CPU Usage

[rpphoto]

I run a CPU usage item in my menubar. For some reason today it's keeping at 100% no matter what I'm doing. I've quit everything, removed startup items from my user account and restarted, etc.
When I open Activity Monitor, it shows a kernel_task (process ID 0) running at almost 50%, and it shows WindowServer (process ID 56) running at almost 50%, and these don't seem to change under any conditions. Other background process push it to 100%. I also noticed that my network is running extremely slow, although I guess that might be because no CPU is available.
I'm on a 12" PowerBook 1.5ghz with 1 gig of ram and 10.4.8.
Any ideas on what might be causing this? This one's a mystery to me...

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

what does Apples Activity App report ?

Does it concur with the menu bar one you have ?

regards

Ric

 

[Ric]

ooops...I see you've tried that !

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

In Activity Monitor can you view all processes hierarchically and then see what is 'in' the Window Server one...

regards

Ric

 

[Ric]

Hi there,

how much disk space have you got left ?

regards

Ric

 

[rpphoto]

Hi, I have about 20 gigs of disk space. I couldn't open Activity Monitor for awhile, I guess because not enough resources were left. However, I started up my computer this morning with a new problem, and the CPU issue was gone (as mysteriously as it appeared); except most of my applications would not open including the CrashReporter, which also crashed and asked if I wanted to report its crash, which I couldn't because it kept crashing. I restarted with a clean user account and everything seemed to work fine, so I deleted tons of preference files, and removed all my third party preferance panes, contextural menus, input managers and startup items. Now it seems to work. I guess I'll have to put back the items one-by-one to see what might be causing it. I don't know if this is all related to the CPU issue or not. Crazy.

 

[searay345]

That sounds like a good plan rpphoto. Let us know if the problem arises again!

Searay

 

[rpphoto]

The problem, at least for app launches and some Finder weirdness, turned out to be OSS 3-D, the sound enhancer. Once I removed that, everything worked great again, including no more CPU issues (I suspect that may have been linked to that, as well). Today it was confirmed at MacFixIt: "Users continue to report an issue where the presence of OSS 3D -- a tool used for real-time audio enhancement -- can cause unexpected quits in various applications, including the Finder."
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20061019092559189