[wjdennen]

Hi there-

I have a 15" PowerBook (new model) and suddenly, it's CPU utilization is pegged at 100%. The machine is still usable, though, of course, since I'm writing this note on it.

Top reports:

CPU usage: 63.7% user, 36.3% sys, 0.0% idle

any ideas?

[Voch]

Open a Terminal window and run "top" (type "top" without quotes and hit Return). It'll show you what processes are using what CPU power. You can also use the Activity Monitor application. How do you know you're hitting 100%?

Voch

[wjdennen]

Thanks. As I mentioned, top reports:

CPU usage: 63.7% user, 36.3% sys, 0.0% idle

It looks like the Finder is the big culprit. It is using the most.

I know it's at 100% because I am using MenuMeters.

Also, for what it's worth, the machine has 1-gig of RAM.

[wjdennen]

I deleted "com.apple.finder.plist" and logged out and back in and now CPU utilization is much more reasonable.

Weird. Thanks.

-Bill

[d.fine]

I got that sometimes, just quitting Finder and starting it up again helped me. Did you try that?

[Fusion]

This is a known bug in Panther.

There are a million threads on it in the OS X section.

Apple has not fixed it yet.

Fixes range from restarting to deleting prefs. There is no certain cause of it.

It will probably happen again to you.

[Taloston Man]

I'd a problem a few weeks past, where the Finder was trying [apparently in vain] to generate an auto-thumbnail for a JPEG I'd downloaded to my desktop.
Hung my PowerBook, essentially, with the Finder at 100% usage until I just deleted the culprit file.