[NCLUG] system hangs for 5-10 seconds every few minutes

[Marcio Luis Teixeira]

Try using a script to execute "top" every few seconds. Something like:

   while true; do top -n 1 > "`date`"; sleep 1; done

This will save a bunch of timestamped files to your directory, with the
output of one "top" command (which you can view using "cat").

You will be able to see if the machine indeed was hung during that
period, since in that case the timestamps would be skipped during
that period. If it turned out to be a networking issue (and the machine
didn't stall, only your connection did), then no timestamps would be
skipped.

Anyhow, in my prior experiences with computers (and not
necessarily using Linux), periodic hanging like that is caused by
bad hardware on a bus which is causing bus resets and stalled
interrupt handlers. I've seen stuff like that with bad IDE devices, bad
USB devices or bad SCSI devices. Checking syslog for errors is
definitely a first step (and also run "dmesg"). Be suspicious of
any bus type error messages.

Good luck.

-- Marcio



----- Original Message ----
From: Daniel Herrington <nclug at iherr.com>
To: Northern Users Group Colorado Linux <nclug at nclug.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 1, 2007 9:00:17 AM
Subject: [NCLUG] system hangs for 5-10 seconds every few minutes

My embedded Debian box is hanging for 5-10 seconds every minute or  
two. Keystrokes don't even show up during this, and then they catch  
up after the hang. It's getting really annoying. I tried running "top  
-d 1" in another terminal, but since it does the same thing, I don't  
think I'm seeing the problem process(es). What's the best way to go  
about debugging this?

Thanks,
Daniel

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