System Lagging

[Strat]

Hello everyone. I am a new BSD user. I installed pc-bsd about a week ago and have been kept extremely busy trying to get things to work. First I struggled to get my wireless card to work and then I struggled to get my graphics card to work.

I finally got everything working, EXCEPT that since I installed my graphics card driver, my entire system has become laggy (for lack of a better word). It is fine right after I restart but after a few minutes (sometimes less) the entire system slows down. The most obvious symptom of this is when I move my mouse around, every few seconds the cursor pauses as if it gets stuck. It seems to get worse and worse the longer I'm logged on. It becomes nearly unusable eventually. It can only be fixed by restarting. Just writing this post has been tedious. I have to fix all the typing errors caused by the system lag. It misses letters, spaces, etc....

I know the GPU is working because I can run OpenGL screensavers perfectly, but afer a few minutes the OpenGL graphics begin pausing every few seconds just like the mouse cursor.

My GPU is the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200. I installed the following driver from the NVIDIA website.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/freebsd_1.0-9746.html

It says in the README that my card is supported.

I'm not even sure if the graphics card/driver is the problem. It might be something else caused by the installation. Since there are no error logs or codes to search for, I've had no luck on my own. Any help that anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Like I said, I'm very new to BSD, so any instructions or suggestions need to be explained in very simple terms so I can understand. Thanks in advance.

[dracheflieger]

Welcome!


Try CTRL-ALT-F1 and see if you can see any errors in the console (CTRL-ALT-F9 gets you back to KDE).

The directory /var/log holds most error messages, Xorg included. Open a console (Kmenu -> System -> konsole) and type in top and it will show you what's using your resources.

You may also want to run nvidia-xconfig is you haven't already. In konsole, as root, cd /usr/ports/x11/nvidia-xconfig && make install clean && reboot now and that will setup your xorg.conf/XF86Config file with what nvidia thinks should be there.

I just set up a friend with a PCI 5200 FX and he has none of your problems but that doesn't mean too much.[/code]

[Strat]

Thanks for your reply.

I found something interesting when I checked what was using my resources by typing "top" in the console. Right around the time things started slowing down, a command labeled as "hald-addon-storage" began taking up over 50% of my CPU. It is identified as follows:

PID: 872
Username: Root
THR: 11
PRI: ~130
NICE: 0
SIZE: 2744k
RES: 1592K
STATE: RUN
C: 0
WCPU: ~50%
COMMAND: hald-addon-storage

I'm not sure if this is normal or not. It wasn't at the top of the list when the system was running smoothly. It may have been farther down, but I didn't notice it. A quick google tells me that "hald-addon-storage" has to do with media (being inserted or removed).

Pressing ctrl-alt-F1 makes my screen go black and the monitor says "Cannot Display This Video Mode". The same thing happens while it shuts down. That started when I installed the GPU driver also.

I also already ran nvidia-xconfig a few times. It doesn't seem to help.

[Strat]

OK...

After reading that hald-addon-storage had to do with media, I popped out the audio CD that was in one of my CD drives. "hald-addon-storage" almost immediately dropped down to 0% CPU and the lag stopped. My system seems to be running fine now (for now at least).

This seems a little strange though. Is it normal for your system to slow down when an audio CD is inserted? Has anyone else had this and is there a fix?

I guess the topic of this thread has changed a bit. Feel free to move it if anybody feels so inclined.

EDIT/UPDATE: Now when I reboot my system, hald-addon-storage jumps up to ~50% even if no CD's are in the drives. It can be fixed by opening and then closing the disc trays. Then it seems to be fine until the next restart. At least I know how to temporarily fix the problem, but it is still very annoying and I'd still appreciate any advice.