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tripletaker · Jun 18, 2007, 08:43 AM

On a 2 year old 15" PowerBook running 10.4.9 with 1.5GB RAM and 50% of the hard drive used, my computer is continuously running at 100% CPU.

I open up Activity Monitor and all the processes combined do not add up to 100%. Yet, in the CPU tab, the User% is 100% and the fans are on. This doesn't happen all the time, but it happens a lot. It happens after a restart, it happens when no programs are running.

Help! What's going on?

analogika · Jun 18, 2007, 10:04 AM

Are you sure you're having it show "All processes" in the Activity Viewer, rather than "My Processes"?

Dr. DDS · Jun 18, 2007, 10:10 AM

Create another user and see what happens in this new account

tripletaker · Jun 18, 2007, 10:23 AM

I'm not sure how you show all processes or just my processes. I switched to a visitor account and took a screenshot of the Activity Monitor.

CatOne · Jun 18, 2007, 11:00 AM

LOL. To show all processes, click that big bar right in your screen shot that says "My Processes." There's an option that says "All Processes."

You have something running at 79% CPU under "nice." Are you running Folding@Home or SETI@Home or something? That would be my guess. But the process that's causing the issue is not shown in the list, because you weren't able to follow directions. It's RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

tripletaker · Jun 18, 2007, 11:10 AM

Oops, I missed that. Thanks for your help.

I figured out what was taking up all the CPU. It was something I installed a while ago but never used that backs up some files to the internet. Thanks again for your help.

analogika · Jun 18, 2007, 01:12 PM

Don't mind the tone on CatOne.

Glad you were able to figure out what was causing this, and that my hunch was correct about the process viewer.