Ubuntu

memory in use goes up and down

Asked by Alberto Cruz

Hello all:

I just finished installing Ubuntu 8.10 64bit. This is the first time I use a 64bit version. After installation was done, did the updates and the ati driver installation (as suggested by the Restricted drivers window). After the restart was completed I loaded up the system monitor and after a bit I noticed that the memory in use was going up, from 400 to 530, without anything else working.

After it reaches 530MB it cycles down to 400MB and starts going up again, and this cycle never stops. Tried watching the processes list but I cant spot which of them might be responsible for this, since none of them showed signs of increasing/decreasing.

Once I loaded firefox and pidgin to start looking for answers the number went higher but kept doing the cycling. Now with only firefox up goes from 513 to 649, in 8mb increments.

I've used the 32bit version a lot and never seen anything like this before.

My system is: Asus M3A78-T, Amd64 x2 7750 2.7ghz, 2gigs ddr2 800mhz, ubu 8.10 64bit, ati hd 3300 (onboard).

Alberto

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Alberto Cruz
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Jeruvy (jeruvy) said : 		#1

From a terminal (I would maximize it on the desktop to get lots of room for output) type:

$ top

This will show you all the apps running 'top' down on the CPU.

$ man top

Will explain much about it's output to you.

$ htop

Is another great tool.

Now, using 64bit programs WILL use a ton MORE RAM due to the increase in addressing, perhaps you were not expecting it.

Most 64bit OS's will need 4GB or more to be comfortable, but you can get away with less.

HTH,

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Alberto Cruz (lacasadelpirata) said : 		#2

Hello Jeruvy:

Thanks for the reply. I wasnt sure what to do with this report since decided to go back to the 32bit version because of the flash player plugin which is supposedly in alpha status for 64bit, but upon returning to 32bit I notice I still have the same problem.

I definitely didnt have it before, since I load up the system monitor a lot and i like observing the graphs for memory and them cores performing. I can tell I did something different though. Before installing the 64bit version I had enabled both the AMD Live and the Cool and quiet options in the bios. This would be the only change I had active in both versions after the installation was completed.

I did the terminal thing and while looking it I see apps appear and disappear, mostly from the top side. So far these are:

top, firefox, gnome-terminal, and some others that disappear too fast.

I noticed that some of the stuff i had in panels (weather, eyes and cpu scalers) was appear in this table too, so i removed them all but the cycling kept happening. Now, while I was typing this I just noticed that it has stopped cycling and that is balanced at 392mb, which is the usual point at which it sits.

I'll do a restart again and see if there's a difference or not. The ultimate test would be to start over again, now that the live and cool n quiet stuff is disabled.... it should work as it used to, I guess.

About the memory and 64bit OS... i had read about it. Since I had 1.75gigs free I thought I still had enough, but seeing the numbers go up and then down and cycling.... it didnt felt like a normal behaviour to me.

Alberto

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Alberto Cruz (lacasadelpirata) said : 		#3

Well, its fixed now and I have no idea what we/I did.

I even put back them eyes, weather and cpu scalers (though unsupported) and memory is stable, not going up and down as it was doing. No need to reinstall.

Thanks for the help!

Alberto