I have read many posts and tried a few basic things to resolve this issue, but before I take more ambitious actions, I thought I would seek help.
I am running 22.04.3; I like to stick with LTS releases for all the normal reasons that some people do that. I have a quite-old 2011 Dell desktop with "eight-core" i7 processor. I have a Intel "hardware" RAID 1 as the boot drive.
Up until recently, everything was fine and dandy. About a week ago, the speed of this computer ground almost completely to a halt. This was most noticeable while running Firefox browser. However, since then I am finding that I can barely do anything at all. For example, right now I have been waiting 1/2 hour for the computer to boot (normally takes perhaps 1 minute). It does gradually make progress, but it really really takes forever to do anything at all. While it is loading programs, if I look at the resource monitor, I notice that either the resource monitor is not working, or if it is working, there is no strain on the computer---the processor load is minimal, not much RAM is being used, and the network is more-or-less quiet. In other words, there is nothing happening, and therefore the loading of any program is VERY SLOW.
The situation describing is was coincident with my trying to solve a VPN issue in which I wasn't able to access outside websites while connected to VPN on the local machine. However, I am not really claiming that these are related. It seems coincidental to me. I could not find a way to solve the VPN issue without resorting to the current method with is to use netplan (my understanding). There was nothing in the netplan directory from my upgrade to 22.04, so I had to do it manually, using the process described in several articles on the subject. Ultimately I could not get this to work, but I think I just haven't gotten the settings right. I am connecting to PAN Global Protect.
At this point, I have made sure to completely upgrade all packages. This ended up being a little bit of a process; for some reason many packages were being held. (possibly the cause of or maybe a symptom of whatever issue I'm having?). I was able to get everything updated by manually apt-get of each one sequentially and repeatedly doing apt autoremove. I believe I am now fully updated.
However, things are still really slow. I tried turning iommu off, doesn't seem to have any effect.
Next I will try turning off thermald.
Side comment is that my network connections are wrecked as of most-recent reboot.
I have never had issues this bad with Ubuntu. 22.04 is very disappointing.
Thanks
Sean
EDIT 1: Additional RAID info. No prior issues with the raid except that when I upgraded to 22.04 originally (last year), the RAID did not work at all, and the computer would therefore not even boot. I fixed that (can't recall what exactly but I used a USB bootable ubuntu drive and I think I just had to repair the name of the drive it was booting to).
However, a couple of days ago (after speed issues had been occurring for several days already), when the computer was booting it got stuck on the Dell + Bios screen. I tried to let it to its business but it ran for many minutes at full whack. Finally I had to power cycle it, after which it did boot as normal, but now there is a SMART event detected, presumably over-temp for one of the RAID drives. I have never noticed any issues with either drive before on that screen. I assumed that the failed boot-up lock-up caused an overtemp. May also be coincidence. Here is the lshw info:
*-raid
description: RAID bus controller
product: SATA Controller [RAID mode]
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f.2
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.2
logical name: scsi0
logical name: scsi1
logical name: scsi2
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: raid msi pm bus_master cap_list emulated
configuration: driver=ahci latency=0
resources: irq:27 ioport:4090(size=8) ioport:4080(size=4) ioport:4070(size=8) ioport:4060(size=4) ioport:4020(size=32) memory:e1540000-e15407ff
*-disk:0
description: ATA Disk
product: WDC WD10EALX-759
vendor: Western Digital
physical id: 0
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: 1H19
serial: WD-WCATR8410859
size: 931GiB (1TB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
configuration: ansiversion=5 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512 signature=0000d8c4
*-volume:0 UNCLAIMED
description: EXT4 volume
vendor: Linux
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0,1
version: 1.0
serial: 59db399e-f827-4109-9d4a-80c3a06fe246
size: 923GiB
capacity: 923GiB
capabilities: primary bootable journaled extended_attributes large_files huge_files dir_nlink recover extents ext4 ext2 initialized
configuration: created=2011-09-06 10:54:40 filesystem=ext4 lastmountpoint=/ modified=2023-07-21 12:35:23 mounted=2023-09-22 12:06:53 state=clean
*-volume:1 UNCLAIMED
description: Extended partition
physical id: 2
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0,2
size: 8147MiB
capacity: 8147MiB
capabilities: primary extended partitioned partitioned:extended
*-logicalvolume UNCLAIMED
description: Linux swap volume
physical id: 5
version: 1
serial: 29cea475-fa94-4a3d-9227-e88017ececcb
size: 8147MiB
capacity: 8147MiB
capabilities: nofs swap initialized
configuration: filesystem=swap pagesize=4096
*-disk:1
description: ATA Disk
product: WDC WD10EALX-759
vendor: Western Digital
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sdb
version: 1H19
serial: WD-WCATR8422235
size: 931GiB (1TB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
configuration: ansiversion=5 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512 signature=0000d8c4
*-volume:0 UNCLAIMED
description: EXT4 volume
vendor: Linux
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0,1
version: 1.0
serial: 59db399e-f827-4109-9d4a-80c3a06fe246
size: 923GiB
capacity: 923GiB
capabilities: primary bootable journaled extended_attributes large_files huge_files dir_nlink recover extents ext4 ext2 initialized
configuration: created=2011-09-06 10:54:40 filesystem=ext4 lastmountpoint=/ modified=2023-07-21 12:35:23 mounted=2023-09-22 12:06:53 state=clean
*-volume:1 UNCLAIMED
description: Extended partition
physical id: 2
bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0,2
size: 8147MiB
capacity: 8147MiB
capabilities: primary extended partitioned partitioned:extended
*-logicalvolume UNCLAIMED
description: Linux swap volume
physical id: 5
version: 1
serial: 29cea475-fa94-4a3d-9227-e88017ececcb
size: 8147MiB
capacity: 8147MiB
capabilities: nofs swap initialized
configuration: filesystem=swap pagesize=4096
EDIT 2: RAID errors from smartctl -a
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Blue
Device Model: WDC WD10EALX-759BA1
Serial Number: WD-WCATR8410859
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2b0cffb90
Firmware Version: 19.01H19
User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Fri Sep 22 16:16:02 2023 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: FAILED!
Drive failure expected in less than 24 hours. SAVE ALL DATA.
See vendor-specific Attribute list for failed Attributes.
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (15960) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 185) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x3037) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 199 199 051 Pre-fail Always - 8672
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 176 167 021 Pre-fail Always - 4191
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2636
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 069 069 140 Pre-fail Always FAILING_NOW 1043
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 050 050 000 Old_age Always - 37073
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2634
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 210
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 2425
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 086 000 Old_age Always - 47
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 410
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 103
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 85
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 193 193 000 Old_age Offline - 1492
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0032 054 054 000 Old_age Always - 33972
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 35557148779
242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 28469971659
output from /dev/sdb is the same other than that it passes, but it does have similar pre-fail and old_age marks. Nothing that says "failing now."
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: FAILED! Drive failure expected in less than 24 hours. SAVE ALL DATA.not a fun read...