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Kumera
May 13th, 2008, 12:16 PM
I have a little System Monitor box in the top panel of my Ubunty Hardy, which frequently tells me that my processor is running at 100% capacity. At such times, computer response is quite sluggish. If I load up the full System Monitor (usually by double clicking the little box in the panel), and go to the processes tab, I can click on the CPU column to see what System Monitor thinks is using my CPU. But, it rarely gives me a full story. Usually I get something like Firefox - 26%, Gnome System Monitor - 9%, Gnome Panel 2%, and that is it. Everything else in the list is given at 0% of CPU capacity. What is using the other 63% of my CPU capacity? What else can I use to find out?

NightwishFan
May 13th, 2008, 12:18 PM
Open a terminal and type:

top
It will list processes in order of used cpu.

L8erG8er
May 13th, 2008, 12:19 PM
If you're running Firefox 3b5 that came with Hardy Heron, it's probably that. I know in my case, Firefox is periodically running my hard drive to death, and everything else is slow until it's done, usually about 15-20 seconds.

mokshadaya
May 13th, 2008, 01:33 PM
I have to concur regarding FireFox 3b5. I have similar issues, along with others. Besides using Top you might try using PowerTop to get a full view of what's processing. This has proven itself to be a very useful utility for me.

http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/

BlueSkyNIS
May 13th, 2008, 02:26 PM
Maybe checking "View -> All processes" in System Monitor will help?

BlueSkyNIS
May 15th, 2008, 02:26 PM
There is a known issue with the System Monitor, use TOP or alternative. I think fix for the System Monitor is in progress, check https://bugs.launchpad.net/gnome-system-monitor/+bug/93847

Kumera
May 16th, 2008, 11:57 AM
OK - thanks all. Using "Top" worked - it seems that the culprit CPU hog was primarily Apache, ticking away in the background.