SeaMonkey 2.42.9 CPU spiking

[ivan]

Hi Dave, 

I know this isn't your 'thing' but I have noticed that you do occasionally give advice about firefox.

I have started using firefox 38.8 with ArcaOS because your trusty 17.0.11 is unable to load several sites that I visit, especially those https ones.  The problem I am seeing, I can go and make the coffee while 38.8 is starting.  Even when it is started opening a site or trying to scroll down a page is slow and intermittent.

I think it has something to do with the AMD processors I use.

The 'working state.jpg is what I see at startup and opening a page.
The 'rest state.jpg' is what happens with firefox open but doing nothing, although it must be doing something to run those processors flat out.   

I have tried this on the following processors: AMD Sempron 3850 quad core APU, AMD A-Series A10-9700 4 compute cores and 6 graphics cores and Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz 4 cores + 9 GPU cores.

Any ideas as to what is going on?

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Ivan, don't trust the CPU monitor as the way it works is broken. Here it shows the same thing with SM while the CPU widget in xcentre shows 1 cpu at 1-8% and the others offline, CPU temp is low as well. Top shows SM using 0-20%.
The CPU doesn't matter as 38.8 is targeted at a i486 and optimized for a i686.
Try the usual tests, starting in safe-mode and test with a new profile. Usually 38.8 runs good though it is still not going to work for some sites. Run firefox --help for parameters.
You could try 45.8 Firefox as well, it is worse for CPU usage but shouldn't feel slow. The one I linked here should work on your processors fine as IIRC, they all support SSE2 (Athlon didn't), need to install libvpx and hunspell

[ivan]

Thanks Dave, I'll get back to it as soon as I have my computers back - family arrived and all the kids wanted to play games on the big monitors (1920x1200 24" and up).

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hi Dave!

...BTW, for Firefox users, https://bitbucket.org/dryeo/dry-comm-esr31/downloads/firefox-45.9.0.en-US.os2-pentium-M.zip

Great stuff...but...can you do a different run that matches the build config of the official GA2 version?

So here is what I'm currently seeing (highlighting ONLY the differences):

1) GA2 version

Code: [Select]

Compiler Version Compiler flags
gcc.exe 4.9.2 -O2 -g -march=pentium4
c++         4.9.2 -O2 -march=pentium4  -g -Os -mno-sse -mno-sse2

2) Dave version

Code: [Select]

Compiler Version Compiler flags
gcc.exe 5.5.0
c++         5.5.0 -march=i686 -O3

The 5.5.0 fixes would allow us to skip sse & sse2 exclusion, so that's fine, but while you did say this was pentium-M, -march=i686 signifies the i686 instruction set as opposed to the pentium one, does it not? AFAIK that means it is not pentium4 equivalent...please correct me if I'm wrong here?

Thanks...oh and you know, if you really could (...I mean it's Christmas after all LOL) I really would like the following:

Code: [Select]

Compiler Version Compiler flags
gcc.exe 5.5.0 -march=amdfam10
c++         5.5.0 -march=amdfam10 -O3

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

[Paul Smedley]

Interesting. I didn't really change anything besides the compiler and target, Paul needs thanking for updating GCC.

No problems - it was a trivial rebuild. Glad you got it working, last I recall, you were having some issues that I never got around to investigating (story of my life these days!).

Cheers,

Paul

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Dariusz, you're right, I screwed up on which line I commented in my .mozconfig. I'll delete that build and replace it later. Haven't had power for a few days.
After I can try -march=amdfam10 -O2, 5.50 still has problems with -O3 and SSE2 instructions. Not sure if it'll work as it might build some intermediary binaries that won't run on my CPU (Q8800 IIRC) and I probably can't test it.

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Paul. It still has problems with -O3 and SSE2 and const variables I believe, O2 works well enough. There is also a problem of at least the 5.x builds preferring to link to the stdc++ lib in @UNIXROOT\usr\lib which I've had to move out of the way. I currently have your builds installed in @UNIXROOT\usr\localXXX where XXX is the version number without the dots, eg local550\
Once again thanks and merry Xmas, wish could send you some of the cold wet weather from here

[Dave Yeo]

I refreshed the Firefox Pentium M build, same download location.

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hi Dave!

I refreshed the Firefox Pentium M build, same download location.

Just tried it, but got the following error instead (with a fancy icon):

=== START ===
 That link has no power here

Return to the previous page or go back to your dashboard.
=== END ===

Seems like maybe the file is missing, or something just not right in the bitbucket world?

[Ian B Manners]

Try this link. Note the lowercase m at the end before the .zip

https://bitbucket.org/dryeo/dry-comm-esr31/downloads/firefox-45.9.0.en-US.os2-Pentium-m.zip

[Dave Yeo]

Yes, I just went by memory in renaming the zip and I guess Bitbucket is case sensitive. Might have to refresh the page as well.

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hi Ian!

Try this link. Note the lowercase m at the end before the .zip

https://bitbucket.org/dryeo/dry-comm-esr31/downloads/firefox-45.9.0.en-US.os2-Pentium-m.zip

Yup, got it...thank you! Deployed, highmem marked 'code only' and loaded using Dave's TurboLoader...will report back after a few days, thanks Dave!!!

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Dariusz, I succeeded in building Firefox with -march=amdfam10 -O2. Unluckily make package fails really quick, seems there's something wrong with xpcshell.exe and trying to run dist\bin\firefox.exe crashes right away due to illegal instruction, namely POPCNT.
Thought of zipping up dist\bin, which is half a gigabyte unzipped, 183.5 MB zipped, 93MB 7zed. Not sure what to do with this.

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hey Dave!

Hi Dariusz, I succeeded in building Firefox with -march=amdfam10 -O2. Unluckily make package fails really quick, seems there's something wrong with xpcshell.exe and trying to run dist\bin\firefox.exe crashes right away due to illegal instruction, namely POPCNT.
Thought of zipping up dist\bin, which is half a gigabyte unzipped, 183.5 MB zipped, 93MB 7zed. Not sure what to do with this.

If the exe and dlls are built successfully I am happy to give it a try here...it's a massive u/l for you though...but if you're willing to I'm happy to open up my FTP server...let me know, I'll send the credentials.

[Dave Yeo]

I'll upload the 7z as long as you're willing to share if others such as Ivan with AMD CPU's want to test, assuming it actually runs for you. I'd assume it does.
Pretty sure you have my email.