CPU Usage--what is "normal" at idle?

Hello,
When I run activity monitor at idle, the % user CPU usage shows at 99%. Activity monitor shows as using the most % CPU at 1.10. % System shows at 1%.
Why is the computer running at an apparent 50% of available CPU at idle? Is this normal?
MacBook Pro 2.16 Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2 gig RAM

Thanks Jim,
Your post got me thinking. Another thread referenced a utility called applejack
http://applejack.sourceforge.net/
I ran that, and cleared out all the cache files. Now both user and system CPU usage is around 1% at idle.
I guess I'll add applejack to the regular maintenance schedule.
ASW

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What Causes High CPU Usage Even When PC is Idle

How can I fixed the high cpu usage on my pc?

mcmillan wrote:
rohankolay wrote:Right now i have kernel26-2.6.35.4 which i updated on 27 aug. That is around the same time the problem began.Should i downgrade it to kernel26-2.6.35.3 or kernel26-2.6.34.3?
I think most people have been seeing the problems in any of the 2.6.35 kernels, so 2.6.34.3 would be my recommendation
+1
And put kernel26 in IgnorePkg.

High cpu usage when the system is idle

I do have a high cpu usage problem when the system is idle. I bought the laptop (lenovo x230 tablet) with windows 7 installed in it. Then upgraded to windows 8. But ever since I have problems with high cpu usage by the system even when the computer is idle.
Only the system by itself uses around 30% of the cpu all the time. I ran xperf, and here is the result of it:
http://sdrv.ms/Kj6CFN
I appreciate any help you can provide.
Thanks,

Hi,
I'm sorry for that the log you provide can't be opened on my computer. While according to your description, it should had a special process that consume CPU usage when system idle Iguess, isn't it?
You can use
Process Explorer to monitor the process activity, may be we can find the reason of this problem.
Note: We can use Process Explorer to check the Stack of every process then analyize the problem in deep.
To gave a better insight about this problem, you can take a ScreenShot for this problem and provide the picture here.
Roger Lu
TechNet Community Support

What is average cpu usage for itunes? when idle?

I've noticed lately that itunes is using 6% cpu when I'm doing absolutely nothing, even with the window x'ed out. It seems to stay at 6% pretty steadily too doesn't fluctuate when idle; but when I open up the window and attempt to play music, the cpu goes crazy. The 6% when idle isn't a terrible issue, I would just like to know if this is normal... I don't have any plug-ins either and I'm running osx 10.4.11.

That can't be normal because I have a G4 1.5Ghz and, when idle, it runs .3% and at full steam it runs at max 10%. As far as a solution I think someone can give you more insight.

CPU Usage - Whats Normal

I purchased another mac and a new copy of FCS2 and got all that running without any issues the last few days;
What I'm seeing is a little odd, and was looking for some guidance/opinions on what may or may not be an issue;
I'm running the 8 core @ 3GHz - currently I have only the one HD in it, but according the Activity Monitor thats only peaking at 2MB/s and the average while I'm testing is well below 1.5MB/s
I have an odd memory config, its 32GB, using 8x4GB Kits - exact same memory - apple says only 16GB is supported, the system sees 32GB, the memory monitor reports 29GB free - Apple Store guys said it was a waste of money, but would work no issues.
I'm running a preview render on a 45 Min video, that is HDV 60i, the entire time line needs to be rendered for an overlay/transparency;
I'm also running a compressor job on a copy of the source 45 min video hdv 60i and compressor is converting that to a SD DVD file, using the apple preset for 90 min video.
I was wondering why the CPU (combined 8 cores) doesnt go anywhere past 60% with the workload thats being requested.
Hard Drive should have lots of room, and memory doesn't seem to be an issue...
I was wondering if there was something that could help drive up performance (ie, for FCS and or compressor to use more CPU time to get things done quicker)
As a side note, I ran before I started both tasks, the CPU count was about 40% average usage.
Any advice would be helpful.
Thanks in advance;

FCP is a 32bit application which means it doesn't make use of more than 4gb in real world terms. You have 28gb of RAM that does nothing for you.
To make more effective use of compressor, look into virtual clustering.
x

CPU Temperature - What's normal/safe?

I have just purchased (used) a MacBook Pro Retina 15 with i7 @ 2.6GHz 16GB RAM 256GB SSD
It is in excellent condition. I installed iStat Pro widget and battery cycles shows only 18 cycles with 99% health!
Everything has been great except I noticed it heats up very quickly. Let's take iTunes visualization for example. I close everything, but iTunes. I then View Visualization. My temperature shoots up from 45 degrees Celsius to 75-80 degrees Celsius and stays there with fans hovering around 3700-4000 rpm
Another example is Minecraft with render distance set to near and other settings set somewhat low...Within a minute or two of launching Minecraft, the CPU temp is showing upwards of 100 degrees Celsius and then cools to 90-95 and stays there as long as I'm playing minecraft. I haven't had it overheat (yet), but I still don't like it sitting anywhere above 80 deg C for extended periods of time. I can also feel the heat through the keyboard.
I bought this because I've never had a Mac and this thing seemed to be robust (accroding to the specs). I expected to use this laptop to do robust things. Shouldn't it be able to do what it was made to do without getting so hot?!
I have it elevated with 4 sticky note pads under each corner, so it is getting plenty of ventilation all around and under.
I was thinking of taking it to an Apple Store and showing them how fast the temperature shoots up. Hopefully they won't say that's just how Mac's operate because if that's the case, the factory warranty should be extended (high temperatures degrade internal parts at a much faster rate).
It is still in warranty for a few more months. Maybe they'll apply a better thermal paste (i.e. Arctic Silver). That may make a difference...

It is normal that a device will get hot, This will happen to all devices but should a device get to hot then it will just like a Pc shut down to protect itself unless like a Pc you have overclocked it
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. Richard P. Feynman

10.4.9 update and CPU usage up %20, even during idle

I experienced a general slowdown except with file transfers. I am about to give up and rollback to 10.4.8.

I rolled back to 10.4.8 (because all my problems appeared in 10.4.9) and everything speeded up and CPU dropped to under %9 while I type this. I no longer have to type a few words and wait for them to appear. I installed all my third party stuff except Norton antivirus and sidetrack. Any new update is 10.5 so ...
400Mhz Cpu can easily be taxed.
I never had a performance hit with apple updates since the beginning of OX. In fact when I moved from Puma to Jaguar, I experienced the same speedup as a processor upgrade earlier, 300mhz to 500mhz!

QT 7.5.5 - 99% CPU usage

have an Acer Aspire 3000. running Windows home XP, SP3. Mobile AMD Sempron 3000+ prcessor, 1.8 GHz, 448 RAM. When I run QT 7.5.5 *(not pro)* I get 99% CPU usage (thats just running in idle not playing anything). Interestingly, When I don't have Internet Access it sits Idle. Anyone know what's going on?

Turn off the "Show Content Guide" in QuickTime Player preferences.

Database file + high cpu usage

this has only started happening since i formatted and reinstalled windows. i have tried using both itunes 6.0.2.23 and 6.0.4.2 and both have the same problem.
my music library contains 5088 songs, i have tried deleting heaps down to around 3400 and problem is still there (ie i have eliminated number of songs as a factor cause before formatting i had more than 3400 but less than 5088)
when i play a song in itunes after about 5 seconds my cpu usage will jump to 100% this is on the "system" process, itunes itself uses around 2-5%. i was watching the itunes music folder though, and what it is doing is creating a new temp file (of 7.27mb) then renaming it to replace the current "itunes music library.xml" file. as soon as the xml file is replaced (takes about 10 seconds) cpu usage returns to normal.
this exact same thing happens when i quit itunes, although it takes roughly 20 seconds.
i have tried deleting all files in the itunes music folder apart from the base database file, that did nothing.
i tried removing the entire folder and letting it create a new blank library, then added just 1 album, and it worked perfectly. i also noticed that on my original library most but not all AAC encoded files did not cause the cpu spike, all mp3s did.
i tried creating an entire blank library and adding all my music back in, it still did high cpu usage so i would assume my current database is not corrupted.
does anyone know a solution to this? how to stop it recreating the xml file with every song played. the only thing important to me is saving my playcounts, so any solution which does not require losing them would be appreciated.
also yes i have tried completely uninstalling itunes, for both of the versions mentioned above, also tried updating over the top of the current installation, problem occurs everytime.
i am running service pack 2, all current windows updates installed, no spyware, no viruses.
thanks.
Windows XP Pro Athlon 64 3000+, 1GB DDR Ram

It may be iTunes, but it probably is not. iTunes is just affected by a conflict with another program (possibly).
Do you have a spy sweeper/virus scanner/etc. that periodically scans your PC memory? If so, then that is what may be interacting with iTunes.
You should list the iTunes Folders as part of the exclusions within your Virus Scanners, and other Security software.
BTW: I have a Library with over 13,000 song references. I do not see the same CPU spikes when playing music. It's not the size of the database - not at your current level.

Why the OC4J instance CPU Usage still 99% even all user already Logout ?

Hi All,
We are running OAS 10.1.3.3 with ADF BC Application.
At midnight when all user already logout, I notice that :
- on one instance, CPU keep on 99.9 %
- on the EM I see that there is there are 5 active sessions and 4 active request.
How can there are 4 active request while I am sure that I am the only one that login to the EM ?
I have tried to KILL -3 to create thread dump, but it doesn't work
How can I know, what are the those 4 active requests ?
What should I do to find out what consume the CPU ?
Thank you for your help,
xtanto
Edited by: xtanto on Apr 7, 2010 11:23 PM

Finally...proof that I am not going mad and that kglad's tweaks to his website make no difference at all to me.
Flash Player
Unacceptable CPU Use on Idle
Created: Tuesday 09:55 PM                   Updated: Yesterday 12:15 PM
Component/s:
ActionScript Performance
Security Level:
Public (All JIRA Users                                     )
Severity:
Performance
Reproducibility:
Every Time
Discoverability:
High
Found in Version:
Flash Player 10              - 10_0_1_218
Affected OS(s):
Mac              - OS 10.5
Injection:
No
Steps to Reproduce:
« Hide
Steps to reproduce:
1. Create empty FLA
2. Publish as AIR or SWF
3. Install/run AIR app, or run SWF in Stand Alone player or browser
4. Check CPU usage in Activity Monitor
Actual Results:
CPU usage of 3-6% on idle
Expected Results:
CPU usage of ~0% on idle
Workaround (if any):
None. Reducing frame rate reduces CPU use, but remains unacceptable even at 1fps.
This is a very serious issue, particularly for AIR applications. Having 3 or 4 AIR applications open on a Mac (a scenario that Adobe would like to see/promote) would use 10-20% of the CPU minimum, even when the applications are not doing anything. I also suspect that this is the root of at least some of the performance problems with Flash CS4 on Mac, as the stage core / swfPanel players are likely each using a sizable % of CPU even when idle.
Language Found:
English
Bugbase Id:
none
Triaged:
Yes
Participants:
Grant Skinner,             Manfred Karrer and             Tao Feng
Browser:
Other (specify version)

Maxed out CPU Usage, happens suddenly, no obvious cause, please help!

I've had an XServe-G5 running well for about 18 months, with anywhere from 2-5 active users at one time. The server is only running AFP, Software Update & FTP services.
For the last 2 months, without warning, the CPU usage will max out, with only a small amount of disk & lan access with it.
I've found a less than ideal solution . . . . the cpu max out seems to be linked to 1 or 2 users logged in at one time, but not always the same users, if these users disconnect then the CPU usage returns to normal. I haven't found a way to identify which user/users it is, so I disconnect them through 'Server Admin' one by one till I get a result.
This goes on up to 5 times a day. I've checked the AFP access log when the problem happens, but can't see anything there that isn't there normally, the error log has no events. When there are no users logged in, other than the local 'Admin', the problem does not occur.
We've resorted to only logging into the server when needed, but it's getting to be a major pain.
Please help!

Many things can cause this. What do you see in "top"?
One example is when you hit the "corrupt .DS_Store" bug in AFP. See afp548.com for a discussion, e.g.:
http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=20060329213629494
See also:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301711
russ
Xserve G5 2.0 GHz 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8) Apple Hardware RAID, ATTO UL4D, Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u

High CPU Usage in Word 2013

Hi everyone,
I'm having an issue with Word 2013 and I'm hoping someone can help. Seen as I got fleeced for my TechNet subscription this year (the price given on the invoice doubled when I called up to pay!) I’d very much like to see a speedy fix from the Microsofties
please! :D
Recently, I've found that Word will consistently exhibit high CPU utilisation, ~50% on a dual core second generation Core i5.
This continues, even when I’m not providing any input to or interacting with the Word window and even when the Word window is covered by other windows. Minimising Word causes its CPU usage to drop back down to zero.
The strange thing is that, so far, I’ve only observed this with a single document. I started writing this document at the start of this week and it’s been authored exclusively on Word 2013. In fact I’m the only one who’s editing it and I’ve only used a single
computer (and this one single install of Word 2013) to do so…
There’s nothing particularly unusual about this document, and a different but similar document which uses the same themes and features (in fact the theme for the second document was created from the first one) doesn’t appear to cause the same issues. Both
these documents are stored on SkyDrive, and are being edited directly from there.
Initially I tried the much recommended tweaks of disabling hardware graphics acceleration and sub-pixel positioning, however neither of these has had any effect.
I investigated a bit further using Sysinternals Process Monitor, and found that while Word is using a lot of CPU it’s actually looping very, very quickly polling for the existence of the registry key “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics”.
This key doesn’t exist on my system, and a quick test I conducted where I created it just lead to Word looping polling for more non-existent registry keys.
My system is a HP Folio 13 running Windows 8 Pro x64 with Office 2013 (RTM, not Beta) 32 bit. Both Windows and Office are fully patched, as is everything else on the system.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.
Chris

Hello again,
After working on my problematic document some more, I believe I’ve found the cause of the issue.
@Microsofties – I think this one is either a bug or a dodgy OOTB template…
I noticed that the high CPU usage only seemed to occur when the document’s footer was displayed. Experimenting with some careful scrolling and zooming to hide footer (without actually using the “hide white-space” option) seemed to confirm this so I investigated
the footer a bit more.
My document was using the standard Word “Facet (Odd Page)” footer template with a couple of fields added to suit my needs, namely “Publish Date” and a page number.
The template seems to be structured such that the content of the footer is inside two nested text boxes (one inside the other). I also noticed previously that this footer template also appears to “jump” up each page and back down again as I scrolled.
So I deleted the footer and its text boxes, and recreated the same content, in the same position (using the standard paragraph alignment tools) by hand without the nested text boxes. This has, so far, fixed the issue!
I also noticed that the CPU usage dropped right down to idle the moment I deleted the nested text boxes.
Altogether, this leads me to conclude that the “Facet (Odd Page)” footer template in Word 2013 is the source of my issue. Specifically, I believe that the use of nested text boxes in this template causes Word’s interactions with the .Net 4.5 WPF to go a
bit nuts, as evidenced by the infinite loop of request for the non-existent “Avalon.Graphics” WPF registry key I mentioned previously.
It would be nice to see some feedback on this one, Microsoft people, if only to know if this is actually a general issue or is specific to my document!
Thanks, Chris

Microsoft Office 2004 -- extremely high cpu usage and virtual ram

hi,
when i use office it causes a very high cpu usage even when its in idle mode.
i am unable to work with it, because its extremely slow.
does anyone have same experiences?
thanks for your help!
mbp 2.0 1,5gb ram 80gb hdd Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I am able to work OK with office, I'm using the 'old version' Microsoft Office v.X, not much details in the About Box, just listed as MSoft Word/Excel/etc for Mac service release 1.
I get the occasional crash, and I have seen Word in particular use 90% of a single core and amazingly large virtual memory usage, gigabytes sometimes, but eventually the document gets printed.
It shows how useful the dual core (or quad) cpu approach is!
One cpu for Word to print, and one cpu to run the rest of my applications/life!
I still use this old office rather than re-booting into Window§ for whatever is the latest version of office.
Doing some playing with a similar one page document in Office v.X and Pages 2.01, I get Word using about 25% of a core , Pages using 5%, - whilst editing; Intel native Pages has 20% of a core and 80MB ram 480 virtual whilst printing, Word has about 100% of a core and 65MB ram 650 virtual whilst printing, but it is a powerPC code so Rosetta is in there somewhere.
check Activity Monitor or other apps/widgets for some parasitic processes? have fun!
many Macs 512k -> MacBool Pro 2GHz 1GB ram Mac OS X (10.4.7) Yes, I have Key Lime

[SOLVED] dwm Basic Statusbar spikes CPU usage

When I attempt to add battery status to dwm by adding the following to my ~/.xinitrc and start X I get ~100% CPU usage.
ArchWiki wrote:while true
do
acpi | awk '{ print $3, $4 }' | sed s/","//g
done | exec dwm
When I uncommented the previous lines and left 'exec dwm' cpu usage returns to normal.
Would you happen to know a reason for the increase in usage?
Last edited by filam (2008-12-30 06:38:42)

Because it will poll every nanosecond. Put a sleep 10 in there or something
while true
do
acpi | awk '{ print $3, $4 }' | sed s/","//g
sleep 10
done | exec dwm

ITunes 10.6 has High CPU Usage when switched to Mini Player

iTunes has high CPU usage when switched to mini player. The CPU usage goes to 80-100% when the next song is played in Mini Player. iTunes then stays at high CPU usage.
Upon exiting mini player the CPU usage will drop back to the normal 0-5% levels.
This only happens when playing from the main music library; which my library is at 7089 items, 42.04 GB.
When playing from a smaller playlist such as a smart playlist with about 15 songs in it for example, the CPU usage stays low/normal.

Do you have any better luck with that if you update to iTunes 10.6.1.7?
From the notes for the release:
iTunes 10.6.1 provides a number of improvements, including:
• Fixes several issues that may cause iTunes to unexpectedly quit while playing videos, changing artwork size in Grid view and syncing photos to devices.
• Addresses an issue where some iTunes interface elements are incorrectly described by VoiceOver and WindowEyes.
• Fixes a problem where iTunes may become unresponsive while syncing iPod nano or iPod shuffle.
• Resolves an ordering problem while browsing TV episodes in your iTunes library on Apple TV.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

CPU Usage--what is "normal" at idle?

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