CPU And Fan Getting Hammered

[MadDoc]

I can't work out what is going on.

I'm running 10.5.1. I've had no problems since launch. The last few days I have noticed that after my Mac has been running for a few minutes - the fan slowly speeds up and performance drops.

I think the problem is 'mdworker' (whatever that is):

I don't know why it says PowerPC either (using a C2D MBP). The only apps I had running at that time were Safari and Mail. I have nothing in my startup items folder. I don't recall installing anything new either.

Any ideas - it's very annoying!

MadDoc

 

[Shadow]

mdworker is Spotlight, so it may just be indexing your HD. However, you've had it for a few days so it cant still be indexing. And why is it PPC? This is odd. Try killing the process and see what happens.

 

[MadDoc]

If I kill the process or kill spotlight it just restarts again

I only have one internal drive and I can't think why it would be indexing it. Time Machine is not active either.

MadDoc,

 

[MadDoc]

Does anyone have any suggestions?

This is now happening whenever I start my Mac. It's always a PPC application (mdworker). What gives?

Killing the process does nothing. This happens when only the Finder is running.

MadDoc,

 

[johninsf]

Does anyone have any suggestions?

This is now happening whenever I start my Mac. It's always a PPC application (mdworker). What gives?

Killing the process does nothing. This happens when only the Finder is running.

MadDoc,

You can disable spotlight by putting your hard disk in its privacy list in the preferences (at least that worked in Tiger). Or if you let it run long enough, it may be done with its indexing. It can be a pain if you change a large file on a regular basis, and Spotlight re-indexes it.

But the REAL question here is, why does Apple still have a PowerPC version of mdworker (which is one of the processes that indexes all the various files that have changed on your harddisk. Anyone know?

 

[squeeks]

You can disable spotlight by putting your hard disk in its privacy list in the preferences (at least that worked in Tiger). Or if you let it run long enough, it may be done with its indexing. It can be a pain if you change a large file on a regular basis, and Spotlight re-indexes it.

But the REAL question here is, why does Apple still have a PowerPC version of mdworker (which is one of the processes that indexes all the various files that have changed on your harddisk. Anyone know?

my guess is because there are still powerPC users out there???

and leopard is a universal OS???

no idea why its running on his machine though...reinstall time!!

 

[Eidorian]

I'm going to agree with squeeks. This is the first time I've seen such a low level system process running in the incorrect architecture. Call up Apple or reinstall OS X. Apple does OS X support you know.

 

[Burnsey]

on my C2D mbp mdworker is intel.

 

[doug in albq]

I had a similar issue. Not sure why, but mdworker lately sometimes goes off the charts when, at the same time my spotlight is NOT indexing. Or at least not "openly" as in seeing the little dot within the spotlight magnifying glass.

I don't have the answers, but some questions I'll throw out there:

1.Been doing any bittorrenting lately?

2. WiFi connect (purposefully or accidentally) to a different LAN,like the cafe or a neighbor?
(does mdworker do a hidden indexing of servers or shared disks when one connects to a new LAN?)

3. do you have a dual-boot HD with two different versions of os X (.4 & .5)?

 

[doug in albq]

also, the fix for mdworker going out of control is to boot from leopard install and repair permissions.

 

[johninsf]

I had a similar issue. Not sure why, but mdworker lately sometimes goes off the charts when, at the same time my spotlight is NOT indexing. Or at least not "openly" as in seeing the little dot within the spotlight magnifying glass.

I don't have the answers, but some questions I'll throw out there:

1.Been doing any bittorrenting lately?

Spotlight indexes disks initially when you first connect, showing the dot in the magnifying glass, but it re-indexes any file whenever it is modified. During re-indexing, there is no visible indicator, it happens in the background. If you are constantly modifying big files, such as by using bittorrent, this can cause a lot of background action, so Doug in albq is right to ask that. I'm not sure if bittorrent in particular causes this, but Eudora seemed to, with its monolithic email database files that were always being modified.

 

[kmzs]

MadDoc, have you used REALbasic? Have you installed its spotlight plugin? If answers both are "Yes", removing its plugin from /Library/Application Support/Spotlight/ may fix your issue.

 

[rhinoab]

I has this problem, and it all came down to mdworker continually trying to index the bittorrent file that I was downloading.

You can check what mdworker is doing by opening terminal and typing in
lsof | grep mdworker

After looking closely I found that my downloads folder was there twice. This is where the bittorrent files were being saved.

I have since hidden the downloads folder from the spotlight search and this has sorted out the problem.

Systempreferences/spotlight/Privacy (add your bittorrent folder).

Thx for the tip doug_in_albq

 

[lostngone]

I has this problem, and it all came down to mdworker continually trying to index the bittorrent file that I was downloading.

You can check what mdworker is doing by opening terminal and typing in
lsof | grep mdworker

After looking closely I found that my downloads folder was there twice. This is where the bittorrent files were being saved.

I have since hidden the downloads folder from the spotlight search and this has sorted out the problem.

Systempreferences/spotlight/Privacy (add your bittorrent folder).

Thx for the tip doug_in_albq

Yes I have had this problem as well. Large Bit-torrent files also play havoc with time machine because during downloading they are always changing as more of the file comes in.

MadDoc can you go into Terminal under the utilities folder and type

tail -f /var/log/system.log

When this is happening and see if anything about mdworker shows up?