__/ [Roy Schestowitz] on Friday 17 February 2006 10:39 \__
> __/ [Paul Stynen] on Friday 17 February 2006 10:07 \__
>
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>> I am in desparate need of help here. I truly am. I will try to give a
>>> detailed yet succinct description of the problem:
>>>
>>> -I am running SuSE 8.1 (it's an older yet most vital important machine),
>>> using KDE
>>> -I was doing nothing out of the ordinary (Web browsing) when suddenly
>>> memory use jumped up to 100% and all went wrong (everything froze)
>>> -I restarted the machine, struggled to get into KDE again and behaviour
>>> was erratic (inconsistent logon patterns, getting stuck at different
>>> stages). -Sometimes, I could log into KDE, but after a short time
>>> (seconds), memory use shot up to 100%
>>> -Going to tty1 and logging in as root I can confirm that:
>>> * all partitions have free space
>>> * kdeinit and kswapd consume a lot of the CPU (if not all), and
>>> probably
>>> memory too, as soon as tty7 hangs
>>>
>>> -I tried rebooting without network dependencies, but KDE fails to load or
>>> loads up just fine and than hangs
>>> -I can reach the login screen just fine and SSH with X-forwarding from
>>> the outside.
>>>
>>> Any ideas or suggestions other than an upgrade? Could it be a
>>> hard-drive-related issue? I am backing up everything at this very moment.
>>>
>>> Many thanks in advance
>>
>> Check /var/log/messages for errors.
>>
>> Check if your RAM memory is still OK. If there isn't enough RAM
>> available (due to a defect) then the kernel needs to swap constantly and
>> does not have enough memory to operate properly.
>>
>> Paul.
>
> Thanks a lot for the reply, Paul. I have not made any positive progress
> yet, apart from obtaining a full, up-to-date backup.
>
> I have just checked the log as you suggested, but there was nothing there
> which corresponds to the time of the incident. I checked this very
> carefully. It's as if nothing is known to have gone awry.
>
> More observation which might help:
>
> - Both memory usage (512 MB) and swap (1024 MB) jump up to full
> capacity/use; CPU is at 100%. WHen SSH'ing from outside, I am able to 'get
> out of this' by closing the frozen windows and then waiting for a couple of
> minutes for the "close" action to 'percolate'.
>
> - If I SSH from the outside, problems arose only when I ran Konqueror and
> it takes anything between seconds to 1 minutes for things to go crazy.
> kdeinit and kswapd are the culprits.
>
> I have put my work on hold and I am just eying this newsgroup, waiting for
> any of you guys to kindly save my day or suggest what may be causing this.
>
> Many, many thanks in advance.
Update: problem seems to be solved, but I have no clue as to why. Maybe it's
premature to judge. What makes it very odd is the fact that I have not
changed anything.
I am yet to receive a response and find out if a crucial server downtime was
the cause, which seems unlikely as I experienced the same issues with the
computer disconnected. Then again, I can think of other factors.
As it stands now, it seems like there is no longer an issue. Thanks again,
Paul.
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