System locks up solid, memory & swap used up

Forum: HD Install
Topic: System locks up solid, memory & swap used up
started by: rhauff

Posted by rhauff on April 04 2005,03:12

I am running DSL 1.0RC1 with a hd install, 64MB ram and 128MB swap. After 1-3 days the system lock up completely, requireing a hardware reset. If I can get the screen to come on from blank (only once out of dozens of lock ups) the memory and swap are both used up.

This happened on release 0.93 also, with a different hdd too.

Thanks!

Roland

Posted by tronik on April 04 2005,03:18

Whats using the memory and swap?

There are several ways to monitor it...
'top' and 'free' being the most widely used. ps, etc, also. You could set a cron to run occasionally and report what is using how much...that way you can find where the leak is.

What is your machine doing? idling/nothing? or something else? Running programs? firefox? what?

Posted by rhauff on April 05 2005,02:04

Thanks for the tip on checking usage. I managed to catch it with memory almost maxxed out, and Firefox looks like the culprit, usage dropped back to about 60% after stopping it. The only other thing running is the Edna python which uses almost nothing. Is this a bug in Firefox?

Roland

Posted by rhauff on April 07 2005,03:58

Running now without Firefox, and Xvesa is using 65-70%. Normally it only uses ~35% (of 64MB). My system is still locking up occasionally! The only applications open are an Xterm and Python edna script, which uses very little.

Posted by cbagger01 on April 07 2005,04:00

Try running xsetup.sh script and choose xfbdev server instead of Xvesa.

There has been a report of a memory leak in the xvesa server while xfbdev is not leaking.

I have not verified these reports.

Posted by rhauff on April 07 2005,20:26

Thanks!, I tried switching to xfbdev, but the screen is garbled. I will try killing X when the PC is unattended and see if that prevents the memory leak.

Posted by cbagger01 on April 08 2005,12:06

Your framebuffer mode may not be compatible with your video card.

You can try changing your bootloader with something like

vga=785

or

vga=771

to see if it helps with xfbdev

Posted by adssse on April 11 2005,23:45

I am having similar problems with 1.0rc2 with no programs running, likewise dieing after a couple days of idling. Would anyone mind elaborating on this memory leak in Xvesa or point me towards a place with additional information? I really enjoy using dsl but this issue has given me fits.