Computer slow after clean install

[bobw]

My computer is a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 desktop with 2GB ram, model HP t741.uk.  I installed LL 1.0.8 earlier this year, dual booting with Windows XP, and it worked very well.

I recently installed LL 2.0 as a clean install, without the Windows dual boot.  The system has now become very slow.  There is a time lag between keyboard input and text appearing on the screen; the mouse pointer does not move smoothly, there is a time lag when scrolling, etc.

I have used the same install disk to put LL 2.0 on another old PC (Dell) with a similar spec, but only 1 GB of ram, and it works perfectly well.  I have also tried a clean install of Peppermint 5 on the HP machine and experienced the same problems as with LL 2.0.

I'm no expert, but I suspect that the problem may be caused by the BIOS.  The machine originally had a recovery partition.  The HP website says that only BIOS updates from HP, rather than the motherboard manufacturer, should be installed, but they only provide BIOS software for Windows operating systems.  The recovery partition was deleted when I installed LL 2.0.

A  system report is attached.

Can anybody help, please?

Bob

[attachment deleted by admin, more than 25 days old]

[gold_finger]

Was the system slow when you first installed it, or is this something that happened later?

Are you using a wireless mouse and keyboard?  Sounds like something that might happen if batteries are low.  Put new batteries in and see if problem disappears.

[bobw]

It was slow immediately after the install.  Keyboard and mouse are both wired.

[sonic]

Go to Menu > Settings > Install drivers and check if there are any proprietary drivers to install, especially for graphics.

[rokytnji]

I use glances, htop, or top to monitor resource hogs when my computer starts to lag.
Firefox has been a culprit of memory leaks in the past but not lately for me.

Always. Always. After I do a fresh/new linux debian style of install. 1st I do a

Code:

sudo apt-get update

Before installing anything. I also md5sum check any linux iso I intend to install iso before putting it on a bootable medium like usb,cd,or dvd.

Code:

harry@harry-Latitude-XT2:~$ apt-cache policy htop
htop:
  Installed: 1.0.2-3
  Candidate: 1.0.2-3
  Version table:
*** 1.0.2-3 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
harry@harry-Latitude-XT2:~$ apt-cache policy glances
glances:
  Installed: 1.7.3-2ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1.7.3-2ubuntu1
  Version table:
*** 1.7.3-2ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
harry@harry-Latitude-XT2:~$

top is already installed. Just type in

Code:

top

to see how ram and cpu usage is doing and what is sucking up your resources the most.

[bobw]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Re sonic's suggestion, there are no additional drivers available.

I've checked resource usage with the Task Manager - I'm more comfortable with that than with the terminal.  Idling with nothing but the Task manager open, it's generally running at 20-25% CPU usage.  With one or two applications open, this is normally 22-40%.  In both cases, almost half of this is being used by the Task Manager, and most of the rest by a task listed as:
/usr/bin/X-core :0 seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lighdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch

CPU usage often rises well above this figure when the machine is working.

When I run LL on the other old computer, there is 3-5% CPU usage with only Task Manager open, used almost entirely by TM, and 4-7% with applications open, again mainly accounted for by TM. The other task identified above takes only 0-0.7%.

I don't know what that task is, but it looks like it may be the root of the problem.

Both installations were done with the same live disk, and I've used the same mouse, keyboard and monitor with both computers.

Bob

[sonic]

That task is the display manager that shows the desktop and responsible for all the stuff that appear on it.