[sf-lug] Computer freezes every so often; system monitor shows CPU maxed out. Recommend CPU upgrade?

[Ken Shaffer]

On my old HP Presario V3000 (dual core) running Ubuntu 14.04, I see compiz
frequently taking 100%+ cpu in top, indicating that one core is maxed out.
Things pretty much freeze, but I can usually get to a virtual term and kill
the compiz process, then kill the lightdm -- session process so I can login
again.  I've been attributing this to hardware problems since I've not seen
(or maybe not noticed) the problem on newer hardware (with 4 dual cores).
Ken


On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Michael Shiloh <michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'll have to double check again, but i'm pretty sure top shows whatever
> program I'm in at the time, usually Firefox.
>
> True, it's a dual core, but both of them max out when this happens.
>
> M
>
>
> On 06/07/2014 02:11 PM, Charles-Henri Gros wrote:
>
>> On 6/7/2014 9:05 PM, Michael Shiloh wrote:
>>
>>> Hiya,
>>>
>>> Every so often my laptop freezes, typically in but not limited to
>>> Firefox. Happens too with Thunderbird and other applications. Whenever
>>> this happens, System Monitor shows my two cores maxed out.
>>>
>>
>> What does "top" show?
>> If you have a dual core, it means your laptop is recent enough that you
>> shouldn't need to upgrade it just to run firefox.
>> It may be some buggy process taking up all your CPU; it might take all
>> of a faster CPU, too.
>>
>>
>>> As I mentioned in my other thread, I'm a heavy Firefox tab user.
>>> Typically I have about 50 open. This may or may not relate to the
>>> problem at hand. I have about a dozen windows open, most of them not
>>> doing much (terminals, system monitor, arduino). The two busiest are
>>> almost always Firefox and Thunderbird.
>>>
>>> System details:
>>>
>>> ThinkPad T61p 6457-AK7
>>>
>>> 15.4in 1680x1050 LCD
>>> nVIDIA Quadro FX 570M
>>> Intel Cpu Core 2 Duo T7500  @ 2.20GHz, 4MB cache
>>> Ram: 6GB total, I forget what speed (is there a utility to tell me that?)
>>>
>>> System Monitor also shows that my memory usage is around 60%-70% pretty
>>> consistently, and my swap usage rarely above 10% of available 3GB. These
>>> do not change noticeably when the momentary freezing happens .
>>>
>>> This all leads me to believe that my CPU is the limit here, and since I
>>> can get an upgrade to an Intel Cpu Core 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz, 6MB cache)
>>> for $75, that seems like a wise investment.
>>>
>>> (I still plan to replace my spinning disk with an SSD, but I don't think
>>> that's related to this problem because the CPU is maxing out.)
>>>
>>> Would you agree with my conclusions?
>>>
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>>
>>
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