Xubuntu 16.04 slow response, shutdown & boot issues

[jet74-5]

Hello,

I have a fresh install of Xubuntu 16.04 (64-bit) and something seems to be wrong. I really have no idea what might be the problem, and any help is very much appreciated.

The computer is a HP nx6325. It's old, but has been running flawlessly on Xubuntu before (14.04 32-bit)

Symptoms:
-Slow input. The pointer is responsive but keyboard input is slow. So is navigating menus and applications.
-Fan running constantly at full speed. However, the computer does not seem hot at all.
-Shutdown behaves a bit odd. Hard to explain, but it doesn't sound right, like it just cut's power at some point.
-Boot behaves odd. It will not start normally but is just locked at a black screen. At this point I am forced to do a hard power off. After that it boots normally, but then next time it wont boot. The rebooting function always freezes up. Also I get a message every boot that /dev/sda6 is clean. Whatever that means.

Neither cpu nor ram seems to be under heavy load. This is the output of "top":




top - 11:30:36 up 31 min, 2 users, load average: 0,33, 0,38, 0,41
Tasks: 178 total, 1 running, 177 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
top - 11:31:04 up 31 min, 3 users, load average: 0,39, 0,39, 0,41
Tasks: 179 total, 1 running, 178 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 1,8 us, 1,5 sy, 0,0 ni, 96,5 id, 0,2 wa, 0,0 hi, 0,0 si, 0,0 st
KiB Mem : 2435356 total, 1505764 free, 494128 used, 435464 buff/cache
KiB Swap: 2488316 total, 2488316 free, 0 used. 1886872 avail Mem

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
807 root 20 0 260792 47760 30772 S 2,6 2,0 1:41.99 Xorg
1631 conan 20 0 52036 3616 3024 R 1,3 0,1 0:18.47 top
1458 conan 20 0 407308 26284 20480 S 1,0 1,1 0:12.11 xfce4-terminal
1503 conan 20 0 1027564 308320 91968 S 0,7 12,7 10:30.64 firefox
14 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,3 0,0 0:02.81 kworker/1:0
675 root 20 0 392784 17712 14872 S 0,3 0,7 0:03.14 NetworkManager
1326 conan 20 0 206976 5200 4704 S 0,3 0,2 0:00.45 at-spi2-registr
1689 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,3 0,0 0:00.23 kworker/u4:0
1705 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,3 0,0 0:00.31 kworker/0:2
1 root 20 0 119792 5800 3848 S 0,0 0,2 0:04.58 systemd
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.01 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.36 ksoftirqd/0
5 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kworker/0:0H
7 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:05.48 rcu_sched
8 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 rcu_bh
9 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.01 migration/0
10 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.03 watchdog/0
11 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.02 watchdog/1
12 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.01 migration/1
13 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.42 ksoftirqd/1
15 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kworker/1:0H
16 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kdevtmpfs
17 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 netns
18 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 perf
19 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 khungtaskd
20 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 writeback
21 root 25 5 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 ksmd
22 root 39 19 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:03.35 khugepaged
23 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 crypto
24 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kintegrityd
25 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 bioset
26 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kblockd
27 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 ata_sff
28 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 md
29 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 devfreq_wq
33 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kswapd0
34 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 vmstat
35 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 fsnotify_mark
36 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 ecryptfs-kthrea
51 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kthrotld

[kc1di]

Hi Jet74-5 and Welcome to Ubuntu,

Could you go to a terminal and type the following commands and list the output here. They may tell where the hold up on boot is and give clues to other problems.


systemd-analyze blame &
systemd-analyze critical-chain

[jet74-5]

Thank you for your reply!

Just to be clear: The black screen freeze is before the grub menu. When I power of with holding the power button I can boot again normally and then boot time seems pretty standard. Also, I might add that I have XP installed as well. This was installed before xubuntu and works normally both during shutdown and boot.

Anyway:


conan@conan-HP-Compaq-nx6325-EY349ET-AK8:~$ systemd-analyze blame
11.131s accounts-daemon.service
9.993s apport.service
9.782s dev-sda6.device
8.753s apparmor.service
7.940s networking.service
7.729s thermald.service
7.233s speech-dispatcher.service
6.970s pppd-dns.service
6.968s lm-sensors.service
6.938s systemd-user-sessions.service
6.915s rsyslog.service
6.501s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
6.353s NetworkManager.service
5.941s ModemManager.service
5.453s grub-common.service
5.096s systemd-logind.service
5.078s avahi-daemon.service
4.618s irqbalance.service
3.252s gpu-manager.service
1.865s lightdm.service
1.782s systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
1.607s systemd-udevd.service
1.598s systemd-journald.service
1.261s systemd-modules-load.service
1.233s resolvconf.service
1.226s upower.service
1.133s sys-kernel-debug.mount
1.120s dev-hugepages.mount
1.117s dev-mqueue.mount
978ms plymouth-start.service
977ms console-setup.service
850ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
794ms udisks2.service
776ms ondemand.service
713ms systemd-udev-trigger.service
600ms wpa_supplicant.service
546ms systemd-backlight@backlight:acpi_video0.service
541ms dev-disk-by\x2duuid-ef5f5218\x2de86c\x2d4ac3\x2dbed6\x2d105602b
531ms ufw.service
498ms systemd-journal-flush.service
496ms kmod-static-nodes.service
447ms systemd-update-utmp.service
422ms systemd-random-seed.service
416ms systemd-sysctl.service
415ms systemd-timesyncd.service
399ms user@1000.service
320ms plymouth-read-write.service
257ms hddtemp.service
256ms polkitd.service
191ms alsa-restore.service
155ms systemd-rfkill.service
153ms systemd-remount-fs.service
138ms rtkit-daemon.service
124ms systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service
87ms ureadahead-stop.service
77ms snapd.socket
75ms rc-local.service
70ms brltty.service
51ms plymouth-quit-wait.service
12ms sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount
lines 38-60/60 (END)

and



conan@conan-HP-Compaq-nx6325-EY349ET-AK8:~$ systemd-analyze critical-chain
The time after the unit is active or started is printed after the "@" character.
The time the unit takes to start is printed after the "+" character.

graphical.target @34.216s
└─multi-user.target @34.211s
└─getty.target @34.205s
└─getty@tty1.service @34.190s
└─rc-local.service @33.729s +75ms
└─network-online.target @33.696s
└─NetworkManager-wait-online.service @27.185s +6.501s
└─NetworkManager.service @20.805s +6.353s
└─dbus.service @15.820s
└─basic.target @15.507s
└─sockets.target @15.506s
└─snapd.socket @15.362s +77ms
└─sysinit.target @15.351s
└─apparmor.service @6.596s +8.753s
└─local-fs.target @6.563s
└─run-user-1000.mount @31.611s
└─local-fs-pre.target @6.558s
└─systemd-remount-fs.service @6.301s +153ms
└─systemd-journald.socket @2.319s
└─-.slice @2.310s
conan@conan-HP-Compaq-nx6325-EY349ET-AK8:~$



/Erik

[jet74-5]

Anyone got a clue?

[jet74-5]

I have also tried to reinstall xenial xerus from scratch. I got the exact same symptoms.

[Morbius1]

Don't have an answer but I have installed Xubuntu 16.04 3 times now - 2 on real hardware and 1 in Virtualbox. The only install that shuts down properly is the one in VirtualBox.

The hard drive makes a weird click sound like it really wants to power off when shutting down but the fans and the screen / monitor are still running and will continue to run unless I hold the power button on the machine for what seems like an eternity.

The silverbacks in this forum always warn not to install the xx.04 when it's released but wait for the xx.04.1 to be released. Always ignored that and never had a problem until now so I guess they were right.

[jet74-5]

Ok, thanks for your reply.

Actually, I have it installed on another machine and there it works flawlessly.

[egeezer]

FWIW, I had a similar problem with Xubuntu 15.10, so instead I tried the experimental Xubuntu Core ISO. That consists of a minimal-install plus a cut-down Xubuntu desktop to which you add whatever software you want. Liked it so much I stuck with it for the 16.04 Beta and also the 16.04 Final, both of which have been stable since installation.


https://unit193.net/xubuntu/core/ (https://unit193.net/xubuntu/core/)


It takes a bit of forethought to set up everything you need, but the result has been really great, especially for my slooooow DSL connection – 555MB as opposed to 1.2GB for the full Xubuntu.


Disclaimer: I’m not associated with Unit193, I’m just a big fan of his/her work.

[jet74-5]

Thanks for the tip egeezer. I might try it out. Or downgrade to earlier xubuntu version.

Noticed another thing. It seems that sometimes at boot there's a message "a tpm error (7) occurred attempting to read a pcr value" or something like that. Don't know if it's related...

[jet74-5]

Thanks for the tip egeezer. I might try it out. Or downgrade to earlier xubuntu version.

Noticed another thing. It seems that sometimes at boot there's a message "a tpm error (7) occurred attempting to read a pcr value" or something like that. Don't know if it's related...

This error was solved by enabling tpm in the BIOS. I also updated the BIOS. No improvement when it comes to performance or shutdown though.

Looking at "top" now while actually doing something I can see that CPU usage runs abnormally high. Just writing these words make the firefox entry run up to 40-50%, if I scroll this page it's 60-65. If I hit reload page it goes up above 100. Doesn't really seem normally on a dual-core processor does it? There doesn't seem to be any undue hard drive access or anything like that but I'm not very good at interpreting the numbers...

Posting in the thread made the firefox CPU usage peak at 146%. Memory is at a steady 10-11% though.

It's not just firefox. Running the software manager or libreoffice makes the cpu hit the roof as well. And everything is really sluggish. Scrolling, resizing windows, accessing menus.

[jet74-5]

Downgraded to Xubuntu 14.04.4. Exact same symptoms.

It seems to me that the bad performance is somehow graphics related. CPU usage peaks whenever i do something that has graphic output (scrolling etc).

So I ran the script here:
http://www.free3d.org/

It gives me about 200 fps, which seems really low considering the hardware.

So, since it seemed graphics related I added the xorg-edgers ppa and updated graphics drivers from there.


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-core
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

No improvement. Starting to run out of ideas....

[marugaca]

Hi

I'm having the same problem on my nx6325 laptop. Since I upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 it is extremely slow. With Ubuntu 14.04 it was performing nicely.

But I do not know what to do to about the bad performance :-(

I also had problems with the WIFI, Buetooth and rebooting (the computer hangs)

[marugaca]

Hi

I had the same problems as you, and after investigating some time I found this:

For improving performance try this:

apt-get install amd64-microcode

For enabling WIFI

modprobe -r b43; modprobe b43

For activating Bluetooth (after activating WIFI)

rfkill unblock bluetooth

For reducing fan speed:

echo 0 > /sys/class/thermal/cooling_device1/cur_state
echo 0 > /sys/class/thermal/cooling_device2/cur_state

Finally use unity-tweak-tool to disable all visual effects under "general", "desktop", and "search" sections

If it is not installed on your system... apt-get install unity-tweak-too :-)

Hope it will help you :-)

I still have problems rebooting the computer, it hangs. And Bluetooth does not work properly, dmsg says "Bluetooth: hci0 urb ffff880074db3b40 failed to resubmit"

Reloading kernel module btusb does not solve the problem.

[marugaca]

I have solved bluetooth problems changing the firmware, I found the solution here

http://askubuntu.com/questions/617513/bluetooth-not-connecting-to-devices-even-though-it-recognizes-themre

[mahmod3]

The same behavior happens with me too, but it's not only Ubunut it's Mint and Archlinux too, the slowness/unresponsiveness kicks in when i do sudo apt-get upgrade, CPU peaks and fans go high when i run an GUI app, Intel 4770K, R9 290X, Samsung SSD EVO 840 120GB

[dqsully]

Same issue, same computer, running default Ubuntu. In doing more searching I found this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver. It appears in version 16.04 the original fglrx driver provided by AMD is not supported anymore. For multiple reasons, Ubuntu now defaults to using the 'radeon' and 'amdgpu' drivers for AMD GPUs (radeon for our chipset).

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but the nx6325 laptop contains an RS482 or RS485 chipset. However, I have found that Ubuntu is treating it like an RS480.

I hope this gives someone a lead to follow, I'm still pretty new to Linux. Personally, I wonder if the new driver is missing compatibility with the Xpress 1150 graphics and treating it like the closest chip to it: the Xpress 200.

[oygle]

I was using Kubuntu 14.04

Did a fresh installation today to 16.04.1 . The installation worked flawlessly. But after a reboot, Kubuntu is so slow. When I'm entering data via Kate, it takes 3 to 4 seconds, sometimes much more, for the characters to appear. Even at konsole, a command is entered, and the characters take about 4 seconds to display. Poor response in other applications.

The computer is "old" but it ran 14.04 very well. There are about 300,000 files and folders to sum at 207 Gb, and file searching and general navigating was never a problem with 14.04. Under 14.04 when a character was keyed in, the character would display as it was being keyed in.

Now with 16.04.1 , the display for any 'window' activity is very poor, sometimes black, or parts of grey, and then finally some words appear.

The computer is an ASUS P5Q Pro (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5Q_PRO/specifications/)

[oygle]

Here are some brief specs for the computer, purchased in 2008

* ASUS Motherobard -- Model: P5QL-PRO
* 4GB RAM 2x 2GB Sets -- T800UX2GC4 (DDR2 800)
* Asus Video -- Model: Card EN9400GTSLN-HTP-512)
* Intel CPU (BX80562Q6600) 2.4Ghz Quad Core

[oygle]

Here are the 2 major problems I experienced.

1. Fresh install of 16.04.1 - Now mount problems (https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2340456) - now resolved

2. Fresh install of 16.04.1 - Now display is very slow (https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2340444) - Since the mount issues were resolved, video/display is much better. Not as good as 14.04, but much better.

[thosecars822]

Hello,

I have a fresh install of Xubuntu 16.04 (64-bit) and something seems to be wrong. I really have no idea what might be the problem, and any help is very much appreciated.

The computer is a HP nx6325. It's old, but has been running flawlessly on Xubuntu before (14.04 32-bit)

Symptoms:
-Slow input. The pointer is responsive but keyboard input is slow. So is navigating menus and applications.
-Fan running constantly at full speed. However, the computer does not seem hot at all.
-Shutdown behaves a bit odd. Hard to explain, but it doesn't sound right, like it just cut's power at some point.
-Boot behaves odd. It will not start normally but is just locked at a black screen. At this point I am forced to do a hard power off. After that it boots normally, but then next time it wont boot. The rebooting function always freezes up. Also I get a message every boot that /dev/sda6 is clean. Whatever that means.

Neither cpu nor ram seems to be under heavy load. This is the output of "top":




top - 11:30:36 up 31 min, 2 users, load average: 0,33, 0,38, 0,41
Tasks: 178 total, 1 running, 177 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
top - 11:31:04 up 31 min, 3 users, load average: 0,39, 0,39, 0,41
Tasks: 179 total, 1 running, 178 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 1,8 us, 1,5 sy, 0,0 ni, 96,5 id, 0,2 wa, 0,0 hi, 0,0 si, 0,0 st
KiB Mem : 2435356 total, 1505764 free, 494128 used, 435464 buff/cache
KiB Swap: 2488316 total, 2488316 free, 0 used. 1886872 avail Mem

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
807 root 20 0 260792 47760 30772 S 2,6 2,0 1:41.99 Xorg
1631 conan 20 0 52036 3616 3024 R 1,3 0,1 0:18.47 top
1458 conan 20 0 407308 26284 20480 S 1,0 1,1 0:12.11 xfce4-terminal
1503 conan 20 0 1027564 308320 91968 S 0,7 12,7 10:30.64 firefox
14 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,3 0,0 0:02.81 kworker/1:0
675 root 20 0 392784 17712 14872 S 0,3 0,7 0:03.14 NetworkManager
1326 conan 20 0 206976 5200 4704 S 0,3 0,2 0:00.45 at-spi2-registr
1689 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,3 0,0 0:00.23 kworker/u4:0
1705 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,3 0,0 0:00.31 kworker/0:2
1 root 20 0 119792 5800 3848 S 0,0 0,2 0:04.58 systemd
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.01 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.36 ksoftirqd/0
5 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kworker/0:0H
7 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:05.48 rcu_sched
8 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 rcu_bh
9 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.01 migration/0
10 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.03 watchdog/0
11 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.02 watchdog/1
12 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.01 migration/1
13 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.42 ksoftirqd/1
15 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kworker/1:0H
16 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kdevtmpfs
17 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 netns
18 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 perf
19 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 khungtaskd
20 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 writeback
21 root 25 5 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 ksmd
22 root 39 19 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:03.35 khugepaged
23 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 crypto
24 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kintegrityd
25 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 bioset
26 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kblockd
27 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 ata_sff
28 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 md
29 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 devfreq_wq
33 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kswapd0
34 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 vmstat
35 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 fsnotify_mark
36 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 ecryptfs-kthrea
51 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kthrotld


Hallo

I have exactly each and all of the same problems you described with this computer Compaq nx6325. I have tried with both lubuntu 14.04 and 16.10 and both of them have the same problems you described. If anyone finds a solution, I will be eager to see it. Thanks in advance.

[thosecars822]

Do you know what other free operative system might work for this computer Compaq nx6325? With Lubuntu it is of no use whatsoever because it runs really slow...Just typing sentences in a wordprocessor takes forever......
If you already have installed another operative system that works, please let me know. This computer just needs to be able to surf websites in the internet by means of Wifi. So it does not need anything secial.
Thanks

[arthur333]

I am running xubuntu 16.04 on a nx6325. The problem seems to be the newer kernel (3.something in 14.04 ran just fine) which seems to **** up acpi detection.

The bad performance originates with the CPU, which is stuck on 800 MHz - and does not speed up when loaded.

Adding the kernel boot parameter "acpi=noirq" seems to improve some of the issues - at least, CPU frequency switching resumes to work, which solves the bad performance problem.

However, there seem to be additional issues with power management (for example, the only available energy profiles are "suspended" and "standby" - no higher profiles can be selected).

Is there a changelog somewhere, which details the changes in power management between kernels 3.13 and 4.4?