Macbook running at 55-65% CPU usage at idle!

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Level 1

4 points

Macbook running at 55-65% CPU usage at idle!

This morning my macbook started acting very weird, first I thought it was a heat/fan issue since my fan would start up full blast, and my mac book would heat up VERY FAST. After one or two minutes when the computer is not even being used, no running applications. My MB is running at 86˚C and 6200 RPM while idleing (no applications, just the desktop)

After running the activity manager, it lists that I consistently have 50%-60% usage .

In the break down, it lists 50%-60% under the "user", the "nice" has 0% usage, and the system has ~5%, while "idle" is using 40%-50%!

I believe my fan/heat issues are coming from all this CPU usage out of now where!

In the applications break down, none of them take up more then ~2%

This is just starting up the computer, looking at the desktop, with no applications running besides the Activity Manager.

Has anyone experienced this!? Some mystery program or process that isnt showing up in activity manager using the huge amounts of cpu usage.

Please someone help!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.10), Black MB

Posted on Sep 12, 2007 6:39 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 25, 2007 9:45 AM in response to Valgar

I recently developed a similar problem on my MacBook 13" 2.16GZHz system.
This morning I noticed my fan running very high (6180RPMs). It does not normally run this high.
I check using iStat pro and have the following approximate usage values.
User 5%
Nice 0%
Sys 50%
Idle 41%

I don't remember this much sys usage before.

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Answer 2

Sep 25, 2007 10:24 AM in response to Valgar

I found the problem on my computer.
Open a terminal window and type the following command

top -ocpu -R -F -s 2 -n30

This will list the process that are running and sort them by CPU usage.
Ignore the process call top as this is the one you just executed.
For me, I found that a process called "HP Communi" was taking up 56% of my CPU. This is obviously an HP driver/program running. I recalled installing an HP printer from our network recently, so I went to the Printer section of the system preferences and removed that printer.
The problem is now gone. CPU usage is normal, and my fan runs quietly.

I think the HP programs are system hogs. You might be able to just get the driver running and not the other parts of the program, but I don't know how yet.

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Answer 3

grahams

Level 1

0 points

Sep 25, 2007 10:15 PM in response to Jon Daley

I just had the same problem on my girlfriends macbook, with the cpu showing one core fully used, andf the other with no usage. The fans went berserk within 2 mins of starting up with no main apps being loaded.
So i looked into activity monitor and chose to show all processes ( not just my processes , since for some reason the next bit was hidden under my processes). this showed that print manager was operating despite me not being aware of it being active and had 96 % usage of the cpu. i force quitted it and the temp , fan speed and cpu usage just went back to normal ( immediately)

sounds like a stray application just not closing automatically

i will be checking the activity monitor more regularily for her in future, as this cant be good for the cpu , etc

i was also helped by the new istats menu which has just come out and shows the relevant info on your top tool bar instead of under dashboard.

hope all this helped

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Answer 4

Nov 12, 2007 2:15 PM in response to Jon Daley

Right on Jon. Thanks for the great tip. Tech support was ready to have me send in my macbook! In my case, "Print manager" was on the top of the list. I opened the printer que, and there was a print job in there and it said it was "connecting" (this was an old job from days earlier) I deleted the job, and just like magic, the cpu usage went down to almost 0, and the fan stopped running full blast!!! Thanks again for the great tip on where to find the cpu hog!!

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Answer 5

Feb 6, 2008 6:13 PM in response to grahams

Same issue, same fix. Thanks, months later!

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