Hi, everyone,
I have noticed recently that my system became a little laggy. Then I saw that Xorg was using up to 120% of CPU.
I am using xfce as desktop environment.
Xorg version is "X.Org X Server 1.20.4" with AMDGPU driver, and kernel is "5.0.10-1-ck-bulldozer".
Xorg.0.log shows no warnings nor errors.
This is the only configuration that I had set manually:
20-radeon.conf
Section "Device"
Identifier "Radeon HD 7970"
Driver "amdgpu"
Option "AccelMethod" "glamor"
EndSection
Hardware is:
CPU: AMD FX 4100 (4 cores enabled)
GPU: Radeon 7970
RAM: 8 GB
If you need more information I will be happy to provide it.
Thank you in advance.
Update: I installed mate (without uninstalling xfce) and tested it.
There is no longer an issue with CPU usage. Therefore the problem must be with XFCE settings.
Thanks anyway
Do you have an older kernel (4.19, lts, 4.20) you can check if you get the same results?
How do you monitor cpu usage and how can it go over 100% Is this an amd-ucode overclocking feature?
From a task manager htop or xfce4-taskmanager you should be able to see which process uses so much cpu by ordering process by cpu-usage. You should run the taskmanager as root to see root process or by other users. If you can and report back which process is using so much power it would help I think for the artix-team to locate the problem.
Are you sure that Xorg is using it all?
Hi again.
I tried with a LTS kernel as you suggested. In my case it was 4.19.36-1-lts.
With XFCE, Xorg was using more than 100% according to top and htop. Here the screenshot.
(https://i.imgur.com/TsffQ51.png)
Here again with the tree view
(https://i.imgur.com/KtEkgW2.png)
I tested again on kernel 5.0.10-1-ck-bulldozer and it was still high, but not as usual. It was around 65% this time.
(https://i.imgur.com/K0QLaKu.png)
Here the tree view
(https://i.imgur.com/ZdGTR8K.png)
With MATE, Xorg never passes 10% according to top and htop. I tested with both kernels.
Regarding ucode updates. I have run dmesg and I got this
microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x06000629
microcode: CPU1: patch_level=0x06000629
microcode: CPU2: patch_level=0x06000629
microcode: CPU3: patch_level=0x06000629
microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.
microcode: CPU3: new patch_level=0x0600063e
microcode: CPU0: new patch_level=0x0600063e
x86/CPU: CPU features have changed after loading microcode, but might not take effect.
x86/CPU: Please consider either early loading through initrd/built-in or a potential BIOS update
There are no new BIOS updates available for my old ASUS M5A78L-M LX PLUS, so I usually ignore that message.
My system hardware is:
H/W path Device Class Description
=======================================================
system System Product Name (To Be Filled By O.E.M.)
/0 bus M5A78L-M LX PLUS
/0/0 memory 64KiB BIOS
/0/4 processor AMD FX(tm)-4100 Quad-Core Processor
/0/4/5 memory 192KiB L1 cache
/0/4/6 memory 4MiB L2 cache
/0/4/7 memory 8MiB L3 cache
/0/2c memory 8GiB System Memory
/0/2c/0 memory 4GiB DIMM Synchronous 1600 MHz (0.6 ns)
/0/2c/1 memory 4GiB DIMM Synchronous 1600 MHz (0.6 ns)
/0/100 bridge RS780 Host Bridge
/0/100/2 bridge RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (ext gfx port 0)
/0/100/2/0 display Tahiti XT [Radeon HD 7970/8970 OEM / R9 280X]
/0/100/2/0.1 multimedia Tahiti HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 7870 XT / 7950/7970]
/0/100/4 bridge RS780/RS880 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0)
/0/100/4/0 enp2s0 network RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
/0/100/9 bridge RS780/RS880 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 4)
/0/100/9/0 bus VL80x xHCI USB 3.0 Controller
/0/100/9/0/0 usb2 bus xHCI Host Controller
/0/100/9/0/0/1 bus USB2.0 Hub
/0/100/9/0/1 usb3 bus xHCI Host Controller
/0/100/11 storage SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [IDE mode]
/0/100/12 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
/0/100/12/1 usb5 bus OHCI PCI host controller
/0/100/12.1 bus SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
/0/100/12.1/1 usb6 bus OHCI PCI host controller
/0/100/12.1/1/1 input Usb Mouse
/0/100/12.1/1/3 communication Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)
/0/100/12.2 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
/0/100/12.2/1 usb1 bus EHCI Host Controller
/0/100/12.2/1/3 printer MP280 series
/0/100/13 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
/0/100/13/1 usb7 bus OHCI PCI host controller
/0/100/13.1 bus SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
/0/100/13.1/1 usb8 bus OHCI PCI host controller
/0/100/13.2 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
/0/100/13.2/1 usb4 bus EHCI Host Controller
/0/100/14 bus SBx00 SMBus Controller
/0/100/14.1 storage SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 IDE Controller
/0/100/14.2 multimedia SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
/0/100/14.3 bridge SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller
/0/100/14.4 bridge SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
/0/100/14.5 bus SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI2 Controller
/0/100/14.5/1 usb9 bus OHCI PCI host controller
/0/101 bridge Family 15h Processor Function 0
/0/102 bridge Family 15h Processor Function 1
/0/103 bridge Family 15h Processor Function 2
/0/104 bridge Family 15h Processor Function 3
/0/105 bridge Family 15h Processor Function 4
/0/106 bridge Family 15h Processor Function 5
/0/1 scsi2 storage
/0/1/0.0.0 /dev/sda disk 2TB WDC WD20EARS-22M
/0/1/0.0.0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 1863GiB EXT4 volume
/0/2 scsi3 storage
/0/2/0.0.0 /dev/sdb disk 160GB WDC WD1600AABS-6
/0/2/0.0.0/1 /dev/sdb1 volume 149GiB Windows NTFS volume
/0/3 scsi4 storage
/0/3/0.0.0 /dev/sdc disk 1TB ST1000DM003-1CH1
/0/3/0.0.0/1 /dev/sdc1 volume 4126MiB Linux swap volume
/0/3/0.0.0/2 /dev/sdc2 volume 93GiB EXT4 volume
/0/3/0.0.0/3 /dev/sdc3 volume 833GiB EXT4 volume
/0/5 scsi1 storage
/0/5/0.1.0 /dev/cdrom disk DVD RW AD-7260S
Feel free to ask for any further information. Thanks.
Lightdm seems to have a high score of causing the problem, but why wouldn't it cause the same for mate, which I assume you also start with lightdm. There seems to be many references to lightdm greeter scheme/theme. But it could also be some theme script for gtk, screenlocker, etc. Something is trying to set something and can't, so it causes an infinite loop of retrying the same thing. Any AUR theme pkgs you have used on xfce?
There is some reference to using a second monitor and xorg trying to set the 1st or second (in case you are, check on this). I think that would be seen in tasks as seat0 and seat1.
Coincidentally I use the same conkies, cpumonitor and process monitor, usually when the system is idling they are the ones using most cpu (0.15-0.20%). Xorg is not on the list of top 10 but on ram it is using about 60MB.
Since there haven't been any better guesses and you are probably eager to get back to xfce, after switching around gtk desktop themes and see if it drops, I would try switching from lightdm to lxdm or sddm, just to see if this is the source of the problem. I have been happily using no-DM for quite a while and don't miss a thing. When openbox starts up with xinit conky shows about 140-150MB.
I have found the misbehaving process. 8)
It was XFCE panel calculator plugin
https://goodies.xfce.org/projects/panel-plugins/xfce4-calculator-plugin
I installed it because it was very handy for quick and dirty calculations.
When I remove it from the panel, Xorg returns to a CPU usage of maximum 11%.
I might try it again in the future, but I will build it manually instead of using the one in AUR.
Thank you for your help.
Let us hope this helps someone else.
An important piece of advice: Because of the high CPU problem, the computer was getting very hot.
It is worth noting that the highest temperature was in the GPU. So watch out if you run into a problem like this.
It could cost you money because of a melted card.