System CPU Usage over 70% when idle

Question

Hey guys,I&#x27;ve searched high and low through most of the support threads on this issue, but can&#x27;t seem to find an answer to my problem...or even a culprit.I recently purcahsed a refurbished early 2011 MBP from a 3rd party computer store here in Atlanta. It has a 2GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 250GB solid state hard drive runing Mavericks OS 10.9.3I noticed lagging the first day I purchased the computer but was assured it was probably a slow internet connection. Now, a week or so later, the problem persists. I ran Activity Monitor to find that almost 75% of my CPU is being used for System Usage. This is with no other apps or programs running besides Activity Monitor. Here&#x27;s an EtreCheck that I ran:EtreCheck version: 1.9.11 (43) - report generated May 28, 2014 at 9:11:53 PM EDTHardware Information:          MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,2          1 2 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores          8 GB RAMVideo Information:          Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 512 MB          AMD Radeon HD 6490M - VRAM: 256 MBSystem Software:          OS X 10.9.3 (13D65) - Uptime: 0 days 1:53:46Disk Information:          APPLE SSD TS256C disk0 : (251 GB)                    EFI (disk0s1) &lt;not mounted&gt;: 209.7 MB                     Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 250.66 GB (195.18 GB free)          MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-8A8  USB Information:          Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)           Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub                     Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller           Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad           Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver Thunderbolt Information:          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_busGatekeeper:          AnywhereLaunch Daemons:          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support          [loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist Support          [loaded] com.bombich.ccc.plist Support          [invalid] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plistLaunch Agents:          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist Support          [invalid] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plistUser Launch Agents:          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support          [running] com.spotify.webhelper.plist SupportUser Login Items:          iTunesHelperInternet Plug-ins:          Silverlight: Version: 4.1.10329.0 Support          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support          Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9Audio Plug-ins:          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9          AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9iTunes Plug-ins:          Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.93rd Party Preference Panes:          Flash Player  SupportTime Machine:          Time Machine not configured!Top Processes by CPU:              31%          Google Chrome               4%          WindowServer               2%          securityd               2%          hidd               1%          locationdTop Processes by Memory:          90 MB          mds_stores          90 MB          Google Chrome          66 MB          WindowServer          57 MB          Finder          49 MB          mdsVirtual Memory Information:          5.31 GB          Free RAM          1.31 GB          Active RAM          310 MB          Inactive RAM          1.07 GB          Wired RAM          712 MB          Page-ins          0 B          Page-outsI just want a quick MBP. Thanks in advance for any suggestions on how to solve this!

Melophage · Answer

rwhatley1,regarding the high CPU % when idle, have you tried resetting your MacBook Pro’s System Management Controller?The only problem I can see in your EtreCheck report is that your installed version of Silverlight is outdated. You can download the latest version from here.Note that Chrome tends to run more energy intensively than other browsers on 64-bit versions of OS X — this is because Google only provides a 32-bit version of Chrome.

rwhatley1 · Answer

Thank you for your reply, Melophage. I reset my MBP&#x27;s System Management Controller to no avail, as it is still happening. I&#x27;ve noticed that it happens after about an hour of use most of the time. I&#x27;ll usually just be surfing the net casually and then BOOM...everything slows down, the cpu hits 75%, and I can&#x27;t figure out why? It&#x27;s so frustrating. I can&#x27;t find the catalyst that makes it do that and don&#x27;t really know how to go about doing so. I notice that when it starts to happen, even if I close all the applications that are running, it never goes down once it starts. Here&#x27;s a screenshot from when it spikes:It&#x27;s amazingly frustrating as it renders the computer basically useless. 😟

Melophage · Answer

rwhatley1,in Activity Monitor, try selecting View → All Processes instead of View → My Processes; perhaps the culprit might be a system process of some sort?After rebooting, if you run a browser other than Chrome, do you still get the same spikes? Chrome certainly seems to be devouring your MacBook Pro’s CPU Time.

Terkey06 · Answer

I realize it&#x27;s an old post, but I&#x27;m experiencing the same exact issue with my similar spec machine. Did you ever come to a resolution for this problem? What was it?