High (very high) CPU usage constantly. Did I install things wrong?

Evil_Hamster · 2022-08-01 16:14:18

Hi all.

I am constantly having very high CPU usages on my Arch Laptop. Can someone with a similar build tell me, if it is "within range", or did I mess something up in the install? Especially, compared to my Mint desktop, the performance seems very bad...

Arch Laptop: Mint Desktop
Kernel: 5.18.15-arch1-1 5.4.0-120-generic
Resolution: 1920x1080 3840x2160
WM: awesome awesome
CPU: Intel i5-7300U (4) @ 3.5 AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (12) @ 3.6
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 620 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
Memory: 7698MiB 16000MiB

For example, watching a Youtube video (same video, same resolution, same browser (including version), gives me a difference of
40 - 60 % CPU usage on the laptop in the browser vs
15 - 20% CPU on the laptop using mpv as playback device vs
4 - 6 % CPU usage on the Desktop in the browser

Using intel_gpu_top, I know that the Hardware accel is working (on the Laptop), as the "Video" section is 5-20%. This is true for both mpv as well as the browser. Loading most webpages takes 30% and more and opening multiple tabs can easily go up to 100%.

I use Brave browser mostly, but I have tried it with Firefox and Librewolf as well. Exact same performance.

Now, I understand that a big performance difference is to be expected! According to benchmakringsites (e.g. CPU-Money), about 5 fold! (https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_c … _7300u-684).
However, I am getting 10 fold difference!

Of course, the GPU could also play a role, but as it is never maxed out (usually about 20% when watching a video), I am not sure if this is the case...

Sorry for this weird post, but I was not sure where to ask. If anyone has comparable spec, please let me know, if you get comparable performance.

Cheers.

V1del · 2022-08-02 11:57:56

You need to compare apples to apples. 20% CPU usage on a quad core with the majority of measuring tools means a single core is maxed. 6% on a 12-Core means a single core is maxed. They both relatively speaking use the same ressources for the same tasks.

Both of these can be expected, youtube videos with HD and the like are comparatively demanding workloads.

One thing I'd generally check, if you used archinstall make sure that intel_pstate HWP is not disabled, check your kernel commandline whether something to that effect is there and remove it.

Last edited by V1del (2022-08-02 12:02:02)

Evil_Hamster · 2022-08-02 13:24:02

Edit:
I installed it manually, but did not fiddle with the kernel modules. I just ran the command
lsmod | grep "intel_ps"
and it does not list anything. I guess the moduel you mentioned is not loaded. Should I try and add the kernel module?

(I should say that while I know a little bit about Linux etc. I am not an expert, so if it can really mess with the kernel, I would think twice about doing something like that...)

_____
Thanks, will do that. Seeing my CPU spike to 30+% from simply opening a webpage is a bit unpleasant.. Opening 4 or 5 tabs (of reddit and the likes, no videos) will max the cpu for a few seconds.. there are no slowdowns, but the poor fan is spinning like it wants to take off..

I might be normal, but I wanted to double check...

Cheers.

Last edited by Evil_Hamster (2022-08-02 13:33:15)

V1del · 2022-08-02 14:38:56

intel_pstate is not a module, check

cat /proc/cmdline

if it doesn't mention a parameter name akin to what I mentioned should not be inherently relevant.

For the cases you mentioned reddit is a huge javascript and ajax bloated mess it's very likely multiple threads are started to handle all of these during initial setup, there's little you can do about this and in the general sense you should not need to actively do something about this. If things "normalize" after the short burst then that is somewhat expected to happen.

Evil_Hamster · 2022-08-02 14:50:16

Thank you very much for you patient replies. It does indeed not mention anything, and yes, I agree most of the "modern web" is a bit bloated. (I checked reddit and it is about 10.000 lines of scripts when inspecting with F12.. I mean come on...).

I was still a bit taken aback by the load the CPU experienced and wanted to double check.

Cheers and have a nice day.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-08-01 16:14:18

High (very high) CPU usage constantly. Did I install things wrong?

#2 2022-08-02 11:57:56

Re: High (very high) CPU usage constantly. Did I install things wrong?

#3 2022-08-02 13:24:02

Re: High (very high) CPU usage constantly. Did I install things wrong?

#4 2022-08-02 14:38:56

Re: High (very high) CPU usage constantly. Did I install things wrong?

#5 2022-08-02 14:50:16

Re: High (very high) CPU usage constantly. Did I install things wrong?

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