Performance on Toshiba laptop suddenly slows after warm-up

[Bill Christiansen]

Hardware: Toshiba Satellite 4090XCDT
Performance good from cold boot but gets extremely slow after running for some
time (approx > 1 hour but seems dependent on cpu activity). The laptop does not
feel hot but after switching off for a period performance returns to normal.
System monitor shows 40 to 80% of cpu usage (with no programs loaded) when
laptop is running slow compared to 5% when normal. Problem was also noticable
during the install with the 2nd half of the install very slow to complete and
the first load of gnome extremely slow.
dmesg output:
Linux version 2.6.8.1-3-386 (buildd@macaroni) (gcc version 3.3.4 (Debian
1:3.3.4-9ubuntu5)) #1 Mon Sep 27 10:50:47 UTC 2004
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000e8000 - 00000000000ec000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000007fe0000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000007fe0000 - 0000000007ff0000 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000007ff0000 - 0000000008000000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000100a0000 - 00000000100b6e00 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000100b6e00 - 00000000100b7000 (ACPI NVS)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000100b7000 - 0000000010100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000fff80000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
127MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 32736
  DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1
  Normal zone: 28640 pages, LIFO batch:6
  HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:1
DMI 2.1 present.
ACPI disabled because your bios is from 1999 and too old
You can enable it with acpi=force
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=791 acpi=off pci=noacpi
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Could not enable APIC!
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 512 (order 9: 4096 bytes)
Detected 400.007 MHz processor.
Using tsc for high-res timesource
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Memory: 122572k/130944k available (1329k kernel code, 7824k reserved, 725k data,
204k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay loop... 788.48 BogoMIPS
Security Scaffold v1.0.0 initialized
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 128K
CPU: After all inits, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000040
CPU: Intel Celeron (Mendocino) stepping 0a
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
ACPI: IRQ9 SCI: Level Trigger.
checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (ungzip failed); looks like an initrd
Freeing initrd memory: 4116k freed
NET: Registered protocol family 16
EISA bus registered
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfedcd, last bus=21
PCI: Using configuration type 1
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040816
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
PnPBIOS: Scanning system for PnP BIOS support...
PnPBIOS: Found PnP BIOS installation structure at 0xc00f8ed0
PnPBIOS: PnP BIOS version 1.0, entry 0xf0000:0x933a, dseg 0x0
PnPBIOS: 15 nodes reported by PnP BIOS; 15 recorded by driver
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX/ICH [8086/7110] at 0000:00:05.0
PCI: IRQ 0 for device 0000:00:02.0 doesn't match PIRQ mask - try pci=usepirqmask
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:02.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:04.0
PCI: IRQ 0 for device 0000:00:02.1 doesn't match PIRQ mask - try pci=usepirqmask
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:02.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:0c.0
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 4 of device 0000:00:05.1
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
devfs: 2004-01-31 Richard Gooch (<email address hidden>)
devfs: boot_options: 0x0
Initializing Cryptographic API
Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers.
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 54 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0
EISA: Probing bus 0 at eisa0
Cannot allocate resource for EISA slot 1
EISA: Detected 0 cards.
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 8192 bind 16384)
NET: Registered protocol family 8
NET: Registered protocol family 20
RAMDISK: cramfs filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 4116 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... |/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/done.
VFS: Mounted root (cramfs filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 204k freed
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xff800000, mapped to 0xc8825000, size 2560k
vesafb: mode is 1024x768x16, linelength=2048, pages=0
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:6d44
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: directcolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48
thermal: Unknown symbol acpi_processor_set_thermal_limit
NET: Registered protocol family 1
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
PIIX4: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:05.1
PIIX4: chipset revision 1
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x1000-0x1007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x1008-0x100f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
hda: IBM-DBCA-204860, ATA DISK drive
Using anticipatory io scheduler
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: Host Protected Area detected.
 current capacity is 8452080 sectors (4327 MB)
 native capacity is 9514260 sectors (4871 MB)
hda: 8452080 sectors (4327 MB) w/420KiB Cache, CHS=8944/15/63, UDMA(33)
 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2
hdc: CD-224E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
ReiserFS: hda1: found reiserfs format "3.6" with standard journal
ReiserFS: hda1: using ordered data mode
ReiserFS: hda1: journal params: device hda1, size 8192, journal first block 18,
max trans len 1024, max batch 900, max commit age 30, max trans age 30
ReiserFS: hda1: checking transaction log (hda1)
ReiserFS: hda1: Using r5 hash to sort names
Adding 210724k swap on /dev/hda2. Priority:-1 extents:1
input: PS/2 Generic Mouse on isa0060/serio1
ts: Compaq touchscreen protocol output
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
hdc: ATAPI 24X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache, DMA
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
parport: PnPBIOS parport detected.
parport0: PC-style at 0x378, irq 7 [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x02 (Driver version 1.16ac)
Capability LSM initialized
device-mapper: 4.1.0-ioctl (2003-12-10) initialised: <email address hidden>
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
hdc: packet command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: packet command error: error=0x54
cdrom: open failed.
input: PC Speaker
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12
inserting floppy driver for 2.6.8.1-3-386
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is an 8272A
Linux Kernel Card Services
  options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:02.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:04.0
Yenta: CardBus bridge found at 0000:00:02.0 [1179:0001]
Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0430, PCI irq 11
Socket status: 30000011
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:02.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:0c.0
Yenta: CardBus bridge found at 0000:00:02.1 [1179:0001]
Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0430, PCI irq 11
Socket status: 30000007
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.2
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:05.2
uhci_hcd 0000:00:05.2: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB
uhci_hcd 0000:00:05.2: irq 11, io base 0000ffe0
uhci_hcd 0000:00:05.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
irda_init()
NET: Registered protocol family 23
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:0a.0
IrDA: Registered device irda0
toshoboe: Using multiple tasks, version $Id: donauboe.c V2.18 ven jan 10
03:14:16 2003$
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:0c.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:02.1
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
Losing some ticks... checking if CPU frequency changed.
es1968: clocking to 48000
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
eth0: Xircom: port 0x300, irq 5, hwaddr 00:80:C7:A2:64:8E
eth0: media 10Base2, silicon revision 1
NET: Registered protocol family 10
Disabled Privacy Extensions on device c02c9d00(lo)
IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
eth0: no IPv6 routers present

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Send the output of "ps aux" when the system is acting slow. This sounds like
bug #8659.

[Bill Christiansen (bill-christiansen)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Send the output of "ps aux" when the system is acting slow. This sounds like
> bug #8659.

USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.1 0.4 1492 512 ? S 11:16 0:00 init [2]
root 2 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? SN 11:16 0:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
root 3 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 11:16 0:00 [events/0]
root 4 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 11:16 0:00 [khelper]
root 20 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 11:16 0:00 [kblockd/0]
root 44 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:16 0:00 [pdflush]
root 45 0.5 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:16 0:03 [pdflush]
root 47 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 11:16 0:00 [aio/0]
root 46 0.1 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:16 0:00 [kswapd0]
root 48 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:16 0:00 [kpnpbiosd]
root 189 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:16 0:00 [kseriod]
root 289 0.1 0.0 0 0 ? S< 11:16 0:00 [reiserfs/0]
root 357 0.0 0.2 1472 372 ? S<s 11:16 0:00 udevd
root 1316 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:17 0:00 [kapmd]
root 1913 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:17 0:00 [pccardd]
root 1922 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:17 0:00 [pccardd]
root 2049 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:17 0:00 [khubd]
daemon 2373 0.0 0.3 1596 444 ? Ss 11:18 0:00 /sbin/portmap
root 2686 0.3 0.4 1664 604 ? Ss 11:18 0:01 /sbin/syslogd
root 2697 0.7 1.1 2488 1476 ? Ss 11:18 0:03 /sbin/klogd
root 2737 0.0 0.4 1492 524 ? Ss 11:19 0:00 /usr/sbin/apmd -P
/etc/apm/apmd_proxy --proxy-timeout 30
cupsys 2761 1.7 1.9 5428 2452 ? Ss 11:19 0:09 /usr/sbin/cupsd
message 2781 0.0 0.7 2040 944 ? Ss 11:19 0:00
/usr/bin/dbus-daemon-1 --system
hal 2785 1.6 2.8 5068 3596 ? Ss 11:19 0:08 /usr/sbin/hald
--drop-privileges
christb1 2809 0.1 1.0 2728 1348 ? Ss 11:19 0:00 /usr/sbin/famd -T 0
root 2825 0.0 0.3 1484 420 ? Ss 11:19 0:00 /usr/sbin/inetd
root 2869 0.0 0.5 1512 684 ? Ss 11:19 0:00 /sbin/cardmgr
root 3030 0.1 0.8 2900 1120 ? Ss 11:20 0:00
/usr/lib/postfix/master
postfix 3046 0.0 0.8 2908 1060 ? S 11:20 0:00 pickup -l -t fifo
-u -c
postfix 3047 0.0 0.9 2936 1172 ? S 11:20 0:00 qmgr -l -t fifo -u -c
root 3116 0.0 0.2 1540 360 ? Ss 11:20 0:00 /sbin/mdadm -F -m
root -s
daemon 3127 0.0 0.4 1792 616 ? Ss 11:20 0:00 /usr/sbin/atd
root 3138 0.0 0.5 1860 700 ? Ss 11:20 0:00 /usr/sbin/cron
root 3161 0.0 1.8 8876 2348 ? Ss 11:20 0:00 /usr/bin/gdm
root 3367 0.0 0.3 1488 452 tty1 Ss+ 11:20 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400
tty1
root 3368 0.0 0.3 1488 452 tty2 Ss+ 11:20 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400
tty2
root 3369 0.0 0.3 1488 452 tty3 Ss+ 11:20 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400
tty3
root 3370 0.0 0.3 1488 452 tty4 Ss+ 11:20 0:00 /...

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

If you press control+alt+f1 to switch to a text console and log in there, is
that also slow? or only the graphical environment?

Please send a copy of /proc/interrupts as well

[Bill Christiansen (bill-christiansen)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> If you press control+alt+f1 to switch to a text console and log in there, is
> that also slow? or only the graphical environment?
>
> Please send a copy of /proc/interrupts as well
Text console mode is also slow in fault condition, if you warm reboot during
fault condition it is also very slow booting.

           CPU0
  0: 280816 XT-PIC timer
  1: 44 XT-PIC i8042
  2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
  5: 13 XT-PIC xirc2ps_cs
  7: 0 XT-PIC parport0
  8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
 11: 13462 XT-PIC yenta, yenta, uhci_hcd, ESS Maestro
 12: 7048 XT-PIC i8042
 14: 8434 XT-PIC ide0
 15: 1818 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
LOC: 0
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

[Bill Christiansen (bill-christiansen)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > If you press control+alt+f1 to switch to a text console and log in there, is
> > that also slow? or only the graphical environment?
> >
> > Please send a copy of /proc/interrupts as well
> Text console mode is also slow in fault condition, if you warm reboot during
> fault condition it is also very slow booting.
>
> CPU0
> 0: 280816 XT-PIC timer
> 1: 44 XT-PIC i8042
> 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
> 5: 13 XT-PIC xirc2ps_cs
> 7: 0 XT-PIC parport0
> 8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
> 11: 13462 XT-PIC yenta, yenta, uhci_hcd, ESS Maestro
> 12: 7048 XT-PIC i8042
> 14: 8434 XT-PIC ide0
> 15: 1818 XT-PIC ide1
> NMI: 0
> LOC: 0
> ERR: 0
> MIS: 0

I downloaded a BIOS update from Toshiba for the Satellite 4090 and updated the
bios from version 7.90 to version 8.20. With the new bios I was able to force
acpi to load using acpi=force in the grub loader (this didn't work with the
earlier bios). I then didn't need the apm in the /etc/modules and everythings
running at a nice speed :-)

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

It seems very strange that using apm would cause this kind of behaviour, but I'm
glad you found a workaround

[Bill Christiansen (bill-christiansen)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> It seems very strange that using apm would cause this kind of behaviour, but I'm
> glad you found a workaround

apm wasn't really the problem, it just needed acpi to work properly (even though
I've run other distro's OK without it), if I take acpi=force out of the boot
loader I can make it run slow again.