Re: why is system getting stuck ...

>>>>> Recently, I have begun to have recurring issues
>>>>> with my Linux Mint 18.1 system seeming to get "stuck"
>>>>> and I can't figure out why. I leave my system running
>>>>> 24/7 and have rarely had a reason or need to shut down.
>>>>> It has now been running (mostly fine) for 10 days.
>>>>> The recent problems have happened with both the chrome
>>>>> browser and the firefox browser (open at separate times).
>>>>> Various symptoms include the screen seeming to "freeze"
>>>>> sometimes with the cursor pointer disappearing, sometimes
>>>>> it changes to an "I" instead of an arrow pointer and is
>>>>> either unmovable on the screen or sometimes it can be
>>>>> moved, but at a drunken snail's pace.
>>>>> Sometimes the screen goes blank and if I walk away and
>>>>> come back after several minutes, the screen is restored
>>>>> and the cursor can be moved again.
>>>>> I have uploaded a screen shot and two text files as
>>>>> examples, including top.txt ... ps-ef.txt ... and a couple
>>>>> of screen shots. Can someone tell me what processes ps-ef
>>>>> show that should be or could be killed?
>>>>> Why does top-txt show two instances of chrome running ??
>>>>> Why does top whoc 4 users when 'who' shows only 3?
>>>>> And why are there 3 users when I am the only user?
>>>>> http://www.upquick.com/temp/freeze.jpg
>>>>> http://www.upquick.com/temp/top-txt
>>>>> http://www.upquick.com/temp/ps-ef.txt
>>>>> t420: who
>>>>> joe      tty8         2018-02-28 14:39 (:0)
>>>>> joe      pts/2        2018-05-22 15:43 (:0)
>>>>> joe      pts/5        2018-02-28 14:40 (:0)
>>>>> top - 15:47:20 up 170 days,  5:29,  4 users,  load average: 0.22, 1.01,
>>>>> 10.65
>>>>> Tasks: 245 total,   2 running, 235 sleeping,   0 stopped,   8 zombie
>>>>> %Cpu(s):  5.0 us,  1.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 93.6 id,  0.1 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,
>>>>> 0.0 st
>>>>> KiB Mem:   8056428 total,  3870692 used,  4185736 free,   134676
>>>>> buffers
>>>>> KiB Swap:  1951740 total,  1769720 used,   182020 free.  1161048
>>>>> cached Mem
>>>>>   PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+
>>>>> COMMAND
>>>>> 10665 joe       20   0 3832944 239268  63624 S  11.9  3.0   6649:51
>>>>> plasma-desk+
>>>>> 15697 joe       20   0  511896  50588  35968 S   5.3  0.6   0:05.17
>>>>> konsole
>>>>> 10241 root      20   0  419892 148588  99172 S   4.0  1.8   1567:26
>>>>> Xorg
>>>>> 10659 joe       20   0 3247440  90844  18280 S   0.7  1.1 642:54.34
>>>>> kwin
>>>>> 18274 joe       20   0 1841712 181908     16 S   0.7  2.3  50:10.02
>>>>> chrome ***** (1)
>>>>>     8 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3  0.0  75:00.93
>>>>> rcuos/0
>>>>>   487 root     -51   0       0      0      0 S   0.3  0.0 464:58.53
>>>>> irq/44-iwlw+
>>>>>  1174 root      20   0    4388    224    100 S   0.3  0.0 112:21.59
>>>>> acpid
>>>>> 14574 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.42
>>>>> kworker/u16+
>>>>> 15757 joe       20   0   24964   3168   2568 R   0.3  0.0   0:00.81 top
>>>>> 31023 joe       20   0 1752576  36352      0 S   0.3  0.5 149:49.69
>>>>> chrome ***** (2)
>>>>>     1 root      20   0   37500   2096      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:14.22
>>>>> init
>>>>>     2 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:03.73
>>>>> kthreadd
>>>>>     3 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0  10:32.60
>>>>> ksoftirqd/0
>>>>>     5 root       0 -20       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00
>>>>> kworker/0:0H
>>>>>     7 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0 136:59.67
>>>>> rcu_sched
>>>>>     9 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0  23:30.73
>>>>> rcuos/1
>>>>>    10 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0  44:27.97
>>>>> rcuos/2
>>>>>    11 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0  25:53.54
>>>>> rcuos/3
>>>>>    12 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01
>>>>> rcuos/4
>>>>>    13 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01
>>>>> rcuos/5
>>>>>    14 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01
>>>>> rcuos/6
>>>>>    15 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01
>>>>> rcuos/7
>>>>>    16 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00
>>>>> rcu_bh