From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 26 21:36:58 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 053EE106568F for ; Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:36:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from neldredge@math.ucsd.edu) Received: from euclid.ucsd.edu (euclid.ucsd.edu [132.239.145.52]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DB46E8FC30 for ; Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:36:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from zeno.ucsd.edu (zeno.ucsd.edu [132.239.145.22]) by euclid.ucsd.edu (8.11.7p3+Sun/8.11.7) with ESMTP id n7QLavo02287; Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:36:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (neldredg@localhost) by zeno.ucsd.edu (8.11.7p3+Sun/8.11.7) with ESMTP id n7QLavZ15046; Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:36:57 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: zeno.ucsd.edu: neldredg owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:36:57 -0700 (PDT) From: Nate Eldredge X-X-Sender: neldredg@zeno.ucsd.edu To: Linda Messerschmidt In-Reply-To: <237c27100908261203g7e771400o2d9603220d1f1e0b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: References: <237c27100908261203g7e771400o2d9603220d1f1e0b@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Intermittent system hangs on 7.2-RELEASE-p1 X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:36:58 -0000 On Wed, 26 Aug 2009, Linda Messerschmidt wrote: > I'm trying to troubleshoot an intermittent Apache performance problem, > and I've narrowed it down using to what appears to be a brief > whole-system hang that last from 0.5 - 3 seconds. They occur every > few minutes. One thought would be to use "ps" to try to determine which process, if any, is charged with CPU time during the hang. If you could afford a little downtime, it would be worth seeing if the hang occurs in single-user mode (perhaps with a simple program that loops calling gettimeofday() and warns when the time between successive iterations is large). I once had a problem like this that I eventually traced to a power management problem. (Specifically, the machine had a modem, and would hang for a few seconds whenever the line would ring. It was apparently related to the Wake-On-Ring feature.) If I remember correctly, disabling ACPI made it go away. So that might be something to try, if rebooting is an option. What are the similarities and differences in hardware and software among the affected machines (you mentioned there were several)? -- Nate Eldredge neldredge@math.ucsd.edu