CPU usage concern

[rossmosis]

I have a brand new L512 with an i5 and 4gb of ram, and I'm not quite sure if it's normal to be having such high CPU usage when I'm doing basic browsing (facebook, forums, etc) i have a screen shot of what it looks like right now, i find it odd that the first and third ones are really high and the second and fourth ones aren't. this is about as low as it ever gets, usually the usage is really high and it bogs the computer down. my old desktop never had this problem and my friend's cheap Dell laptop doesn't either. the fan turns on and off too, which can be quite annoying.

link to screenshot:
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6811/desktopez.png

[ThinkRob]

Without knowing what processes are taking up CPU, it's hard to say what is or is not normal.

[rossmosis]

hopefully this helps:

http://i29.tinypic.com/2dsi7oz.png

[ThinkRob]

hopefully this helps:

http://i29.tinypic.com/2dsi7oz.png

Not much, actually. Nothing there is eating much CPU -- but since it's sorted by memory consumption it's hard to speculate...

[rossmosis]

but is the first picture i show normal ? the graph seems pretty high for not doing very much

[craigmontHunter]

cores 2 and 4 are not real cores, instead they are "virtual" ones with hyperthreading. I believe that the system will fill up the real cores before using the hyperthreading (don't quote me)

[rossmosis]

is it normal for it to do this?: http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3289/desktop2f.png

at that point the computer was really slow, and i only had one tab on chrome open on facebook, and skype open with no video.

[ThinkRob]

is it normal for it to do this?: http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3289/desktop2f.png

at that point the computer was really slow, and i only had one tab on chrome open on facebook, and skype open with no video.

Without knowing what tasks were taking up CPU, it's impossible for us to speculate. I'm sorry, but there's just no way for us to answer that question without seeing what's taking up the CPU!

[rossmosis]

k, well next time it spazzes out like that, i'll make sure to screencap the processes and everything too. it just bothers me that a brand new, expensive laptop does this.

[moronoxyd]

When you have Facebook open, are there any Flash objectis running? Browsergames, ads, anything that moves or blinks or makes noises?

Flash needs tons of CPU cycles.

[rossmosis]

i don't think so, i just have it open to the home page, never play any games or do anything too fancy.

[ThinkRob]

it just bothers me that a brand new, expensive laptop does this.

This has nothing to do with the quality of the laptop. This is a software issue, not a hardware one.

[topmahof]

you could try downloading process explorer, that'll tell you what processes are using cpu. it's free.

[ThinkRob]

you could try downloading process explorer, that'll tell you what processes are using cpu. it's free.

So will Task Manager!

[topmahof]

yeh, but proex gives a lot more detail.

[topmahof]

plus it gives you processes, gauges and hardware interrupts all in one window. much better screenshot.