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heatasmallhouse

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 23, 2007
131
0
Okay, so this thing called "window server" is eating like 13% or more of my CPU all the time since I got my MBP (which will not sleep, it does for a second then boots back up - I'm trying to diagnose it) What is "Window Server," why is it so hungry, and does it have anything to do with the sleep problem?

Please, any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you!
 
Windowserver is a system process that basically draws all the graphics of all your GUI apps. That is definitely not your problem if you're trying to diagnose an insomniac MBP. Check your startup items. Check that there's nothing that might keep your MBP awake. You could even disable all your startup items, then try restarting and see if the problem is solved. If that solves it, turn your startup items back on one by one to figure out which one is causing the problem. You could also try miscellaneous stuff like resetting the PRAM and repairing permissions, which tend to fix problems on occasion.

Cheers :)
 
Just checked the process on my BlackBook, and WindowServer is using under 3%.

"WindowServer draws everything you see on the screen. It acts as a mediator between applications that want to draw on the screen and the graphics hardware. When an application wants to draw something, it establishes a connection with WindowServer, tells WindowServer what to draw, and WindowServer handles the drawing / compositing / Quartz Extreme hardware acceleration to finally produce what's seen on the entire screen."

(Quoted from https://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-59082.html)
 
thank you very much guys. i never noticed the process so prominently before on my powerbook so it freaked me out. I'm going to try the start up item fix for the sleep problem cuz it slept after i posted that post, but refused the previous 3 times. i'll do another thread on the sleeping problem if it persists in hopes people will be as helpful as you guys.
 
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