Re: What could be causing a slowdown across the board?

Jolly Roger <jollyroger@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1ih56y8.texzoy1x7io7zN%jamiekg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
jamiekg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jamie Kahn Genet) wrote:

<billy@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Gregory Weston <uce@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

jamiekg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jamie Kahn Genet) wrote:

I have enough HD space (little less that 100GB out of 500), CPU usage
is nowhere near maxed, memory usage is not maxed, drive activity is
nothing to write home about.

What's the output of the command "cd /var/vm; ls -l" in a terminal?

I'm curious how Jamie is measuring his system's resources usaage.

One convenient method, yet just as accurate as the command line tools,
because it can be clearly observed while a hang occurs, is a utility
named MenuMeters. Among other things, it can display memory paging as
it occurs.

http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/

I've tried that but prefer iStat Menus
<http://islayer.com/index.php?op=item&id=28> or just good old Activity
Monitor.

Total CPU usage has been as little as 15% when I've had these slowdowns.
As I said before memory usage and disk activity are also fairly low. The
couple dozen or so programs I run constantly are not CPU or RAM hogs,
except for BOINC - but that only runs after a few minutes inactivity so
cannot be blamed.

And pageouts aren't high when this is going on?

No, nothing out of the ordinary.

It still _feels_ like overheating to me (the fact that it's intermittent
and a general slowdown), but the only high temperature is the power
supply (81ºc right now), everything else is under 60ºc. e.g. CPU A is
only at 43ºc at the moment. I'm no expert, but that seems normal. How
hot do other people's iMacs get?

Things DO heat up more once an app like BOINC or Handbrake is working.
But the slowdowns have happened when CPU usage is FAR from maxed.

Could the the fact that this Mac is running BOINC (i.e. 100% CPU usage)
nonstop while I'm away from it be causing trouble? Anyone here leave
their iMacs at 100% for extended periods? How are they handling it?

Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet
--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
.

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