Computer suddenly became sluggish

[nubc]

This Dell dual core 2.8 GHz desktop, with 4 GB ram, has two hdd, a 2T and a 4T, both Seagate. I have Slacko 5.7 running frugal, with 4-GB savefile on sda1, which is 20GB. Slacko 6.3 is full installed to sda1.Partition sda2, the rest of the 2T hdd, is for data. The 4T hdd is sdb1 and entirely used for data. This computer runs 24/7. One morning I woke up, and the computer was inoperable. My memory is very hazy on the following. I believe the computer was frozen and there was a repetitive chatter sound as well. I finally shut the computer off from the power button, and then cycled through several very slow boot ups. The third or fourth reboot seemed to be normal speed, so I went ahead and started using the computer again as usual. Browsing was very slow, the red circular progress indicator for Firefox was constantly spinning, or frozen. Often a page goes blank just because I clicked on the task bar tab to view it. I believe I hear a single click of hard drive chatter about once every hour or two, but this also sounds similar to the CD downspinning in the optical drive. The sluggish condition is very frustrating because it sometimes takes 30 to 60 seconds for a refreshed page to become operable. If I hit the Cntl key, sometimes the page starts moving again. Under these conditions, a click is ineffectual when made but actuates after 20 or 30 seconds delay. The 2T hdd is the older of the two hard drives, but it is difficult to tell exactly which drive is making sounds, and I'm not entirely sure the chatter is coming from a hdd. I click to download a file, but the download applet stays up for another 20 seconds, as the download is delayed by that amount of time and more. I have several instances of FF up and running. If a music video is playing and I refresh another instance of FF, the music video is interrupted for maybe 20 seconds.If FF is frozen, or the circular progress indicator is moving only intermittently, when the page finally unfreezes, there is sometimes an accompanying hard disc chatter when the page comes free. Would a failing hdd cause this extreme sluggishness?

Code: Select all

# df
Filesystem      1K-blocks       Used  Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1        20662140    7777796   11834744  40% /initrd/mnt/dev_save
/dev/loop1        4128448    2172320    1956128  53% /initrd/pup_rw
tmpfs              161412     160248       1164 100% /initrd/mnt/tmpfs
/dev/loop0         160256     160256          0 100% /initrd/pup_ro2
unionfs           4128448    2172320    1956128  53% /
tmpfs             1532780        276    1532504   1% /tmp
shmfs              902336          0     902336   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2      1901189308 1402104756  402509680  78% /mnt/sda2
/dev/sdb1      3819802280 1943698584 1682068856  54% /mnt/sdb1
# 

I see two items above reading 100%, namely tmpfs and /dev/loop0

[p310don]

Have you tried booting a virgin install with pfix=ram? That'd eliminate a software problem in your install.

What brand hard drives do you have? I had a similar problem a while ago with a Western Digital 2TB Green hard drive. It worked, but at about 2% pace, and it slowed everything down. I ended up copying everything off it (took about a week) and replaced the drive. It was frustrating, because the drive actually worked, just really, really slowly.

[nubc]

Both hard drives are Seagates. I removed 4T drive from circuit, and then I heard the disc chatter from 2T hdd. Not so sluggish with large 4T data hdd removed.

[Mike Walsh]

What brand hard drives do you have? I had a similar problem a while ago with a Western Digital 2TB Green hard drive. It worked, but at about 2% pace, and it slowed everything down. I ended up copying everything off it (took about a week) and replaced the drive. It was frustrating, because the drive actually worked, just really, really slowly.

Hardly surprising. The 'Greens' are the super-duper, energy-saving models. They don't spin continuously like a normal HDD; after a few seconds, they spin down, to conserve energy.....so they're constantly spinning-up/spinning-down. Hence, why they're so slow.

Plus, the spindle speed is lower than normal, too. Although I believe the start/stop behaviour has been dropped with newer versions of these drives; it was one of WD's many 'experiments' that actually made it at least as far as the product reviewers. I don't think it reached the market proper.....

Details here.

I use a WD Caviar 'Blue'. These are the recommended one for normal, everyday use; the 'Blacks' are for those who want all the bells & whistles; highest spindle speeds, largest caches, etc.

The 'Reds' are enterprise models.


Mike.

[sheldonisaac]

The 'Greens' are the super-duper, energy-saving models. They don't spin continuously like a normal HDD; after a few seconds, they spin down, to conserve energy.....so they're constantly spinning-up/spinning-down. Hence, why they're so slow.

A couple of years ago, I got for free a 1TB external storage thing. It turned out to be two 500GB WD Greens in a RAID enclosure.
After reading about those, I gave it away.
-------
Oops, nubc has Seagates.

How about unplug both drives, and see whether slowness is cured?

Sorry, I've hardly ever used Firefox.
Could someone please explain 'several instances' to this old newbie?
I've lately been using Iron, a Chrome derivative, and have several tabs open.

Thank you,
Sheldon

[bigpup]

If you go to the Seagate web site support they should have a program that can be used to troubleshoot any problems.
It should also run tests to determine if drive is working OK.
Seatools
http://www.seagate.com/files/www-conten ... 223ALL.ISO
This is the dos version that should be able to be burned as a live CD/USB etc...
Boot with it like a live Puppy cd/USB etc...
Seatools manual
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/e ... cale=en-us

If this is a computer with some age on it.
Do not overlook possible physical damage.
Capacitors going bad on motherboard was a big issue in the past.

[tallboy]

I have several instances of FF up and running.

Take a look at the sizes of all files in /usr/lib/firefox/ and in .mozilla/firefox. FF saves a lot of different info. If you don't need FF to do so, set Preferences to delete some of them when you close down FF, and make it a habit to close FF regularly. I have made it a habit to close FF whenever I start working with a different theme/task.
May I ask why you open a new FF instance, instead of letting a new tab do the same job? If you are afraid to lose something if you close FF, set Prefs not to close FF when the last tab is closed, that way you can always use Undo Close Tab to undo the mistake.

If the cache size is the problem, FF allows you to set an alternative cache location:
Open about:config, locate browser.cache.disk.parent_directory, and set a new address for the cache, then restart FF.

tallboy