High CPU Usage when running nothing

[THEREQUI3M]

I've been running Ubuntu for a while and everything works great, however yesturday when I turned on the pc my system monitor icon on my panel was reporting 98-100% usage all the time (even when I was running nothing!). It wasn't like this before and I'm starting to think maybe I have a virus or something. Does anyone know whats wrong?

[Celauran]

This is Linux. You don't have a virus. Have you taken a look at top to see what's eating your CPU cycles?

[philinux]

Have you got mozilla-acroread installed. i.e adobe reader plugin for firefox

[THEREQUI3M]

I don't have the Firefox plugin installed and I also can see whats eating up my memory. Here is all that I can see in top and a print screen of what is shown in the system monitor.

top - 19:57:00 up 1:24, 2 users, load average: 6.34, 5.31, 4.61
Tasks: 143 total, 3 running, 140 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 77.6%us, 21.8%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.3%hi, 0.3%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 1026668k total, 811020k used, 215648k free, 18568k buffers
Swap: 3004112k total, 230788k used, 2773324k free, 581108k cached

3984 emmanuel 20 0 66696 13m 6348 S 2.0 1.3 1:49.53 compiz.real
19537 emmanuel 20 0 0 0 0 Z 1.3 0.0 0:00.04 vino-server <defunct>
3976 emmanuel 20 0 29924 5492 4676 S 1.0 0.5 0:38.06 gnome-settings-
3985 emmanuel 20 0 48096 18m 10m S 1.0 1.8 0:38.91 gnome-panel
4016 emmanuel 20 0 27984 5636 4852 S 1.0 0.5 0:30.95 python
4375 emmanuel 20 0 16676 2168 1688 S 1.0 0.2 0:37.04 gnome-screensav
3435 emmanuel 20 0 65492 18m 13m S 0.7 1.9 0:04.63 knotify4
4057 emmanuel 20 0 27756 9668 6656 S 0.7 0.9 0:25.03 indicator-apple
19538 emmanuel 20 0 22456 6204 4816 R 0.7 0.6 0:00.02 vino-server
2733 emmanuel 20 0 69704 17m 12m S 0.3 1.7 0:03.36 kded4
3037 root 20 0 98712 1060 900 S 0.3 0.1 0:01.00 avgtcpd
3345 root 20 0 5180 1004 916 S 0.3 0.1 0:01.43 hald-addon-stor
4012 emmanuel 20 0 33016 11m 6444 S 0.3 1.2 0:06.05 update-notifier
4018 emmanuel 20 0 26776 8952 5784 S 0.3 0.9 0:07.22 nm-applet
2729 emmanuel 20 0 36412 9808 8484 S 0.3 1.0 0:02.17 klauncher
2733 emmanuel 20 0 69704 17m 12m S 0.3 1.7 0:03.35 kded4
4016 emmanuel 20 0 27984 5636 4852 S 0.3 0.5 0:30.92 python
4025 emmanuel 20 0 91628 13m 8212 S 0.3 1.4 0:12.33 pidgin
4026 emmanuel 20 0 16660 5060 4776 S 0.3 0.5 0:05.33 bluetooth-apple
4032 emmanuel 20 0 25852 4712 4132 S 0.3 0.5 0:08.81 gnome-power-man
4051 emmanuel 20 0 27644 9840 7196 S 0.3 1.0 0:09.61 fast-user-switc
4148 emmanuel 20 0 20804 8296 6384 S 0.3 0.8 0:05.91 gtk-window-deco
29926 emmanuel 20 0 26264 11m 7672 S 0.3 1.2 0:02.51 multiload-apple
1 root 20 0 3084 528 472 S 0.0 0.1 0:01.12 init
2 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
3 root RT -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0
4 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.07 ksoftirqd/0
5 root RT -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 watchdog/0
6 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.04 events/0
7 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper
8 root RT -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kstop/0
9 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kintegrityd/0
10 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.12 kblockd/0

[Anzan]

I cannot see it in your top (I use htop) but gnome-appearance-properties and sometimes seahorse-agent can get bunched up and eat my CPU. You can just kill the former, the latter can require not just logging out but (egad) a reboot.

[THEREQUI3M]

No dice. I even searched through top, my system processes in system manager, and htop; If I add up all the process' cpu usage its only about 15%. I have no idea why all three programs are reporting a cpu usage of around 100%. (restarting didn't work either)

[lovinglinux]

I'm almost sure it is the remote desktop.

Go to "System >>> Preferences >>> Startup Applications (aka Session) " and untick "Remote Desktop" then restart.

[THEREQUI3M]

I'm almost sure it is the remote desktop.

Go to "System >>> Preferences >>> Startup Applications (aka Session) " and untick "Remote Desktop" then restart.

Yes! It works... thanks man you are awsome

[lovinglinux]

Yes! It works... thanks man you are awsome

You are welcome, but actually I took the idea from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1175009

I thought this might be your problem too, due to the defunct vino-server on your top output.