Unusual problem with my processor!
Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Unusual problem with my processor!
started by: stegi
Posted by stegi on May 11 2004,18:42
I' m a new linux user and i have tried a lot of linux distributions (mandrake, suse, redhat, lindows,.....,movix, geexbox,......), but the problem i' m facing right now with DSL has never occured to me before! Firstly, i used DSL on my old PC - PentiumMMX@200MHz, 32MB RAM, 2MB VRAM - and it ran perfect. Then, i decided to try DSL on my new computer - Pentium4@2,6GHz, 512MB RAM, 128MB VRAM - and bellow i describe the strange problem. I booted from the CD with DSL and chose the full enhanced desktop environment:I was amazed by the fact that at the right side of the screen (where you can watch your CPU and memory status, mount disks, etc.) my pentium4 usage was around 55%-70% all the time 
. This was very peculiar as there weren' t any processes or even services (i think daemons is the correct word for linux-based operating systems) running. Hence, a small action like opening the text editor, abs, xpdf made the pentium4 reach the level of 100% usage! Of course, i tried to reboot several times, but the disappointing result was always the abnormal situation i' ve just desccribed. Afterwards, i decided to pay close attention to every message that appeared on the DSL loading screen and there was a hint for me! The very first message (it was located above the linux logo - the penguin) warned that only one processor was found/detected on the system. As my CPU and motherboard support intel' s new technology "hyper-threading", i thought this to be the cause of the problem, so i disabled it from an option of my mobo' s BIOS. However, when DSL loads - the message about the only one processor appears again - the situation remains the same. Minor detail: later, when loading, in another message the CPU and it' s frequency are correctly displayed. Concerning performance, things get slightly better if i use the toram command, but i find extremely strange a game like xpacman to consume 100% of CPU power! Is there a way to see the actual frequency of my processor while running DSL? What' s the solution to the above problem? I would be grateful to anyone (expert or not) who can help me.
Posted by cbagger01 on May 11 2004,23:03
Try booting DSL with the 'dsl dma' boot option.DMA will significantly lower your CPU usage when accesses disk I/O
Good Luck.
Posted by Grim on May 12 2004,02:47
What resolution are you running?Try booting with an 800x600 resolution and see if that brings the CPU usage down. (Hint: press F2 at boot.)