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Firefox is pillaging my CPU

C

Comic Amusement

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 24, 2010
1
0
Ok, here is what happened (Before this, Firefox rarely got to 20% of my CPU)


My mac ran normally, until I downloaded an .mkv file, four gigs (A bluray rip)

I had Miro installed, and Miro barely could run this movie, while running my other media fine.

I decided to trash the movie because it made Miro take up 90% or more of my CPU.

Then Firefox started taking up about 70% of my CPU, and sometimes 110%.

I notice that Firefox drops down to 15% and lower when I have Tor and Torbutton active.

I have no clue why it suddenly does this. Firefox only starts hogging my CPU when it is communicating with the internet.

Does anyone have a clue what might be going on?
 
how can you take up 110% of a cpu?

and i had the same problem. i figured out it was just flash hogging my cpu and firefox as well. i went back to useing safari, downloaded clicktoflash, and adobe flash 10 beta 3. now my cpu is around 30% while playing youtube videos continuously , and my temps are usually at about 135-145F depending on how long i've been playing videos (fan at about 3k). i use smc fan control to view my cpu temps, and fancontroller to automatically adjust my fan.

if i were you id try my suggestions and see if it fixes the problem, because it worked great for me.
 
Intell said:
If the computer had two or more cores it can do that. 100% from core 1 and 10% from core 2, but the tasks are usually balanced slightly evenly between the cores.
Click to expand...

idk on my computer it shows both cores and they pretty much stay even all the time.
 
yeah but a cpu isnt 200% just because its 2 cores. it just means each core is 50% of the cpu...
 
So every dual core 2.0 Ghz Mac (example) out there is running at half it's potential at 1Ghz? One (1) cpu is not 200%, but two (2) are. It all has to due with how the operating system sees the system resources it has. If Apple changed it to reflect your logic, people would be on here asking "why does my iMac never go above 50% cpu usage?" That would be a disaster.
 
Intell said:
So every dual core 2.0 Ghz Mac (example) out there is running at half it's potential at 1Ghz? One (1) cpu is not 200%, but two (2) are. It all has to due with how the operating system sees the system resources it has. If Apple changed it to reflect your logic, people would be on here asking "why does my iMac never go above 50% cpu usage?" That would be a disaster.
Click to expand...

well the way he explained it as 110% confused me. in activity monitor it shows 2 bars. 1 for each core. if im playing youtube videos it says 30%. does that mean its 30% of each core?

mine has never said 100% for 1 core and 10% for the other. and i have ran my cpu at 100% does this mean both cores are 100%?
 
No it doesn't mean 30 of each core. More like 15 of each core. Mine has said 100 on core 1 and 10 core 2. It usually happens after the cpu has been working hard. My guess at that is it's trying to cool down the different cores. Because this cycles. 100 on 1 and 10 on 2 then 10 on 1 and 100 on 2 every few seconds. Your last question is yes. If the thing and the bottom says 100% and not the process part of the window, then the cpu is working at it's full potential of 200%. I know it's weird but that's how it is.
 
Intell said:
No it doesn't mean 30 of each core. More like 15 of each core. Mine has said 100 on core 1 and 10 core 2. It usually happens after the cpu has been working hard. My guess at that is it's trying to cool down the different cores. Because this cycles. 100 on 1 and 10 on 2 then 10 on 1 and 100 on 2 every few seconds. Your last question is yes. If the thing and the bottom says 100% and not the process part of the window, then the cpu is working at it's full potential of 200%. I know it's weird but that's how it is.
Click to expand...

yeah it is kinda weird.

actually i just checked with menumeters that shows each core and both cores are working at about 30% each..
 
Then it's using 60% of the CPUs total potential. I was going by what it said in the process part of Activity Monitor.
 
If you are watching Youtube or another flash based media like an ad. Then yes that CPU usage seems correct for Firefox or Safari.
 
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