Mac Mini (2018) (6-core i5) CPU almost always at 45% or more

[Engender]

Do other people's 2018 Mac Minis always seem to be gunning the CPU? Granted, I am running three monitors through an eGPU, but . . . It seems like the CPU on my 4,1>5,1 Mac Pro handled MacOS better.

Any suggestions to address this problem?

 

[thepyrate]

Can you check activity monitor or use a monitoring app like iStat Menus to actually see what is using the CPU time? Otherwise we're all just guessing

 

[Engender]

Here's what EtreCheckPro says:

Top Processes Snapshot by CPU​

Process (count)	Source	CPU
	com.apple.WebKit.WebContent (33)	Apple	301.11 %
	WindowServer	Apple	68.24 %	About
	MTLCompilerService (20)	Apple	38.33 %
	launchservicesd	Apple	18.52 %	About
	Safari	Apple	12.28 %

A list of processes using the highest amount of your computer’s processing capacity. Any value over 50% may indicate a problem. Any value over 100% may indicate a serious problem.

Some items may have additional information available. Click the About buttons to see manual pages for those items that have them.

 

[Bigwaff]

Quit Safari.

 

[Engender]

Quit Safari.

But what am I going to use to reply to your post!?

I did uncheck the developer tools in Safari, and now WebKit is no longer using 300% of the CPU. The CPU, however, is at 88% right now according to iStat . . . so maybe there is more work to be done?

 

[carylee2002]

I use Firefox myself and replaced safari over a year ago.

 

[Fishrrman]

I'm using a 2018 Mini and I still use OS 10.14 (Mojave) on it.
Aside: the OP didn't tell us WHICH VERSION of the OS he is using.

I've noticed that Safari (since it hasn't been "upgraded" by Apple for years now) no longer behaves well with some websites -- and that includes THIS site.

I've noticed the same kind of problems the OP seems to be having -- with certain Safari-related processes clogging up, using huge amounts of CPU power, and setting off the fans.

So... for at least SOME websites, I use a different browser.
Example: for forums.macrumors.com I use Orion.

OP:
When you get problems like you're seeing above -- in this case, it looks like "com.apple.WebKit.WebContent (" 33)is "running away" on you -- why don't you just use Activity Monitor to KILL the runaway process, and then continue?

That works for me, at least... sometimes.

 

[Engender]

That sounds like not a bad idea, but I prefer to get to the bottom of whatever the issue is so I don't have to kill processes every day.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I prefer to get to the bottom of whatever the issue is so I don't have to kill processes every day."

What version of the OS are you using?

 

[Engender]

"I prefer to get to the bottom of whatever the issue is so I don't have to kill processes every day."

What version of the OS are you using?

Sequoia 15.2 (24C101)

I think the slowing was thermal throttling. I upgraded the memory, broke the fan connector, and started monitoring throttling (via pmset -g thermlog). I got a new fan, and I'm still seeing throttling. Now, I've got one PC fan below the Mac Mini and one above . . . and I still see throttling! But, to be fair, much less throttling. But now the internal fan, at least, isn't running at 100% all the time.

I also have four Creedence Cryptex files mounted and showing on my desktop.

I miss my Mac Pro!