MacBook running hot due to System CPU usage?

[maximus06]

I've been monitoring the CPU temperatures on my 2 week old alu macbook frequently, and it always hovers at ~42 degrees celsius.

However, today something odd happened, all of a sudden the computer was getting noticeable hotter (the fans remained off though), when I checked CPU temp it was up to 72 degrees.

I checked with "Activity Monitor" and nothing was using up more than 2% CPU. Then I saw through iStatPro that system CPU usage was at 40%. What the hell? Its usually at 2-5%...i.e. always.

After restarting, the system cpu usage was back down to 2% and the temperature slowly dropped back to its norm. Anyone have this happen?

 

[JamesGorman]

thats exactly what happened to me.

 

[SOLLERBOY]

I got this the other day, al;so get it with my imac, pretty sure it's just a conflict between the system and istat.

 

[hamzab]

Check how much activity usage WindowServer is using up?

Do you happen to have a lot of Widgets installed? If so, maybe their causing it to heat up more

Hamza

 

[maximus06]

Check how much activity usage WindowServer is using up?

Do you happen to have a lot of Widgets installed? If so, maybe their causing it to heat up more

Hamza

Not that many widgets, maybe 3 extra ones. You don't get +32 degrees celsius from widgets.

 

[hamzab]

Not that many widgets, maybe 3 extra ones. You don't get +32 degrees celsius from widgets.

Belive me mate, I had this one Widget, it showed me fan speed, as in it actually showed how fast the fan was spinning, cant remember its name, I went on activities and saw that WindowServer was using something like 40% of CPU! I took off this widget and immediately saw a reduction in CPU usage which lead to drop in heat

Just my 2 pence mate

 

[lr4life]

I have had the same problem.

The same exact thing was happening to me.
My computer was constantly extremely hot and my battery life had taken a noticeable hit.

A quick check with my Activity Monitor and a glance at mt iStat menu bar tool revealed to me that something was running at almost FULL capacity while my computer simply sat with an iTunes and a Firefox window open.

The culprit was iAntiVirus!
It was using up to 98% of the processing power of one of my Intel cores.
Why it felt the need to do so, is still a mystery to me, but since then my CPU usage has been back down to around 5% on each core for casual use.

If you have iAntiVirus, then get rid of it ASAP.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

memory leak? poor coding?

programs can be system hogs...