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"X" causing disk activity?


Guest janusz
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avahi-daemon 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off

clamd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

freshclam 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

lisa 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

netfs 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

nfslock 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

portmap 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

wltool 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

[root@localhost ~]#

 

The list I've left above are services you can disable/remove. This is what I would do:

 

chkconfig avahi-daemon off
urpme lisa
urpme portmap
chkconfig clamd off
chkconfig freshclam off
chkconfig netfs off
chkconfig wltool off

 

lisa is like a network neighbourhood. I don't know anyone who uses it, so just remove it completely with the command I listed. When you remove portmap as well, it will ask to remove nfs-utils. Say yes, as this will remove the nfslock service as well. These are required for nfs shares, which you most likely won't be using, as hardly anyone does.

 

avahi-daemon is for zeroconf requests across the network. You won't be using this, so it can be disabled. clamd/freshclam are the anti-virus. You won't really need this, so it will free up some memory. netfs is another nfs service, unfortunately you cannot remove it, so you'll have to just disable it. wltool is about kernel user-space power management stuff, which you don't need either. I never had it in previous versions, and I never used it in Mandriva on my laptops and never had problems.

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I'd not recommend stopping atd and crond as these can be important for scheduled system jobs. Also acpi and acpid I'd be inclined to leave these running as well as these shouldn't be causing you any problems with disk access.

 

I also never came across jexec, but would be nice to know what package it comes with. Do this:

 

rpm -qf /etc/init.d/jexec

 

and it will tell us which package it belongs to.

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I agree important, so they should be restarted at later date,

but to identify what is causing the activity, crond and at

are quite likely to be culprits

 

janusz, I posted a list of what I would stop during the investigation

assuming you have just a normal desktop. And I went for the overkill.

But once sorted you will have to think about which services you really need

 

also you need to stop opera and any other application

then start them 1 by 1 if HD activity stoped

 

wwasher? are you using webwasher? Is there a linux version?

 

the gam_server monitor file size change AFAIK

that could be the culprit

you may want to do as root

killall gam_server

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Guest janusz

============================================================

UPDATE: After starting Freespire Linux and paying close attention to the HD I found that it also had some kind of activity every 3-4 seconds (quite; not very loud) but not as pronounced as M-L. Could this just be normal for all distros?

=============================================================

 

 

Thanks for all the suggestions. I appreciate it! Here's what I have done so far:

 

1. jexec is described in MCC, Services, Info as: Supports direct execution of binary formats.

 

rpm -qf /etc/init.d/jexec

jre-1.6.0.01-fcs

looks like Sun Java.

 

I have disabled jexec in MCC, Services but will NOT restart even on reboot.

 

**Question: How can jexec be restarted?

 

2. Disabled services, etc. as described. Drive activity remains.

Also, disabled crond, etc. No change.

 

3. gam_services "killed" - No change.

 

4a. How do I "stop/start" applications (Opera, etc.)? If they are not active they do not show in processes.

 

5. Webwasher is Linux version. Recommended by friend since I had used Webwasher long ago in windows prior to my using Proxomitron. It is passive ad filter somewhat like Proxomitron. I do not have any of its features enabled yet; also browser proxy not configured. This is because I plan to spend some time reviewing and configuring the filters. I "killed" wwasher and it made no difference in drive activity.

 

6. Drive led blinks during drive activity when in Mandriva Linux. This does not happen in Freespire Linux. In any case, I did Western Digital diagnostics on the drive one more time. All okay.

 

The drive activity is still about every 4-5 seconds with each period of activity being brief (2 seconds) with some periods longer (3-4 seconds). It is as though after several cycles it reoganizes, resets, or something.

 

Since I installed M-L recently I have added two programs: Opera and Webwasher. I do not recall if the drive activity was present when I first installed; I did not notice it.

 

When I connect to the internet (DSL) (MCC, Monitor Connections) there is send/receive activity about every 3-4 seconds. When disconnected, could this be some kind of internall generated activity still be going on regardless of no internet connection?

 

j

Edited by janusz
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Could this just be normal for all distros?

I'm inclined to think so, at least with kde and probably gnome as well. I believe most window managers and DEs have to update the status of the filesystem every few seconds to keep current. I know I sometimes see a lag in kde when using konqueror and doing a lot of file operations at the command line.

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  • 2 months later...

I've noticed that the HAL daemon causes disk activity every 2 or 3 seconds, but only if the disk is a scsi disk. Also, the KDE media manager (in KDE components) causes disk activity as well. I have two Mandriva systems. The one without scsi does not have disk activity, even with HAL and KDE media manager running. The one with a scsi disk constantly has disk activity unless I stop the KDE Media Manger and stop the HAL daemon. Then the disk activity stops. So it appears that the disk activity is connected to scsi disks.

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  • 9 months later...

It shouldn't be this hard to figure out what's accessing the drive every few seconds. If I wanted to be left completely in the dark about what's going on with my system I'd be using Vista. :lol2: Surely there's SOME utility or command that will give me the info I want.

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It shouldn't be this hard to figure out what's accessing the drive every few seconds. If I wanted to be left completely in the dark about what's going on with my system I'd be using Vista. :lol2: Surely there's SOME utility or command that will give me the info I want.

PowerTop is such a program.

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