
Re: High memory usage
Ramses de Norre wrote:@ijanos: really? I've got even more with 13 addons and 13 tabs open...
ramses 20398 15.9 8.2 469852 170240 ? Sl 20:25 7:34 firefoxWell, I'm using adblock and flashblock since years i guees that decreases the number a little, but yeah mine is around 200-350 megabytes of ram.
adblock and noscript here... Strange.
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#15 2010-06-08 19:23:13
- aze489
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- Registered: 2009-12-23
- Posts: 19
Re: High memory usage
What does happen if you turn off your swap?
I don't know, i haven't tried. I will in 3 days before i reboot...
And 469852 is "virtual memory" size, it doesn't mean firefox is really using 469mb of memory, right ?
Last edited by aze489 (2010-06-08 19:34:29)
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#16 2010-06-08 19:42:20
- Vamp898
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- From: 東京
- Registered: 2009-01-03
- Posts: 912
- Website
Re: High memory usage
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/9044 … tember.png
Only Java can beat Firefox xD
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#17 2010-06-08 19:49:22
- ijanos
- Member
- From: Budapest, Hungary
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 443
Re: High memory usage
And 469852 is "virtual memory" size, it doesn't mean firefox is really using 469mb of memory, right ?
Oh opps. Yeah that is right. The RSS column is closest to the real memory usage. And it is much lower.
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#18 2010-09-28 10:08:34
- CptYossarian
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- Registered: 2009-02-05
- Posts: 5
Re: High memory usage
Has anyone fixed this?
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#19 2010-09-28 12:57:00
- karol
- Archivist
- Registered: 2009-05-06
- Posts: 25,440
Re: High memory usage
Has anyone fixed this?
Fixed what? Post your 'free -m' and how much RAM top five or top ten apps are using.
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#20 2010-11-05 10:51:02
- thms
- Member
- Registered: 2010-02-01
- Posts: 120
Re: High memory usage
Sorry for hijacking this thread but I'm sitting in front of an unresponsive system very often due to high memory/swap usage.
Currently the usage is low but very often X uses much more memory:
$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1991 1122 868 0 4 244
-/+ buffers/cache: 873 1117
Swap: 1961 232 1728Here's the top nine from top:
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
3215 root 20 0 287m 173m 2332 S 6 8.7 7:21.45 X
3909 thomas 20 0 596m 117m 10m S 0 5.9 1:03.76 thunderbird-bin
3946 thomas 20 0 499m 116m 13m S 2 5.8 1:11.23 firefox
3458 thomas 20 0 663m 76m 44m R 48 3.8 43:50.31 kwin
3481 thomas 20 0 681m 34m 9164 S 10 1.7 9:23.54 plasma-desktop
3668 thomas 39 19 198m 33m 832 S 0 1.7 1:47.61 virtuoso-t
4128 thomas 20 0 403m 27m 4796 S 0 1.4 0:08.56 kile
5060 thomas 20 0 406m 25m 7400 S 0 1.3 0:26.82 okular
5084 thomas 20 0 404m 22m 7392 S 0 1.1 0:00.78 okular I also set the swappines according to the wiki but with no success. The main problem is that I can't use VirtualBox because of this high memory usage.
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#21 2010-11-05 12:55:03
- ijanos
- Member
- From: Budapest, Hungary
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 443
Re: High memory usage
Sorry for hijacking this thread but I'm sitting in front of an unresponsive system very often due to high memory/swap usage.
...
I also set the swappines according to the wiki but with no success. The main problem is that I can't use VirtualBox because of this high memory usage.
Strange, You have plenty of free memory. I had a machine with less physical ram than what you have free right now and i've used virtualbox with acceptable speed. How exactly did you modify your swappines? It is a bit counter intuitive, but increasing it will help you make your system more responsive.
Oh, and almost forget: you can use xrestop to examine why is X taking up so much memory.
Last edited by ijanos (2010-11-05 13:11:51)
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#22 2010-11-10 11:21:21
- thms
- Member
- Registered: 2010-02-01
- Posts: 120
Re: High memory usage
I used this
File: /etc/sysctl.conf
vm.swappiness=1
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50On another system I haven't touched these settings and have the same problem. The swapping starts even with enough free RAM e.g. when I start a virtual machine (I have 1,3M RAM free, start a virtual machine that has assigned 1GB and the swapping starts)
xrestop shows that plasma-desktop and kwin are the two a applications that cause the high amount of RAM X needs.
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#23 2010-11-10 11:35:21
- ijanos
- Member
- From: Budapest, Hungary
- Registered: 2008-03-30
- Posts: 443
Re: High memory usage
Setting swappiness to 1 is generally a bad idea, it will force the kernel to only swap when it is really necessery but at that point it will have to swap a LOT. Try it with swappiness set to like 80.
and dont forget: unused ram is wasted ram 
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#24 2010-11-10 13:35:40
- ChoK
- Member
- From: France
- Registered: 2008-10-01
- Posts: 346
Re: High memory usage
I have 1,3M RAM free, start a virtual machine that has assigned 1GB and the swapping starts
Typo? because it's normal 1,3M is about 1000 times lower than 1GB.
you can check which libraries loaded by a process consumes the more RAM with ksysguard "detailed memory information" (or something like that). You need to be root to check X.
Also I think there is a bug in kwin or nvidia or X triggered by GPU-accelerated apps (for me usually smplayer and chromium 7.x builds) see http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issue … l?id=57782. What's your video driver?
You also may be interested in the pmap tool, which provides the same info as ksysguard (which memory range are reserved, by which library etc...)
usage: sudo pmap -d `pidof X` (you need to be root to check X)
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Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.
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#25 2010-11-12 14:04:20
- thms
- Member
- Registered: 2010-02-01
- Posts: 120
Re: High memory usage
Oh, yes this is a typo. It should be 1,3GB.
I'm using the nvidia drivers from the repos.
I'll definitely take a look at the tools you suggested and follow the bug report.
\edit: Don't know if it's kwin or even plasma. With 14,6% mem for X xrestop shows:
res-base Wins GCs Fnts Pxms Misc Pxm mem Other Total PID Identifier
1a00000 69 48 0 1670 1823 38749K 45K 38794K 3473 plasma-desktop
1600000 60 1 0 461 908 8167K 22K 8190K 3446 kwin
3400000 43 12 0 1878 2018 4591K 48K 4639K 4889 amarokI've noticed on both kde machines with nividia cards that this often occurs when working with okular a lot.
Last edited by thms (2010-11-12 15:52:09)
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