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

[Michael Shiloh]

Very true about Thunderbird and Firefox. I do experience system 
slowdowns that are much worse than the occasional freeze, and that is 
always cured by restarting Firefox and/or Thunderbird.

Yes, I have considered the graphics side of things, and I'm sure you're 
right that my freezing is caused by this. Unfortunately the GPU is not 
upgradeable on my T61P, which is why in another thread I'm looking at 
upgrading to a T530 with a much better GPU. The $75 CPU upgrade is a 
stopgap solution until I get the T530, which may be awhile due to funds 
and availability.

Out of curiosity, is there a way to monitor GPU usage?

Thanks, as always, for your tips

M

On 06/08/2014 12:59 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
>
> On 06/07/2014 02:05 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.
>
>      The Mozilla programs are very useful tools but they are memory hogs
> and I
> have read that they should be shut down and restarted at least daily.
> They also
> do memory leaks.
>
>>
>> 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.
>
>      Well see above.
>      Restarting programs may be a drag but it may help.
>>
>> 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.
>
>      Actually I think you should think more about the graphic side of
> things and that
> a 4 core i7 with an nVidia with at least 2 gigabytes would be closer to
> fixing things.
> and that is on an 8 or 16 Gigabyte machine.  I would look for a used
> game machine
> or a high end Dell Latitude.  The weight might be off-putting though.  I
> saw such a
> machine but it was older and the weight was above 9 lbs.  The price was
> still over
> a thousand dollar at the repair shop where it had been placed.
>
>      I used to have independent private windows to read my manga on stuck
> on my
> Virtual Desktop #4 but since the problems I had last month I am
> confining the Firefox
> windows to the VD #1 where the parent Firefox runs.  I am not opening so
> many
> Firefox windows either.  I was not using as many windows as you mention
> at my
> best(worst?).
>
>>
>> (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.)
>
>      That will help with startup speed but I doubt it has much to do with
> your freezing problems
> unless it can be shown that disk access is getting into problems.
>
>>
>> Would you agree with my conclusions?
>
>      See my remarks above.
>>
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>>
>      bliss
>
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