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Sicarius

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 2, 2006
80
0
Tennessee.
This has happened before, with an unknown widget. Now I have two processes "WindowServer" and "mds" each using at or around 50% of my CPU. This causes my fans to run all the time, and my computer to slow down noticeably. Does anyone know how I can remedy this? I've checked the Force Quit menu thing, and it doesn't show any application that would cause this problem.
 
Don't know about WindowServer, but mds is part of Spotlight. See the first post here: http://www.macintouch.com/tiger12.html

Have you by any chance not upgraded to 10.4.10?

WindowServer is the process that runs the whole GUI. Kill that, and your pretty UI is now hung. It usually takes up a fair amount of CPU when /drawing/, but if there is nothing being drawn (no animations/etc) on the screen, it shouldn't take up any CPU at all.

50% is a bit high for WindowServer in any case.
 
This has happened before, with an unknown widget. Now I have two processes "WindowServer" and "mds" each using at or around 50% of my CPU. This causes my fans to run all the time, and my computer to slow down noticeably. Does anyone know how I can remedy this? I've checked the Force Quit menu thing, and it doesn't show any application that would cause this problem.



WindowServer is necessary to the operating system. WindowServer, in a short and simple explanation, is what draws every object you see on the screen.
 
mds is the process for spotlight indexing. If it's going nuts and it isn't indexing you may have an issue. Does your spotlight work? Do some searches and see. I had a lot o problems when tiger first came out with Spotlight. Seems to work now though.
 
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