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My computer (Sony Vaio VPCF22S1E) has Inter Core i7 (2GHz) processor, 8GB RAM (details) . There are 2 operation systems on my PC . Windows 7 and Ubuntu. My computer's performance was great, a few months ago. But now it's very slow. Windows is faster than Ubuntu, but still Windows is really slow, too. Also, my battery is empty in 45-60 minutes

Actually, i'm not using Windows 7. I'm using Windows 2 or 3 hours in a week (I'm studing Computer Engineering and sometimes i need it, but generally i'm working with Ubuntu) .

I think there are a few applications which cause slowing down Ubuntu . My question:

  1. How can i list all applications which open currently ? Maybe they are slowing down my system ?
  2. Recently i'm using Ubuntu 11.10 32 bit. If i install 64bit version (my processor supporting 64bit) , has it more performance than 32 bit ?
  3. Should i remove Windows 7 from my PC ? I'll use Windows inside Ubuntu with a virtual machine, if i remove Windows 7.

Thank you,

Details:

Recently installed OS' : Ubuntu 11.10 (32Bit) , Windows 7 (64Bit)

Results of top:

top - 23:41:56 up  7:20,  2 users,  load average: 0.11, 0.13, 0.12
Tasks: 206 total,   2 running, 204 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  2.5%us,  0.8%sy,  0.0%ni, 96.6%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.1%si,
0.0%st Mem:   8251444k total,  3104320k used,  5147124k free,   242688k buffers Swap:        0k total,        0k used,        0k free,
1782992k cached
PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND  
1693 eray      20   0  404m 198m  39m S   10  2.5  10:15.15 compiz    
1244 root      20   0  130m 108m  11m S    4  1.3  13:13.89 Xorg      
4400 eray      20   0  382m  55m  21m S    3  0.7  37:49.09
plugin-containe                                                       
28933 eray      20   0  139m  16m  10m S    3  0.2   0:01.37
gnome-terminal                                                        
1720 eray      20   0  197m  32m  16m S    2  0.4   1:39.11 nautilus  
1795 eray      20   0  109m  10m 7632 S    2  0.1   1:07.08 bamfdaemon
27742 eray      20   0  8368 1872 1360 S    2  0.0   0:41.08 wget     
1655 eray      20   0  7240 3312  916 S    1  0.0   1:44.20
dbus-daemon                                                           
1199 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:01.62 flush-8:0 
1894 eray      20   0  101m  29m  11m S    0  0.4   0:32.20
gwibber-service                                                       
1935 eray      20   0 86252  31m  10m S    0  0.4   0:43.29
ubuntuone-syncd                                                       
4307 eray      20   0 1098m 259m  35m S    0  3.2  54:21.65 firefox   
28917 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.05
kworker/0:0                                                           
28995 eray      20   0  2792 1072  780 R    0  0.0   0:00.17 top      
1 root      20   0  3316 1852 1264 S    0  0.0   0:02.08 init                                                                  
2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.02 kthreadd                                                              
3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:10.40 ksoftirqd/0                                                           
6 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0                                                           
29 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 cpuset      
30 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper     
31 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 netns       
33 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.02 sync_supers 
34 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 bdi-default 
35 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kintegrityd 
36 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd     
37 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 ata_sff     
38 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 khubd       
39 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 md          
41 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 khungtaskd  
42 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kswapd0     
43 root      25   5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 ksmd        
44 root      39  19     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 khugepaged  
45 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00
fsnotify_mark                                                         
46 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00
ecryptfs-kthrea                                                       
47 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 crypto      
55 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kthrotld    
222 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 firewire   
229 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_0  
231 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_1  
232 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_2  
233 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_3  
234 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:01.02 scsi_eh_4  
235 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_5  
275 root      20   0     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:01.51 jbd2/sda5-8
276 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00
ext4-dio-unwrit                                                       
330 root      20   0  2648  612  452 S    0  0.0   0:00.49 upstart udev-br                                                       
335 root      20   0  3100 1496  740 S    0  0.0   0:00.39 udevd      
453 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 cfg80211   
523 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kpsmoused  
587 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 l2cap      
609 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 hd-audio0
Improve this question
5
  • What is exactly what bothers you that you say a Corei7 with 8Gb of RAM is slow?.. does anything opens in over 1 minute? does it take too much time to boot? does it takes too much time to shutdown?.. what? have you take a look at this? askubuntu.com/questions/39050/…
    – Uri Herrera
    Feb 26, 2012 at 1:01
  • @UriHerrera , for example when i tried to watch 1080p video it's freezing so many times, and returning normal (I've updated my drivers) . Or it's opening Ubuntu Software Manager in 1.5 - 2 minutes. There are lots of example about this..
    – Eray
    Feb 26, 2012 at 20:46
  • Which kernel are you using?
    – Uri Herrera
    Feb 26, 2012 at 21:17
  • @UriHerrera , 3.0.0-16-generic-pae
    – Eray
    Feb 26, 2012 at 21:57
  • Use a newer kernel, may come with improvements for the overrall Intel platform.
    – Uri Herrera
    Feb 27, 2012 at 3:41

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

Here are your answers:

  1. Open System Monitor and see what is the memory consumption and which process is eating away your CPU. You can also get similar results using "top" command in the terminal. It will show you which process is running frequently.

  2. You have good laptop configuration. Since you are using 32bit Ubuntu, your OS will not be able to take advantage memory beyond 3Gb ( Since you are CS student, I think you will figure it out why). You will not get noticeable performance improvement by using 64Bit Ubuntu.

  3. Your Windows 7 installation on different partition does not have any impact on your Ubuntu's performance. So there is no need of removing it, unless you want to completely switch to Ubuntu.

Improve this answer
6
  • for 2nd answer : you said 32bit Ubuntu, your OS will not be able to take advantage memory beyond 3Gb but and then you said You will not get noticeable performance improvement by using 64Bit Ubuntu . I think there is a contradiction.
    – Eray
    Feb 25, 2012 at 20:14
  • Unlike Windows, lInux 32bit kernel can make use of over 4GB with PAE, and using 64bit OS does improve stuff, of course if by "performance improvement" you mean browsing the web and watching videos while listening to music.. no you won't notice anything significantly faster.
    – Uri Herrera
    Feb 26, 2012 at 0:56
  • @ Uri Herrera. Right for normal daily usage you will not feel and difference.
    – Abhijeet
    Feb 26, 2012 at 14:11
  • 1
    @Eray, I mean to say, if you are not running applications which require insane amount memory you not feel the difference. Ex. you are running application which need memory beyond 3Gb in that case OS will swap out data, which will cause performance issue. For "You will not get noticeable performance ....." - If your OS memory requirement is less than 3GB while running your all the applications, you will not feel the difference by installing 64Bit Ubuntu unless you are doing some complex calculation like 3D rendering or Scientific calculation. Which I assume you are not.
    – Abhijeet
    Feb 26, 2012 at 14:19
  • 1
    In that case install 64Bit, so that your OS will have access to full 8Gb RAM.
    – Abhijeet
    Feb 27, 2012 at 15:24
1

There are many ways to see what programs are currently running, System Monitor is included default in Ubuntu, you can also use the command top in the Terminal. you can change what programs startup in Startup Applications. all of these programs you can find in the Ubuntu Dash.

Thats odd that your computer is running slowly with that kind of CPU and that much memory. Maybe somethings up with your hard drive which is causing a slowdown? a 64-Bit Operating System can defiantly improve performance, be careful with comparability of software though. i recommend it however.

Have you added any extra hardware or removed any since you started noticing the performance problems?

Again check your hard drives health, check BIOS Settings make sure nothing important is disabled. make sure you have proper graphics drivers installed in the Additional Drivers Tool. you may want to follow the tips from http://linux-software-news-tutorials.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-speed-up-ubuntu.html or

i honestly don't think running Windows 7 in a Virtual Machine would help all that much.

a Reinstall and Reformat should defiantly help.

Improve this answer
1
  • Hello @Joseph , firstly, i don't add any extra hardware (or remove) . Sometimes i'm hearing sounds of laptop's fan, abnormally.
    – Eray
    Feb 25, 2012 at 20:19

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