37 replies to this topic

[Ztruker]

Try disabling the Extensions and test. If no different, repeat for Plugins.

[Guyl]

With the 3 browsers open, 1 picture loaded, but no videos playing I added each Extension back in one at a time while watching Task Manager.  Each one spiked the CPU usage after enabling but promptly settled back down to the mid teen range.

 

Right now it looks like the videos are the problem, however, in the past when I've had several browsers open and no videos playing FF has been extremely high and CPU at 100%.  I have to then close all FF browswers and occasionally reboot in order to get the CPU usage down from 100%.

[Guyl]

Just did the Plug-Ins and got basically the same result.  The useage for each was just a bit lower.  One thing I'm noticing as I'm watching this video is a lot of buffering.  I get that only occasionally.  I mention that only as I'm trying to tell you everything I can to help.

[Ztruker]

I think you need to exit and start FF after disabling all plugins and extensions the start the video and test.

Do the same each time you re-enable some. I know that takes longer but I do believe it's necessary.

[techvedicinc]

>Try a Different DNS Service

>Disable DNS Prefetching

> Check Your Router

>How to Re-enable DNS Prefetching

 

 

It will Definately help you.

[Guyl]

I disabled all my extensions & plug-ins.  I then shut the pc down and re-booted.  I opened the first browser and FF useage and CPU usage were both low.  I then opened a 2nd browser and after the initial spike it settled down to a reasonable range.  I then opened a streaming video and FF went up to 72% and CPU to 75%.  I closed the movie and FF went back to 2% and CPU to 5%.  I opened a 3rd browser and FF ranged from 2% to 34% while CPU ranged from 4% to 41%.  I then opened a site that had a lot of content on it - text, pictures, and pictures you could click on to take you to a larger version of the pic or to a movie.  With this page loaded FF went to 73% and CPU ranged from 79% - 97%.  I didn't even bother to open another page like this because I knew where we'd be.  Typically, I'll have 2 or 3 browsers open with, maybe, a couple of tabs in each.  Doing this takes me to 100% CPU usage and a struggle to load pages.  I didn't even bother adding back in the plugins or extensions for further testing with results like these.  Do you think I need to?

 

One thing I notice is when I shut the computer down and after a reboot while trying to load FF I get only the "shell" while everything else is white.  It usually won't load until I X out of it and try it a couple of times.  If the computer hasn't finished totally loading all startups FF won't do anything but this is after it loads, I think.  Any thoughts on on this or could it be related to the bigger problem.

 

Last thing, someone added a post previoulsy.  Is that something to try?  I did a little googling and not sure I feel comfortable doing any of that on my own as I don't think I'm experienced enough to know the ramifications from any of those changes.

[Ztruker]

What are the specs for your computer?
Processor(s) speed
How much ram

What happens if you boot to safe mode with networking?
What happens if you create and test with a new account

[Guyl]

I'm sorry for taking so long to get back to this but I had an emergency come up.  I'm back on it now though.

 

AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3800+  2.39GHz 2.93 GB of Ram

 

I started it in safe mode.  I have, basically, the same issues.  It gets a little slow if I open multiple windows and tabs of FF.  But, the problem is really coming if I open a streaming video.  FF usage goes to 90% and CPU to 100%.  Close the video and we drop back down.

 

I don't know what you mean to test with a new account.

[Ztruker]

Create a new User Account via Control Panel, User Accounts. Run from there and see what happens.

[Guyl]

It looks to me like with a new account FF is performing exactly the same - open 1 browser not too bad.  Open more and it starts to slow noticeably and hog CPU usage.  But then open a streaming video and CPU shoots right to 100% with FF nearly as high.  Close the movie and we come back down.  We're still too high I think, FF in the 40 - 65% range for multiple browsers but at least not at the nearly 100% level it was at.

[Ztruker]

I have the following:

 

Adblock Plus 2.6

Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon 0.9.2

Bulk Image Downloader 4.39.0.0

Download Helper 4.9.22

Flash Video Downloader - Full HD Download 5.9.1

ImageHost Grabber 1.6.5.5

Save Images 1.0.2

Video Downloader professional  1.97.34

 

McAfee SiteAdvisor 3.7.0

Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant 0.0.0

 

The last 2 are disabled.

 

You have 5 download manager add-ons installed. Are they still disabled? If not, disable them, better yet, uninstall them.

[Guyl]

Are you saying uninstall them and then try with the new account I set up and/or in safe mode?

[terry1966]

to be honest just sounds like your flogging your poor pc to death, flash uses a lot of cpu power and when you have all those browsers and tabs open i'm not surprised the old Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ single core cpu is using 100% cpu power.

 

give the poor thing a break and stick to one open browser and tab every now and again especially when watching/running flash content.

 

here's a comparison of your cpu to the new top end cpu's of today.

http://www.cpubenchm...Athlon 64 3800+

 

so all joking aside, i really do think it is what you can expect from your cpu/pc when having so many instances of firefox open watching/running flash content.

 

flash is your problem in my opinion and there's nothing you can do about it except stick to 1 open browser and a single page.

 

here's a google search flash high cpu :- https://www.google.c...=flash high cpu

 

 

make sure flash is using hardware acceleration if possible this might help ease the strain on the cpu, also make sure you have the latest version of flash installed, it is less of a resource hog i believe, or you could try un-installing flash and forcing your browser to use htlm5 instead, i think that uses less cpu resources than flash and see how you get on with that too.

Edited by terry1966, 11 June 2014 - 10:44 AM.

[Guyl]

I certainly see what you're showing and I know the CPU in this old machine ain't what they're selling now.  However, it didn't used to be this bad and that's why I was looking for help.  It just seems like it's something else but I don't know.  I keep this old thing because I won't give up XP......for now.  I have 4 other machines with Vista and 7 on them and XP beats the carp** out of them IMHO - for what I use it for.

 

It's probably not possible to drop a more powerful CPU into this machine, as is, is it?

[terry1966]

it may well be something else, if it used to run better before but i honestly don't think so.

I disabled all my extensions & plug-ins.  I then shut the pc down and re-booted.  I opened the first browser and FF useage and CPU usage were both low.  I then opened a 2nd browser and after the initial spike it settled down to a reasonable range.  I then opened a streaming video and FF went up to 72% and CPU to 75%.  I closed the movie and FF went back to 2% and CPU to 5%.  I opened a 3rd browser and FF ranged from 2% to 34% while CPU ranged from 4% to 41%.  I then opened a site that had a lot of content on it - text, pictures, and pictures you could click on to take you to a larger version of the pic or to a movie.  With this page loaded FF went to 73% and CPU ranged from 79% - 97%.  I didn't even bother to open another page like this because I knew where we'd be.  Typically, I'll have 2 or 3 browsers open with, maybe, a couple of tabs in each.  Doing this takes me to 100% CPU usage and a struggle to load pages.  I didn't even bother adding back in the plugins or extensions for further testing with results like these.  Do you think I need to?

that all sounds exactly like what i'd expect to happen when using flash with lots of browsers open on an old single core cpu.
 
like i said earlier make sure you have the latest version of flash installed, and right click on a video while it's playing and make sure you have a tick in the use hardware acceleration box, apart from that i really don't think there is much else for you to try that Ztruker hasn't suggested to cure your problem.

 

yes you could probably install a better cpu, a dual or even quad core cpu but in all honesty i'm not sure it would be worth the cost and of course we'd need the full specs of the motherboard to check what is compatible.

 

personally i think i'd just try and be a bit more disciplined with how many browsers and tabs i had open at once and see if i could live with that before thinking about spending money on old hardware or if you only have onboard video graphics maybe a better option would be to install a cheap dedicated video card to help take the load off the cpu.

 

 

just had a quick read through the complete thread and noticed

Everything I do seems to point to Firefox as the culprit.  I shut down FF and loaded IE.  Things were much better - even having multiple browsers open.

so what i would try is to completely remove/un-install firefox and all it's associated profiles/files etc then download and do a clean install of the latest version, see if things run better for you then.

https://support.mozi...m-your-computer

Edited by terry1966, 11 June 2014 - 12:37 PM.