Arch Linux

pjjanak

Member

Registered: 2008-08-17

Posts: 128

X CPU Usage

So, I started noticing this a few days ago, and I'm not even sure if it's a real problem. But, slowly but surely my CPU usage goes up and up and up until it just hovers between 70-80 percent. At that point I check top and note that X's CPU usage is around 65-70 (leaving 10 percent for other processes I have running). At that point I usually am like, "wtf" and restart X. I tried turning off compositing (using metacity's compositor) and that doesn't seem to help at all. I'm quite baffled as it were. Anyone know what this could be? I haven't updated X in a while, but has there been some sort of leak introduced into the code recently, or something?

Peter

dav7

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-02-08

Posts: 674

Re: X CPU Usage

I'm not sure. Maybe try temporarily switching from whatever you're using to a basic openbox or pekwm setup, using startx to get X running, and see how that goes?

-dav7

---

Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

pjjanak

Member

Registered: 2008-08-17

Posts: 128

Re: X CPU Usage

That wouldn't make much sense, though. I'm using Gnome, as it were, and I didn't think that Gnome's processes wrapped themselves into X...

adamc83

Member

Registered: 2008-06-01

Posts: 40

Re: X CPU Usage

It's probably not X itself, but some other program. For example, just watching a youtube video in firefox can cause Xorg CPU usage to spike from a few percent to 20-40% or more. It's not necessary a problem, and unless you're having some actual problem (like the system becoming unresponsive), I wouldnt worry about it.

pjjanak

Member

Registered: 2008-08-17

Posts: 128

Re: X CPU Usage

Alright. I suppose IU'll sit on it for a while. If anything worse happens, I'll be back.

Peter

pjjanak

Member

Registered: 2008-08-17

Posts: 128

Re: X CPU Usage

I discovered what the problem. Gnome 2.24 was slowly but surely eating up my CPU. Downgrading to 2.22 has fixed the problem. Would this be a problem upstream, or a result of the fact that the package hasn't been tweaked right for us arch users?

Peter