Comment 0 for bug 841948

Both 11.04 and 11.10 beta 1 are extremely slow on asus n51 laptops, installation takes around 6 hours, starting nautilus takes around 3 minutes and apport took around 17 minutes to compile the information in this bug report.
The cpu speed gnome applet shows the cpu always at minim clock speed (800MHz) and trying to change it using the applet has no effect, this however does not explain the slowdown, as capping the cpu clock at the same 800MHz frequency in 10.04 and 10.10 while using a kernel older than the one in natty the gnome2 desktop works pretty fast.

The problem is found both in the amd64 and i386 builds, and can be noticed as soon as you get to language selection in the installation process, (changing from english to catalan takes 38 seconds).

Updating from 10.10 to 11.04 has the same problem.
Booting a live cd has the same problem.

While 10.04 and 10.10 are not affected, I have managed to reproduce the bug in those versions by compiling and installing the latest upstream kernel from git.

At first I suspected a hardware problem, but after trying to install 11.04 in my girlfriend's laptop (also an n51, not the exact same model) I found it exhibited the same symptoms. I also contacted two other people through the forums with asus n51 series laptops and they suffer from similar problems.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: linux-image-generic 2.6.38.8.22
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC269 Analog [ALC269 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xfbff8000 irq 49'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC269'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0269,10431593,00100004'
   Controls : 13
   Simple ctrls : 8
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'NVidia'/'HDA NVidia at 0xfde7c000 irq 16'
   Mixer name : 'Nvidia GPU 0a HDMI/DP'
   Components : 'HDA:10de000a,10de0101,00100100'
   Controls : 16
   Simple ctrls : 4
Date: Mon Sep 5 15:56:46 2011
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
MachineType: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. N51Vn
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: file=/cdrom/preseed/hostname.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- maybe-ubiquity
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-2.6.38-8-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.38-8-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.52
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 08/13/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 217
dmi.board.asset.tag: ATN12345678901234567
dmi.board.name: N51Vn
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr217:bd08/13/2009:svnASUSTeKComputerInc.:pnN51Vn:pvr1.0:rvnASUSTeKComputerInc.:rnN51Vn:rvr1.0:cvnASUSTeKComputerInc.:ct10:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.name: N51Vn
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.