Thread: Processor Activity

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 notebook computer, 2 GB RAM, Windows XP Professional, 1.6 GHz processor.

I noticed that the processor was unusually busy (30%) when I wasn’t doing anything. Task Manager showed Internet Explorer 8 was the application and I isolated the activity to being parked on the TigerDirect site. When I went to my home URL (Yahoo!), the processor activity dropped to where it usually is with no activity (about 2%).

I then went to my Yahoo Mail account and let the computer settle down. Once again, the processor stabilized at about 30% activity with no action on my part.

Any idea what’s going on in IE8 that would cause the processor to be so busy on some sites? Yahoo Mail doesn’t appear to be doing anything – just sitting there with no obvious activity.

I also tried Yahoo and Yahoo Mail using Google’s Chrome browser. Processor activity stayed in the 2% range on both places as one would expect.

Some IE plug-ins could do that load; try to disable them one-by-one and find which one is the hogger. Usually Flash creating such load on PC with slow video engine.

Originally Posted by Smith, P.

Some IE plug-ins could do that load; try to disable them one-by-one and find which one is the hogger. Usually Flash creating such load on PC with slow video engine.

I'm gonna have to agree with Smith on this one. I have had poorly made ads bog my processor all the way to 50% (Dual Core, so 50% is pretty much 100% for single threaded apps) on many occasions. see if there are any ads on the pages creating the usage that have any amount of animation to them.