This has been going on for awhile now. On my iMac, every once in awhile the CPU usage will jump to 100% on both cores, and the fans kick in. I just witnessed it do it now, and it is totally random. In activity moniter, DashboardClient is what is making the CPU work so hard *that process takes up about 98% on both cores). The only way to stop it is to restart. Any idea on how to prevent this from happening? It is just kind of annoying, and like I said, it won't go away until I restart.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
CPU jumps to 100%
- Thread starter Zwhaler
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Is the same app always the offender? Always DashboardClient? If so, have you considered disabling Dashboard? How often do you use it? Could it possibly be a single widget that does it? What widgets do you run? Have you tried selectively killing widgets?
Those are a few things that come to mind...
Have you installed any third party widgets?
Have you tried killing the Dock? (via Activity Monitor or Terminal)
Have you tried killing the Dock? (via Activity Monitor or Terminal)
Here are the 3rd party widgets I am using. iStat Pro, Wikipedia, MacRumors, Sunlit Earth, Apple Logo, Happy Mac (just a picture of a happy mac), InterfaceLIFT, Sing that iTune!, and the "Bush leaves office" one. I do not want to have to disable dashboard, so what else can I do to prevent this? (yes, it is always dashboard client that is using the CPU)
One thing I found is that a widget takes up more CPU cycles if its field is full (even if you aren't in the dashboard and are done with it)...so try not to leave the fields of say, the dictionary or translator widgets (or any others with search fields) full when you are done using them, just clear the field when you've finished. That won't take care of the whole problem (sounds like you either have too many widgets or one really piggish one), but it should help.
First off you shoulf turn off all Dashboard Widgets. Does it still spike? If yes, then it's not likely to be a widget. If it doesn't, then add widgets one at a time and test until you find the culprit.
The only widget I am using that is full is the stickys widget, but it doesn't really do anything with what is written down so I guess that can't be it. I can't seem to find which widget is giving me trouble, even after removing each of them.
I tried removing each widget one at a time (except iStat Pro) and it remained the same. Again, restarting always fixes the problem, but then it comes back after awhile. It doesn't spike, the processor has been on full for about an hour now. The RAM is acting normal though.
If you don't start from a baseline of no widgets running, how are we expected to diagnose the problem? Either that or it's iStat Pro.