Processes that consume the most CPU ?

[HTSS_TR]

My laptop with window XP is very sluggish lately. I have 4-5 firefox windows running and it consumes most of CPU, is there a tool to identify which one of the 5 firefox windows is consuming the most CPU ?

I'm running the Process Explorer, and it shows firefox.exe uses up to 95% CPU but did not identify which one of the 5 firefox windows.

 

[Shannow]

Dunno, but if I close the firefox process, and open exactly the same session, it will be down by half when it's re-opened.

 

[Footpounds]

Why are you running 4-5 Firefox windows instead of just opening more tabs?

 

[jhMalibu]

Firefox just sitting idle should not be consuming that much CPU. I would start looking for malware/virii.

 

[OVERKILL]

One of the tabs running flash or some javascript by chance?

 

[ahoier]

Originally Posted By: Footpounds
Why are you running 4-5 Firefox windows instead of just opening more tabs?
my first thought too

Not really sure....ever since the release of Google Chrome, I've been a big fan of it, and it's nice.....because it'll highlight exactly which tabs are using the most CPU within the browser itself..

But the architecture is much different with Chrome.....it appears each "tab" in Chrome launches it's own "chrome.exe" instance in my processes list......which at first got kind of annoying, because I'm quite a "tweak freak" and didn't like seeing the long list of chrome.exe's......lol. But I hear, that's what gives Chrome it's "quickness" - is that each tab and extension has it's OWN execution.

 

[Solo2driver]

I would run different tabs and not different windows, that will help.

 

[PandaBear]

My bet is Flash, they are the most processing consuming app that a consumer PC uses on the web.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
My bet is Flash, they are the most processing consuming app that a consumer PC uses on the web.



+1, but normally it is a separate process.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
One of the tabs running flash or some javascript by chance?

I don't know.

How do you find out if one of the Firefox window is running Flash or Javascript ?

It looks like the CPU usage is down to below 20% for few seconds, then shoot up to 100% for few seconds. The CPU graph is almost like a Sine wave without the negative part.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
One of the tabs running flash or some javascript by chance?

I don't know.

How do you find out if one of the Firefox window is running Flash or Javascript ?

It looks like the CPU usage is down to below 20% for few seconds, then shoot up to 100% for few seconds. The CPU graph is almost like a Sine wave without the negative part.


It should be somewhat evident if you've got a flash animation on a page.....

 

[HTSS_TR]

Nope, no flash animation on any page.

I'll probably reboot to see if the problem is with Firefox.

Thanks.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Nope, no flash animation on any page.

I'll probably reboot to see if the problem is with Firefox.

Thanks.


If the pages aren't secret, post 'em up here and we can test them.

 

[BearZDefect]

3.6.13 and 3.6.15 have been very good to me - I can keep it running multiple tabs in constant use (although PC goes on standby overnight) for weeks without a crash or mysterious CPU usage. Firefox was not always this stable for me, many versions would crash consistently on sites like iGoogle.

I must qualify the conditions:

1. Flash is forbidden on my PC.

2. Advance Auto Parts site makes Firefox crawl.

3. I use Noscript to block javascript on unknown sites.
4. It uses gobs of memory, as modern browser seem to.


So, my first reaction would be just like this:
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
One of the tabs running flash or some javascript by chance?

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: BearZDefect

4. It uses gobs of memory, as modern browser seem to.

Yeah, no kidding. Firefox will chew close to 1 GB of RAM on my PC with a handful of tabs open for a few hours. At that point, it will also become sluggish (Firefox, not the PC itself). Restarting it fixes the problem, although it's a bit annoying.

Is there any way to limit FF's RAM usage?

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL

If the pages aren't secret, post 'em up here and we can test them.


How do I post the Firefox pages I am running here ?

These are the ones I'm running:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/recreation/ski/hourbyhour/graph/92604
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.bing.com
http://us.mg5.mail.yahoo.com
http://www.calendar.yahoo.com

and http://www.bobistheoilguy.com

 

[Papa Bear]

Hahaha... the last one is the problem.

 

[BearZDefect]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Yeah, no kidding. Firefox will chew close to 1 GB of RAM on my PC with a handful of tabs open for a few hours. At that point, it will also become sluggish (Firefox, not the PC itself). Restarting it fixes the problem, although it's a bit annoying.

Is there any way to limit FF's RAM usage?

Apparently there is some techy way to make Firefox release memory sooner that it normally would, but I haven't tried it. I have noticed that it never releases more than a small token amount of memory, even if I close all tabs but one simple page.

On my PC Firefox rarely uses more than 300MB of memory, which is no problem with my 1.5GB RAM. Perhaps the lack of flash, and control over javascript makes a difference, I don't know.

It seems web browsers have become huge unwieldy applications. Maybe that is because many developers target them as if they were an operating system, which I understand because nobody likes to target multiple real operating systems. It's a big can of worms, IMO.

 

[OVERKILL]

Try closing the weather.com one. It has flash on it.

 

[HTSS_TR]

How do you find out which site has Flash or Javascript ?

After reboot my laptop runs okay with the same Firefox windows. I don't know what was wrong before reboot.