Mint 12 - 100% CPU - MATE but Cinnamon process running

[marietta_greg]

Hello,
I'm new to Mint, an Ubuntu refugee. I was happy with Mint 11, but forgot the old addage - "If it ain't broke . . ." After installing 12, I find the only DM that's familiar is Mate, So that's what I run. Unfortunately it pegs CPU at 100% permanantly. Everything runs pretty laggy. I've read the posts about changing themes, but neither of the two referenced (carbon and mint-z-mate) bring my CPU down. Updates, reboots and relogs change nothing.

Also, when I look at System Monitor, I find a process, Cinammon taking up between 70 - 85% of CPU. Well, that's where my CPU pegging is coming from! But I'm logged into MATE, not Cinnamon.

When I tried GNOME and Cinnamon, upon login, they build the desktop, but then lock up. Cursor moves, but nothing else can be done. So I have to Ctrl+Alt+backspace and relog using MATE. What can I do to get GNOME and/or Cinnamon working and why is Cinnamon running in a MATE session?

Here are my specifics
Dell Inspiron 5030 64-bit
Mint 12

greg@greg-inspiron ~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 16
model : 6
model name : AMD V160 Processor
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 2400.000
cache size : 512 KB

power management: ts ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps hwpstate

I can give you more from dmesg . . .but what do you need?


Thanks very much for the help, I really want to get Mint 12 working as I am reading rave reviews, but have yet to see it in all it's glory.

[mank_in]

If you are using MATE , you will don't have cinnamon running in background
Try uninstall cinnamon first , you can uninstall from synaptic package manager.
If Gnome shell/cinnamon not working, usually related with VGA driver.
check VGA driver with command :

Code: Select all

inxi -Gx

Do you install ATI proprietary driver Try install the latest ATI driver ( catalyst 12.1 ) , you can see viewtopic.php?f=59&t=93731

If Gnome is working , you can try install cinnamon again .