macbook pro 13 HIGH CPU usage, Notebook 3 days old

[n19htmare]

I'll start with saying that I've been a PC user for well, forever.

I have no clue why but since this morning, I'm getting 50+% CPU usage for no reason. I start the computer and after about 5 minutes it goes up to 50% and sometimes higher. The laptop is getting HOT because of it, cpu temp is in high 70s and sometimes grazing 80.
The battery life from 100% fully charged is like 2.5 hours due to constant CPU use.

This notebook is about 4 days old. Onlything I've done is install ilife and iworks along with some utilities like istat and smc fan control.

This started happening once I started using time machine. But the external hard drive I was using wasn't working right so i disconnected it and turned off time machine from system preferences.

Now regardless of how many times I restart, it keeps going to high CPU usage 5 minutes after it loads. Even if I just open Ichat and Safari and not touch anything else.

THe Activity Monitor doesn't show me anything other then high CPU usage, or I don't know how to use it since I'm new to macs.

Thanks in advance

 

[gr8tfly]

Make sure Activity Monitor is set to view "All Processes". You should be able to see what process is running then.

 

[n19htmare]

ok thats weird as soon as I posted this, it stopped and now It seems to be fine. I swear it was first at 99% for about 15 minutes and I had to force restart the computer.

Then it was at 50% for a while and i rebooted multiple times. I was making this thread while it was at 50% and as soon as I hit submit, it down back to normal.

I guess I'll have to wait and see what was causing it. Even though it said that % User was 50 and I had My processes selected and didn't see anything using more then 3%

was very weird.

 

[NC MacGuy]

If you've installed iStat menus, just enable CPU monitoring through iStat preference panel in System Preferences.



Then when you see processes spiking you can put your cursor on the iStat CPU #'s in menu bar and click. It'll show you what's going on.

 

[NC MacGuy]

ok thats weird as soon as I posted this, it stopped and now It seems to be fine. I swear it was first at 99% for about 15 minutes and I had to force restart the computer.

Then it was at 50% for a while and i rebooted multiple times. I was making this thread while it was at 50% and as soon as I hit submit, it down back to normal.

I guess I'll have to wait and see what was causing it. Even though it said that % User was 50 and I had My processes selected and didn't see anything using more then 3%

was very weird.

It could have been indexing your HDD. If you click on that little magnifying glass in the right corner of your menu bar when it happens again, it'll tell you it's indexing the volume. Usually happens when installing a new drive or OS. Very common on new computers.

 

[tenderidol]

Similar thing happened to my wife's 13" MBP when she connected an external HD for the first time today. I knew that it was indexing, etc. However, the CPU usage remained high even after the indexing was completed and there were 2 processes taking up lot of CPU power: ATSServer and mdworker. As long as the HD was connected, they remained high; when I disconnected the HD, the CPU usage went down to idle.

 

[n19htmare]

Indexing eh? interesting.

But Would indexing use up all my cycles? Remember it was at near full usage for a long time while on battery and then 50% after then.
I can't Imagine Apple would allow any indexing going on when the computer is on battery power. Even so, I thought Indexing was a background process and only used a few cpu cycles.

I could be wrong, though we may never find out what it was, since now it seems to be ok.