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My Powerbook is working too hard!

B

bostonwhaler1

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 4, 2004
48
0
Toronto, Canada
First of all... Powerbook 15" SD 1.5GHz G4 768MB RAM

I have found that if I use my computer for a few hours, eventually it gets to the point where my CPU is working at close to 100% ALL the time. Even if I'm not doing anything. For instance, right now I have 5 apps open, all of them effectively inactive and Activity Monitor is showing full CPU usage right now. It does not seem to fluctuate, just stays at 100%. What's wrong here? If I check the processes list, Finder is using approximately 85-90% of the CPU at any given time. Does this mean there's a bunch of stuff running in the background that really shouldn't be? If so, how do I stop this? The fan keeps coming on, presumably because the CPU is working so hard, even though I have the computer up on a stand where it gets amazing ventilation.

Help!

Thanks a million.
 
bostonwhaler1 said:
First of all... Powerbook 15" SD 1.5GHz G4 768MB RAM

I have found that if I use my computer for a few hours, eventually it gets to the point where my CPU is working at close to 100% ALL the time. Even if I'm not doing anything. For instance, right now I have 5 apps open, all of them effectively inactive and Activity Monitor is showing full CPU usage right now. It does not seem to fluctuate, just stays at 100%. What's wrong here? If I check the processes list, Finder is using approximately 85-90% of the CPU at any given time. Does this mean there's a bunch of stuff running in the background that really shouldn't be? If so, how do I stop this? The fan keeps coming on, presumably because the CPU is working so hard, even though I have the computer up on a stand where it gets amazing ventilation.

Help!

Thanks a million.
Click to expand...

Check your disk activity... could be constant drive pages which actually could be a serious problem...
 
I used to get that alot but after I cleared the finder cache I hardly ever get it. Also restarting finder when it gets to 100% should put it back to normal.
 
bostonwhaler1 said:
How do I know if it's "constant drive pages"? What does this mean and how do I control it?
Click to expand...

Check your Activity Monitor for Disk Usage like I mentioned above... see how much disk usage there is.
 
What kind of peripherals do you have hooked up to the pb? I have an HP all-in-one that used to slowly drain my resources away until they were almost all gone. Fortunately, changes in the HP driver or the latest OS release have fixed the problem. But I was helping a friend set up a cheap Lexmark printer on his new powerbook and ran into all these horror stories about how the Lexmark would bring OS X to a grinding halt. Something about polling the USB port unnecessarily. Anyhow, just something else to think about.
 
I've got a PB 12" and every week or so get similar crazy working hard + fan crazy loud. What I have found to fix it is running the daily + weekly maintanence stuff (find & download MacJanitor for an easy to use interface that'll do it for you), and restarting my laptop.

Sometimes I end up doing it twice a week if I've been using the Superdrive alot (I had to do it last night, in fact), but it consistently seems to fix the problem. I think the restarting the laptop is an essential part to the whole process. I dunno how these people say they keep there's on for weeks at a time... I think my PB would fry if I did that, or maybe they just surf the net and not much else.

Hope that helps.
 
I forgot to mention that running Disk Utility & Verifying Disk is very important to the whole process too. Usually I run it at the end of everything else, before I restart.
 
I would do a restart and use TechTools that comes with AppleCare (I think) and do a Hardware test. And not that I believe this will solve this particular problem, but go into Energy Saver>Options> and turn the Processor Performance to "Reduced" for now. If your CPU is going to be on, it may as well be running at a lower speed to prevent overworking your CPU too much and overheating your system.

Sorry, nothing else to suggest.
 
I've had a similar situation sometimes. I went to start up Activity Monitor. It opens in the dock, then appears to close itself within seconds, the window doesn't even open up. And it disappears.

Any ideas why that would be happening? TIA
 
don't worry

it's just that new backdoor trojan for Mac OS X - i think Immunity calls it Gulfstream.A
 
iLikeMyiMac said:
I used to get that alot but after I cleared the finder cache I hardly ever get it. Also restarting finder when it gets to 100% should put it back to normal.
Click to expand...

What does it mean to clear the Finder cache?
 
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