High CPU usage compared to WinXP. Common aps and actions use 100% CPU cycles

Posted by Jopower on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by Jopower
Published on 2014-08-25T07:47:00Z Indexed on 2014/08/25 10:33 UTC
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I'm running Lubunto 14.04.1 LTS. PC is a 2004 HP ze4200 laptop: 1.8 ghz Celeron M with 1 gb RAM and 80 gb drive. Was running fine on WinXP SP3 and I cleaned the drive off to test Lubuntu 14 LTS. No anti-virus is installed yet. I enabled the CPU resource monitor to see how various programs drag the OS.

Using Firefox 31 online right now, I see doing basic functions like openning a new tab and scrolling down a page are using 100% CPU time, ocassionally for 10-30 seconds. In fact some pretty basic aps like Leafnote hit 100% for a second. Wordpad never did that. Lubuntu Software Center locks things up at 100% for 10 seconds. Just typing here shows a 60-80% spike every character. Running the mouse around the screen for 10 seconds results in a sustained 100% load during that time. Right now, if I let the PC rest just idling Firefox and not doing anything with it, CPU use bounces from 20-40% all by itself.

WinXP idles at 2-10% and it's considered not good for it to be above 20%... something odd must be happening. Sure, XP will give similar higher CPU cycles with program use, but it's not locking and slogging like this.

Lubuntu is supposed to be a light OS and by memory usage it is and I'm happy since this is an old PC maxed for memory upgrades. However, being used to doing some tuning and wary of abnormalities going on in the background, the CPU use indicates things going on that I want to know about and perhaps apply a tweek or two. Recommendations are appreciated.

And this 300 point "new tags" restriction bites!

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