CPUs running at 100% (Hardy Heron, Dell XPS M1330)

[Joep L. Blom]

Quin Wills wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I've one of the Dell XPS M1330 machines that come shipped with Hardy LTS 
> (Dual Core T7300 2GHz/800Mhz 4MB Cache, 2GB RAM). I've had it for a year 
> and use it for scientific computing.
> 
> As of about 2 weeks ago I notice that the my youtube and BBC iplayer 
> playback started becoming jerky after a few minutes into any video. I've 
> not made any software changes recently. I ran the usual DELL hardware 
> checks and reinstalled my flash plugins, without improvement. My laptop 
> began freezing, including with standard applications like openoffice or 
> when running a CPU intensive job during analysis (I code in R). So the 
> problem appears to be my CPUs and I've confirmed, using the system 
> monitor, that they rapidly hit 100% before my laptop freezes.
> 
> I see there are some CPU tests out there, but have never tinkered/tested 
> with any CPUs before. I prize this machine (a lot) and have heard horror 
> stories around naive CPU testing. This has become a real problem for me 
> - I use this machine 10+ hours a day - so any advice on what I should do 
> next (explained to me like I'm an idiot) and what the problem is likely 
> to be would be very, very, very welcome!
> 
> Thanks a stack,
> Quin
> 
Install gkrellm from the repositories. This will give you good 
information - per processor - of the load. It can also give you other 
information of your hardware. I find it indispensable and have found 
many problems due to misbehaving programs.
Joep