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The system starts up fine, and for about 5 minutes (est.) things are fine. Then the system starts to get very sluggish ("choppy"): the mouse will freeze for two or three seconds, then release for about one to two seconds. I've tried using DTrace, but so far to no avail: I'm still learning DTrace and finding out what I should be looking for.

The system is an HP nc4010 Pentium M based laptop, and I installed the system using the text mode - running the GUI on a remote X server.

The CPU utilization consistently (at the height of difficulties) is almost constantly at 80-95% in system operations. There is always idle time: anywhere from 7 to 90 percent, depending on usage.

I've looked around a bit but haven't come up with anyting. No messages in messages log.

What do you recommend?

Mei
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  • You mention "... I installed the system using the text mode - running the GUI on a remote X server." Are you still using the remote X server, or are you running a local X server and that is where the problem happens? Does it happen to more than one user? root user or one you created? – Alan H Jun 07 '09 at 03:54
  • Nope: switched to local X server. System has one user: me. Interesting addition: running without networking (no ethernet connected, no wireless in range) meant I could do things without interruption. Is it possible the network drivers are interrupting too much, or are processing the data in a bad way? Sounds like a question for DTrace.... – Mei Jun 08 '09 at 18:26

2 Answers2

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I found that the problem was either the wireless networking or ethernet networking. I've since overwritten this installation with Solaris 2009.06 (released a couple of days ago) and haven't experienced this problem so far.

Mei
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I would start with running prstat (top) to see if you can determine if there is a specific process that is causing the slowdown.

Alan H
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  • I used top straight-away - first thing. Busiest job took about 0.8% of the CPU. – Mei Jun 08 '09 at 18:24