Re: [tlug] Slooooooow down: logs, smartctl, DNS?

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

Romeo, Jep,

Thank you guys for responding.

I'm starting to notice a pattern. When I switch programs, it can take a
long time. And when within a program, some operations take longer than
others. It seems a little similar to the lack of memory problem I was
having on my laptop, which I eventually solved by buying new RAM. I
wonder if maybe some threshold has been crossed where the machine is no
longer keeping up with modern software requirements...? It is an older
machine.

Here is the output from top. I hadn't really looked at this part of the
output, because, you know, you get habitual about looking at the parts
that have been relevant before:

top - 12:44:48 up 12:04,  2 users,  load average: 1.85, 1.67, 1.57
Tasks: 155 total,   1 running, 154 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 11.0%us,  1.3%sy,  0.0%ni, 87.3%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.3%si, 
0.0%st
Mem:   1025632k total,   971528k used,    54104k free,    22120k buffers
Swap:  6144824k total,     4332k used,  6140492k free,   578664k cached

Couple things stand out to me. One is that is says there are 2 users.
That seems odd. Also, "id" is at 87% percent, and goes as high as 95%.
"wa", though, is only 0%.

Here is the output from the other suggested commands:

$ smartctl -a /dev/sdwhateversmartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077
[i686-pc-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
Smartctl open device: /dev/sdwhatever failed: No such device

$ uptime
 12:49:31 up 12:08,  2 users,  load average: 1.78, 1.70, 1.61

$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1001        921         79          0         23        532
-/+ buffers/cache:        365        636
Swap:         6000          4       5996

$ vmstat 5
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system--
----cpu----
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in   cs us sy
id wa
 0  0   4320  78484  24608 548484    0    0    79    14  267  416  6  2
92  1
 1  0   4320  78368  24608 548608    0    0    26     2  516  853 10  0
90  0
 0  0   4320  78120  24616 548840    0    0    51    14  485  816  5  1
94  0
 0  0   4320  77808  24624 548992    0    0    26    12  724  942  8  1
90  0
 0  0   4320  77624  24632 549216    0    0    51    10 1243 1597 12  4
84  0
 1  0   4320  76980  24632 549376    0    0    26     0  900 1383 15  5
79  0
 0  0   4320  76836  24660 549704    0    0    67    23 1042 1370 14  3
82  0
 0  0   4320  76028  24660 550304    0    0   123     0 1176 1568 11  5
83  1
 1  0   4320  76136  24668 550576    0    0    51    10 1107 1427 13  3
84  0

$ iostat -m 5
Linux 2.6.35-22-generic (media-centre)     11-01-15     _i686_    (1 CPU)

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           5.20    0.38    1.60    0.66    0.00   92.15

Device:            tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_read    MB_wrtn
sda               4.47         0.08         0.01       3397        645

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
          10.00    0.00    2.00    1.20    0.00   86.80

Device:            tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_read    MB_wrtn
sda              19.20         0.03         0.53          0          2

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
          10.20    0.00    1.60    0.00    0.00   88.20

Device:            tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_read    MB_wrtn
sda               0.40         0.05         0.00          0          0

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           6.63    0.00    1.81    0.00    0.00   91.57

Device:            tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_read    MB_wrtn
sda               1.00         0.03         0.01          0          0

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           5.39    0.00    0.80    0.00    0.00   93.81

Device:            tps    MB_read/s    MB_wrtn/s    MB_read    MB_wrtn
sda               1.20         0.05         0.01          0          0