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Fairly random but frequent huge cpu usage - Printable Version

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+----- Thread: Fairly random but frequent huge cpu usage (/showthread.php?tid=119864)



Fairly random but frequent huge cpu usage - grumps - 2012-01-14

I am kinda new to this particular setup so I would like to know if the scenario below should be expected behavior or a known issue or that some combination of hw/sw on my end is likely to be the cause. In case of the latter any tips would be appreciated.

System:
- i7-920 6gb
- ati hd 4890 1gb
- display driver 11.9 & 12.1
- win7 x64
- Eden-pvr Beta1 - build 59 - git rev. 007a341 (3 Jan 2012), also tried a few builds from 1-3 weeks earlier
- t! stable (also tried a svn checkout on 13-1)

Symptoms:
- maximum cpu load (1 core completely maxed) while navigating around in the menu's
- gui almost freezes or is very choppy
- input commands barely register
- doesn't always happen, but i can reliably trigger it by moving around in the menu's quite fast
- seems to happen more often with video playing, but also without, during normal use it will always happen within 15 minutes of usage or so
- about half the time it recovers after some time (10-20s) of maximum load, sometimes i seem to be able to 'loosen' it by moving away from the screen where it started (which could be any afaik) resulting in cpu load dropping a few seconds later
- other half of the time cpu load will stay at maximum, or becomes very sensitive (e.g. over 50% core usage at every small gui activity)
- happens right away after boot, nothing else running
- disabling hyperthreading to get twice the power per core doesn't matter, it eats everything
- gpu usage remains well below maximum at all times (2-20% or so, depending on what's playing and how fast i'm navigating)
- confluence skin works like a breeze, no serious cpu or gpu load at any point


edit:
I realized i was completely focused on the pvr branch because i 'need' this.... i installed eden beta 1 now and it seems to perform quite a bit better... i still get the max cpu spikes but they drop down to normal levels much faster, almost to the point where i'd say it's a non-issue but they still take a few seconds, so any feedback would still be appreciated, if only to have something to focus my research on for the pvr branch... Thank you in advance


- ronie - 2012-01-16

i'm afraid i have no idea.
i don't see any out of the ordinary cpu usage when using T! with xbmc-pvr.

it could be an addon that's causing havoc on your end.
so disable them all in Skin Settings > Scripts.
also, disable random items / recommended items in Skin Settings > Home Window.

last thing you can try is to enable Skin Settings > General > Safe Mode


if you can find a way to easily reproduce it (step-by-step) i will have another look.


- friedfarmer - 2012-01-19

One thing I noticed with my Atom ION is that enabling show system info in the skin settings (Home screen menu) causes a cpu spike of >20% every 5 seconds or so apparently when it polls the cpu. It slows things down almost to a stall when moving around in the menu. So I unclicked the option. No more excessive usage. Another thing, check your log for startup errors. There have been a few repositories that are polling as empty at startup. Deleting them from addons, speeds and smooths startup times. I assume its checking for updates of addons at startup and can't find some.


- ronie - 2012-01-19

friedfarmer Wrote:One thing I noticed with my Atom ION is that enabling show system info in the skin settings (Home screen menu) causes a cpu spike of >20% every 5 seconds or so apparently when it polls the cpu.

that's pretty strange...
are you experiencing the same spikes when you go to
Settings > System Info > Hardware ?


- jeey - 2012-01-20

Yes, im getting this also.

Running I5 2500K, im getting around 18-20% cpu usage while idling in tvshows
Idling in the main menus is around 12-15% cpu usage

Default skin is about 3-6% in main menu and
12% in tv shows

So something is making it use more cpu


- ronie - 2012-01-20

jeey Wrote:Yes, im getting this also.

Running I5 2500K, im getting around 18-20% cpu usage while idling in tvshows
Idling in the main menus is around 12-15% cpu usage

Default skin is about 3-6% in main menu and
12% in tv shows

that's about normal :-)

jeey Wrote:So something is making it use more cpu

the countless number of features in T! that confluence doesn't have ;-)


- grumps - 2012-01-21

Thanks for your replies and suggestions, I haven't had the time to test thoroughly but my first impressions are that while the suggested changes do help in lightening the burden a bit it doesn't remove the issue of huge resource consumption at seemingly random times.

Just wanted to let know I am still reading this thread regularly, will try to investigate in more detail this weekend, past days were a bit busy and actually i have switched to confluence for short periods when i had other stuff on my mind...

A few observations:
- I am not seeing the (large) spikes by getting system info i think.
- The comment about the idle cpu usage being a bit high was very informative, i was assuming that when idle i should have been aiming for confluence-like-levels (to be honest this is still what i'd expect ideally, as xbmc is idling on my tv connected to main pc most of the day and imho there is not anything that serious it should do when it's (black) screensaver is active, dirtyregions doesnt seem to help much in this regard (so i keep that at default))
- Racing through my movie list i have seen an immense memory (2gb+) usage which does not always go down when i stop, sometimes fanart stops showing completely for parts of the list i havent raced through before yet, this also seems to be causing a very choppy experience, i may be onto something here but i doubt it's the 'full story'
- as said i run xbmc on my main pc (secondary monitor = tv, fake fullscreen 24/7) and i think i see a relation between xbmc performance and closing firefox (even though firefox cpu and gpu usage are very low, memory isnt but there's plenty for xbmc left, if not for the point above)


- friedfarmer - 2012-01-21

ronie Wrote:that's pretty strange...
are you experiencing the same spikes when you go to
Settings > System Info > Hardware ?

Yes, and the cpu speed says "busy" when the usage spike occurs.


- ronie - 2012-01-21

friedfarmer Wrote:Yes, and the cpu info says "busy" when the usage spike occurs.

what if you do the exact same thing in Confluence?


- friedfarmer - 2012-01-21

ronie Wrote:what if you do the exact same thing in Confluence?
It's the same in Confluence, the polling of the CPU info in hardware info.
I'm just saying that it appears that the intermittent increased cpu usage occurs while on the home screen menu of T! if you have show system info selected in skin settings. There is intermittent mouse cursor lag stalling while browsing the menu items and RSS text scrolling when "show system info" is selected in skin settings. But that cursor lag stalling goes away when it is not selected. Of course you can actually see the cpu speed=busy and cpu usage climb during busy if you hover on home menu item "system" label


- ronie - 2012-01-22

friedfarmer Wrote:It's the same in Confluence, the polling of the CPU info in hardware info.
I'm just saying that it appears that the intermittent increased cpu usage occurs while on the home screen menu of T! if you have show system info selected in skin settings. There is intermittent mouse cursor lag stalling while browsing the menu items and RSS text scrolling when "show system info" is selected in skin settings. But that cursor lag stalling goes away when it is not selected. Of course you can actually see the cpu speed=busy and cpu usage climb during busy if you hover on home menu item "system" label

thanx for taking the time to test.

since it's not a skin issue, the best you can do is create a ticket on trac so the xbmc devs can fix it.