processor at 100%

[Matt Price]

On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 09:04:23AM +0000, Sam Dungey wrote:
> > I have also been noticing my system getting sluggish sometimes.  I
> > even bought 1G RAM recently and I am still occasionally noticing a
> > problem.  I am beginning to wonder if there is not a memory leak in
> > firefox.  I can clear all the cache and restart firefox and often the
> > problem appears clear up.  I have also noticed problems slowing down
> > when I start to use gmail.  I wonder if AJAX (Javascript?) is hogging
> > my memory or is a memory leak?
> 
> I have the same problem daily as I open lots of tabs and browse away.
> Eventually the X process is eating all the memory and the machine slows down
> notably. Haven't found a cure yet (aside from closing and restarting
> firefox), but here is the problem:
> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009749.html

I don't think this is the problem, actually.  This is a memory leak
(or memory-hogging) designed to REDUCE CPU consumption.  It's true
firefox has heavy memory requirements, but it ALSO spikes up CPU usage
on many systems (mine too).  From the bug reports I've seen (this was a
while ago), the mozilla devs have marked this problem "unreproducible."
 There have also been suggestions that this problem is specific to
debian builds, or originates in certain extensions.  I personally find
it extremely frustrating, but like you have found no cure.  

matt

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Matt Price	    matt.price at utoronto.ca
History Department, University of Toronto
(416) 978-2094
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