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