c2d macbook pro extremely high cpu usage.

[mohitasthana]

Today I was facetiming with someone on my macbook (mid 2010, running 10.6.8., 4 gb ram, c2d) and the cpu usage was crazy and the fans were going into overdrive!

i checked activity monitor, over 100%.

I just did a clean install for 10.6.3 a week ago because even my scrolling was laggy. Before, when I was on Mountain Lion, it wasn't this laggy.

I'm taking it into Apple on Sunday, but I was wondering what possible causes are there?

 

[mohitasthana]

can anyone help me?

my friend said to download a program called "free my ram" but I'm not sure if that'll do it.

 

[T5BRICK]

I'm guessing FaceTime is just a very processor intensive application. Maybe an update to 10.7 or 10.8 would help alleviate this? FaceTime for 10.6 was "beta".

 

[mohitasthana]

Update! I found out why my CPU processor was so high...
It was because something was caught in my fan so it would tend to overheat.
The genius at the genius bar took it out for free!

The reason why Mountain Lion wouldn't install was because of a failed hard drive, so 75 bucks later, I got myself a nice 500gig HDD with enough space to replace it with a 128gb ssd in a few months .

 

[KingYaba]

Replacing the thermal compound with an appropriate amount can generally lower temperatures by a few digits. Apple factory paste is slobbered all over. But yea, a clogged fan can make things worse.