[NVC1] Uneven, jerky mouse movement, increasing CPU usage
Submitted by James Moe
Assigned to Nouveau Project
Description
Created attachment 86603
kernel log when CPU usage has increased significantly without apparent cause
openSUSE v12.3
linux v3.7.10-1.1-desktop x86_64
gnome 3.6.2
nouveau video driver
nVidia gt470 graphics adapter
AMD Athlon II X4 630 Processor
I filed this bug in the Gnome Bugzilla system https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=699285. After a long delay, they suggested filing it here. So here it is.
I have attached a kernel log from today.
Commentary from the Gnome report:
Ever since gnome version 3.2 the mouse movement becomes more uneven as the
logon time increases. Initially the movement is smooth and even as expected. As
the session time increases the movement shows regular pauses (every 1 - 2
seconds) for some fraction of a second, then "catches up" to where it would
have been had it not paused. As the session time increases, so does the
jerkiness, i.e., the pauses increase in length.
This is annoying. It is exaggerated in a VirtualBox VM, guest type os/2, where
tje issue is quite pronounced. Given enough time, though, even native apps show
the jerkiness.
It is related somehow to the build up of CPU usage. Initially the idle time
usage is about 4% with a browser, email agent and a VM. As time goes by the
idle usage increases to about 15% where the mouse action is so uneven that it
is no longer tolerable.
The problem has worsened with later versions since 3.2; the jerkiness increases
after only several hours rather than days. It has gotten so bad that I have
gone to KDE where there is no such issue.
It occurs for two different mice, a wired unit and a wireless one. I
am currently using a Logitech MX300 mouse. Dis-/re-connecting the mice made no
difference.
The only solution so far is to log out and in again, or more recently, use KDE.
Other systems here do not have this problem. The primary difference is that
this system has a nVidia graphics adapter; all the other systems have ATI
adapters of some sort.
See the "top" results below. Note that gnome-shell starts at about 7% CPU
usage, 11 hours later it has risen to 18%. I really prefer Gnome over KDE. It
is sad that this issue has made it unusable.
Here a section of "top" when Gnome first starts after login.
top - 11:55:44 up 11 days, 13:27, 3 users, load average: 4.14, 4.24, 4.30
Tasks: 240 total, 1 running, 238 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
%Cpu(s): 2.4 us, 2.6 sy, 0.0 ni, 95.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem: 8192128 total, 7930368 used, 261760 free, 158984 buffers
KiB Swap: 2104476 total, 80392 used, 2024084 free, 5654784 cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
14487 jmoe 20 0 2916m 1.0g 982m S 8.0 12.8 5:47.24 VirtualBox
14430 jmoe 20 0 1937m 178m 49m S 7.0 2.2 6:00.63 gnome-shell
14125 root 20 0 342m 93m 25m S 2.3 1.2 3:20.56 Xorg
15310 jmoe 20 0 1878m 248m 45m S 1.7 3.1 6:13.28 thunderbird-bin
16267 jmoe 20 0 340m 17m 12m S 0.7 0.2 0:28.97 gkrellm
14445 jmoe 20 0 1099m 30m 19m S 0.3 0.4 0:06.15 nautilus
18756 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.3 0.0 0:01.58 kworker/2:2
19684 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.3 0.0 0:01.08 kworker/1:2
21537 jmoe 20 0 19392 1736 1124 R 0.3 0.0 0:00.25 top
1 root 20 0 48376 6428 1588 S 0.0 0.1 0:04.41 systemd
Here a section of "top" after Gnome has run for 11 hours.
top - 23:02:54 up 12 days, 33 min, 6 users, load average: 2.51, 2.56, 2.26
Tasks: 238 total, 1 running, 236 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
%Cpu(s): 3.6 us, 9.1 sy, 0.0 ni, 87.0 id, 0.1 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.2 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem: 8192128 total, 7861724 used, 330404 free, 222484 buffers
KiB Swap: 2104476 total, 84064 used, 2020412 free, 5327096 cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
14430 jmoe 20 0 1973m 209m 45m S 18.2 2.6 80:11.73 gnome-shell
22624 jmoe 20 0 2926m 1.0g 1.0g S 8.9 13.1 35:06.52 VirtualBox
14125 root 20 0 366m 118m 26m S 3.0 1.5 30:18.57 Xorg
16393 jmoe 20 0 1245m 248m 51m S 1.7 3.1 9:07.27 firefox
24200 jmoe 20 0 1879m 307m 47m S 1.7 3.8 12:00.58 thunderbird-bin
14959 jmoe 20 0 705m 24m 14m S 1.0 0.3 1:15.76 gnome-terminal
16267 jmoe 20 0 340m 17m 12m S 0.7 0.2 6:16.21 gkrellm
23162 jmoe 20 0 19392 1732 1124 R 0.7 0.0 0:00.03 top
Attachment 86603, "kernel log when CPU usage has increased significantly without apparent cause":
kernel_log.txt