[arch-general] System terribly slow

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Rivera,

> Superficial symptoms are a general slowness. I'm using just IceWM and
> `startx` to initialize the GUI, and even logging into my account
> previous to that takes almost a minute to get done.

Once logged in, run ‘LC_ALL=C dstat -tap’ and leave it to settle down
with nothing happening.  Then start any of the complex GUI programs you
mentioned which take a long time.  Observe dstat's output to see where
there's a bottleneck.

    $ LC_ALL=C dstat -tap
    ----system---- --total-cpu-usage-- -dsk/total- -net/total- ---paging-- ---system-- ---procs---
	 time     |usr sys idl wai stl| read  writ| recv  send|  in   out | int   csw |run blk new

I doubt CPU usr and sys will be the problem; if they are then it
suggests you CPU got slower.  If CPU wai(t) it high then the CPUs are
stalled from doing work waiting for I/O, e.g. disk reads.  Lots of
paging could show a problem some of the machine's RAM not being used.

Seeing those figures might give you, and us on the list, some idea.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.