Excessively high CPU usage

The_Nerd · 2006-03-26 22:51:38

I've been tinkering with my laptop lately and trying to slim it down as much as possible. I had never really watched my cpu or memory usage before, but now that i've finished many of the bigger things i had on my todo list, i setup conky today to take a look.

Come to find out, cpu usage is anywhere from 3% to 10% sitting at the console before X has started and is usually around 30% sitting at X doing absolutely nothing. Now and then in X, it will go down to 7% but then shoot back up. No major processes come up in htop that are taking up CPU, yet the total cpu usage is still around 30% in X.

I run pekwm, fbpanel, and now conky. I have an almost identical system that i use for testing before i move things to my laptop, which doesnt use a fraction of the cpu. I have disabled all my extra daemons and attempted that, but it hasnt helped.

I am using the stock arch kernel currently but the problem seems to go away with the archck kernel. I would like to know if anyone has experienced anything similar or if you have a solution to the problem. I will continue trying out things but anyone elses input would be greatly appreciated!

Note to mods: I know this is running on a laptop but i felt that it dealt with kernel/hardware enough to post it here.

Chman · 2006-03-27 00:44:44

I run pekwm, fbpanel, and now conky.

Could be conky. How often do you refresh conky ? Do you use any "exec objects" ?

From the official conky's variables list :

Executes a shell command and displays the output in conky. warning: this takes a lot more resources than other variables. I'd recommend coding wanted behaviour in C and posting a patch.

Maybe I'm wrong...

The_Nerd · 2006-03-27 00:51:34

conky was the most visible way for me to track it, but i notice that i can find the same numbers in htop. so i dont believe its conky itself... anyone have other ideas?

Snowman · 2006-03-27 02:15:21

When you run htop, check what app is using the CPU.

The_Nerd · 2006-03-27 03:02:08

i've been watching that and nothing really shows up. X says that its using mabye a percent or two at random intervals, and then other smaller programs using fractions of a percent. The processes using cpu are only the first 6 lines, and they are being sorted by cpu use. That's probably what confuses me the most, it doesnt seem like a process is causing the high usage. i will attach a screenshot when i get a chance, so you can see what i'm looking at.

sebcactus · 2006-03-27 10:40:59

I have the same pb on my laptop and never found a good solution.
Both stock and archck kernel give me this high CPU usage (look there are some threads on it and nobody managed to find a solution).

The workaround I use is to compile my own kernel and remove plenty of stuffs. Unfotunately I don't have time to compile each stuff independently to detect what causes the CPU to be used that much.

The_Nerd · 2006-03-28 11:35:39

i've been messing with it for a few days now. for whatever reason after i updated last night and booted with the stock arch kernel, things work decent. I am noticing though, that my cpu usage hovers around 5% to 10% just sitting there watching my desktop. Is this about normal or is it still a bit high. Watching htop i can see that X and my adesklets make up about half of the 5% each but how much cpu does everyone else find themselves using?

Snowman · 2006-03-29 03:58:44

I get 2-5% CPU use too with X and adesklets. For your X, do you use xinerama, composite or anything else that might make it more CPU intensive? I use xinerama myself.

The_Nerd · 2006-03-29 04:44:57

nope i dont use xinerama or composite or anything. adesklets, conky, fbpanel are the big ones. thinking about it, i also run a keymapper for my hotkeys and gnome-settings-daemon to tell pekwm about my gtk settings. i have been wondering if the settings deamon could be the cause of things.. should i just write my theme and icon set into the .gtk-2.0 file and forget the daemon?

also, i'm trying to get some screenies of my htop online so i can show how things dont add up. my processes dont add up to my percentage of cpu usage a lot of the time and i just dont understand why. for a desktop system, i wouldnt mind up to 10% sitting there, but since i use it as a mobile computer as it should be used, i need to keep cpu down so i can save as much batery life as i can.

thanks in advance.

shadowhand · 2006-03-29 04:58:42

The_Nerd wrote:

Come to find out, cpu usage is anywhere from 3% to 10% sitting at the console before X has started and is usually around 30% sitting at X doing absolutely nothing. Now and then in X, it will go down to 7% but then shoot back up. No major processes come up in htop that are taking up CPU, yet the total cpu usage is still around 30% in X.

This was one of my many issues with the stock kernel. So I created my own using the guide on the wiki. My CPU usage (xfce, conky, gaim, firefox, a terminal) is about 1-5%, where before it was around 10-15% (with standard Arch kernel). I made my optimized for my hardware, and stuff seems faster and more stable. 8)

The_Nerd · 2006-03-29 11:28:42

fair enough.. looks like all signs point to re-compiling a kernel for myself. I shal follow that wiki and make a shiney new one this weekend...

one quick question before i go off and compile, do i need initrd even if i compile my ata drivers/filesystem drivers into the kernel? i know there was a big uproar when arch went to using an initrd, and i havent really figured out my feelings on it but i figured i'd try a kernel using it, and a kernel without to see if i can notice the difference personally (even though yes, i realize that an initrd reduces clutter in the kernel and therefore should make the kernel a bit quicker and smaller).

The_Nerd · 2006-04-01 13:57:55

alright after messing around with kernels for a day or two, i've found the major culprit.... my modules. Ndiswrapper seems to love CPU cycles. With it, i'll have usage from 10% to about 25%, and without it.. i'm looking at about 4% usage right now. Any sugestions on how to make ndiswrapper more efficent? Or is it just a problem that i'll have to live with.

Edit: after running for a while without ndiswrapper and acerhk, my cpu usage went back up for no reason. i unloaded fglrx and then it went down a bit. I'm plum confused with my situation but it seems my computer might not like modules at all? Is there any reason for this or do i just have a really odd situation here.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-03-26 22:51:38

Excessively high CPU usage

#2 2006-03-27 00:44:44

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#3 2006-03-27 00:51:34

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#4 2006-03-27 02:15:21

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#5 2006-03-27 03:02:08

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#6 2006-03-27 10:40:59

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#7 2006-03-28 11:35:39

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#8 2006-03-29 03:58:44

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#9 2006-03-29 04:44:57

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#10 2006-03-29 04:58:42

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#11 2006-03-29 11:28:42

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

#12 2006-04-01 13:57:55

Re: Excessively high CPU usage

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