12.10 Has High CPU Usage

[MutantJohn]

Hello All,

I upgraded to 12.10 from 12.04 like two days ago and it's been running flawlessly, actually. What's even better though was that my system theme was 12.10 compatible or Gnome 3.6 compatible, rather I should say.

Nevertheless, I use Psensor pretty much all the time and even the Gnome System Monitor backs this up but my CPU is constantly running at like 40 - 50% usage all the time. Even idling the usage is high and I mean this is spread for all 4 processors.

So I checked my RAM and saw that I'm currenly using now 695 MB of 4 GB. The output from cpufreq-info told me that 3/4 processors were at 800 MHz (out of a .8, 2.10, 2.50, 3.20 GHz stepping pattern) while only one was at 2.10 GHz.

So my CPU isn't eating up RAM, nor is it overheating and nor is it even worried about being on its lowest possible frequency.

So does 12.10 just have really high idle CPU usage or what?

Okay, I see. The processes list in the System Monitor has blank processes popping in and out. The IDs change constantly but the Memory is always N/A. They are at sleeping status, just unlabeled and variable in number and lifetime.

[*^kyfds(]

That's surprising.

I'm running on a netbook with only 1 gb of ram and a 1.8-ish GHz CPU, and mine only ever runs at 100% when i'm doing some serious multitasking.

[*^kyfds(]

Do you have many tray-based services running?

[mardybear]

Howdy. I don't know what psensor is and i don't use 12.04, but what i do notice is that even running gnome-system-monitor uses a fair amount of resources.

Close gnome-system-monitor and try running top or htop from the terminal to compare CPU usage. Is your cpu usage still a concern/problem?

mardybear

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

what is your gpu

lspci -vv -s `lspci | grep VGA | awk '{print $1}'`

[MutantJohn]

Using 'top', the reason for my CPU usage is the gnome-shell, Xorg and nautilus. The gnome-shell (3.6.1) idles at 22.6% usage, Xorg at 15.9% and nautilus at like 14.3%. That adds up quickly when adding on like 5% for Chromium and Clementine and whatever else I have open.

GPU is an nVidia GTX 460.

Also, I've set the nVidia control center to enhance antialiasing by the maximum amount for my card and that I want it to enhance image quality.

But yeah, my GPU is fine; it just seems that the latest gnome-shell, with all the effects on and maxed out, eats up CPUs like you wouldn't believe. Now how's that for a thread count?

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

driver version?
maybe try lowering the gpu settings and see if it has any effect

[mardybear]

Using 'top', the reason for my CPU usage is the gnome-shell, Xorg and nautilus. The gnome-shell (3.6.1) idles at 22.6% usage, Xorg at 15.9% and nautilus at like 14.3%. That adds up quickly when adding on like 5% for Chromium and Clementine and whatever else I have open.

Hi MutantJohn.

Something seems wrong, maybe either your video driver, video card preferences or as you mentioned maxed out effects. I still like to tinker but now tend to prefer lean systems vs pretty. My system specs are extremely modest (800MHz cpu, 384MB ram, 32MB graphics) but i use an older/leaner Ubuntu 8.04 and openbox, what a difference. Example, xorg generally uses <1-5%, seamonkey <1-5% when idling (no flash running, use noscript), minimal gnome background items (power management only), use thunar or nautilus --no-desktop (avoids loading gnome-desktop), etc.

Good luck,

mardybear

[MutantJohn]

The clock on the GPU is low, as well. It's not the lowest but I have 4 possible steps and I'm at the second lowest.

And the driver version is 304.43.

But the thing is, my computer doesn't seem to be taxed heavily at all but it's just constantly busy. I dont know if that's a good thing or not though. It seems harmless to the health of the system now and due to the stability and performance being fantastic then I guess it's okay.