Unusually High CPU Activity in Mint Isadora

[frodopogo]

Hi,

I'm running Linux Mint Isadora on an eMachines computer with an AMD chip.

Fairly often lately, I've noticed the CPU usage rise to 90% and hover around there, like it's been doing right now.
This happens when there really isn't much happening on my computer to warrant this. After boot up, the CPU usage drops pretty low.

Does anybody know what could be causing it?

BTW, I'm running the 32 bit version of Mint Isadora. I don't have much memory 2 gigs, I think.

I did do a torrent download a while back- could they still be using my computer's CPU?
Or could it be a rootkit? However, I did run a rootkit detector not too long ago and the results were negative.
Or is it some bug in Isadora?

[AlbertP]

Please open the Software Monitor and look which process is using so much CPU. (kworker perhaps?)

[frodopogo]

I think I've figured it out.

It's the number of tabs in Mozilla Firefox... it's always opening a new tab, and I probably don't close them often enough when I'm done.
Like with YouTube videos, I'm likely to want to go back and listen to the video again- I'm a musician, and I'm looking for details I hadn't noticed the first time I played it.
Once there are more tabs than that tab bar has room for, or maybe even a little sooner, the CPU activity goes WAY up.
And I suspect that any tab that has a video on it (which includes not only YouTube but also many news sites) gobbles up more of the CPU.
So I REALLY need to pay closer to that CPU window, and when it shows too much blue, start shutting tabs down. Linux may indeed be faster and more efficient than Windows, but I guess there is STILL a limit!

[AlbertP]

You could try using the experimental HTML5 videos of Youtube, replacing Flash. That might reduce CPU usage.

Downloading or seeding a torrent should not use so much CPU. Also, by default Transmission does not start automatically when logging in.