Firefox Chromium excessive heat due to extremely high CPU use

Support Software & Applications
1

This is to just let Manjaro developers know what is going on as of late with Community Editions of internet browsers. I’d be happy to know of an alternative–so far, Otter Browser doesn’t open things as expected, and Falkon is consumed with a certain search engine default that is a pain in the butt to escape out of with each search using a different engine. I’m not interested in using Chrome and had hoped to migrate away from Chromium for reasons of it’s association with Google control. In any event: here’s the problem with Firefox followed by that of Chromium:

While using Firefox my laptop became heated and the fans began to run loudly and continually. Efforts to change settings and kill certain processes did not change the problem. Clearing the user data and cookies sometimes helped, but soon the fan was right back to howling and CPU use and memory use was excessively high. This repeated moments after when going to the youtube website and again going to the rumble website where in both, video were played. The program did not utilize the swap partition despite the swap file being available and sufficient for it’s use-- swap on showed that the 16G partition was available as just under 16G, 0% in use with Firefox as the only program. Running another program such as LibreOffice or CherryTree simultaneous to Firefox was very slow in switching to them. For this reason, again I’ve uninstalled Firefox.

Chromium has had the same behavior. But some of the excess programs it causes to run can be killed, which immediate reduces the CPU use and causes the fan from running so fast to blow out hot- I mean hot temperature air from inside the laptop. There was an update last night to Chromium, and as I sit here typing, the fan is only running slowly-- but this level considering that this is the only program open with only Manjaro home page and the forum page open, still seems excessive compared to how it had functioned in the past with more pages open and sometimes other programs running as well.

2

PS I am running UFW for a firewall

3

We’d need more information about your system.

Do you have those issues with bare Firefox and Chromium? Or have you installed addons?

4

After looking around in forums, advice seemed to indicate “update the kernel.” So I did after the above post. While in Chromium afterward, using a chat, the keyboard failed to type anything again. The mouse was still working so did restart and but when the password screen came up to login, typing produced nothing. Followed this with removal of the mouse, aux. USB speaker and the power cord, after a complete shutdown. It rebooted and the keyboard has been working since. I’ve typed about as much as before- it almost seemed character number related or a timer, until this point. Now I don’t know.

(as a sidenote, due to communication problems with ttyUSB for use as a serial port for a plotter, a FEW WEEKS ago, I even tried to downgrade the kernel to 5.10 with old version os inkcut and inkscape. Before the latest inkscape update, it was working. I wouldn’t think changes like added permissions to the ttyUSB0 or adding $USER to the uucp group would effect the keyboard, but ??? The keyboard malfunction didn’t happen until nearly a week after this. )
strong text

$ inxi -Fazy
System:
  Kernel: 5.16.2-2-rt19-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.16-rt-x86_64
    root=UUID=46588cb5-04db-479e-b013-ff344795af33 rw quiet apparmor=1
    security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.16.0 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.29 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm
    v: 4.16.1 vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Pavilion g7 Notebook PC
    v: 058F100014204610000620100 serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 166A v: 08.38 serial: <superuser required>
    BIOS: Insyde v: F.63 date: 03/22/2012
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i3 M 380 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Westmere
    family: 6 model-id: 0x25 (37) stepping: 5 microcode: 0x7
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 tpc: 2 threads: 4 smt: enabled cache:
    L1: 128 KiB desc: d-2x32 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 512 KiB desc: 2x256 KiB
    L3: 3 MiB desc: 1x3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1465 high: 1520 min/max: 933/2533 scaling:
    driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: schedutil cores: 1: 1520 2: 1463 3: 1365
    4: 1515 bogomips: 20218
  Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX unsupported
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion
  Type: mds
    status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT vulnerable
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: spec_store_bypass
    mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1
    mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional,
    IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Core Processor Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: i915 v: kernel ports: active: LVDS-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,VGA-1
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0046 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Chicony HP Webcam-101 type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 2-1.5:3
    chip-ID: 04f2:b293 class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter>
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 compositor: xfwm v: 4.16.1 driver:
    X: loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915 display-ID: :0.0
    screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1600x900 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 423x238mm (16.65x9.37")
    s-diag: 485mm (19.11")
  Monitor-1: LVDS-1 model: LG Display 0x027a built: 2009 res: 1600x900
    hz: 60 dpi: 106 gamma: 1.2 size: 382x215mm (15.04x8.46") diag: 438mm (17.3")
    ratio: 16:9 modes: 1600x900
  Message: Unable to show GL data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 5 Series/3400 Series High Definition Audio
    vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
    chip-ID: 8086:3b56 class-ID: 0403
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.16.2-2-rt19-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.20 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: rtl8192ce v: kernel pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 4000
    bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8176 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet
    vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: 3000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8136 class-ID: 0200
  IF: eno1 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 23.05 GiB (4.9%)
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Western Digital
    model: WD5000BPKX-22HPJT0 size: 465.76 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B
    logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: <filter>
    rev: 1A01 scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 302.09 GiB size: 296.28 GiB (98.08%)
    used: 23.05 GiB (7.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 15.23 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 64.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 210 Uptime: 1h 4m wakeups: 1 Memory: 3.64 GiB
  used: 940.4 MiB (25.2%) Init: systemd v: 250 tool: systemctl Compilers:
  gcc: 11.2.0 clang: 13.0.1 Packages: pacman: 1488 lib: 367 flatpak: 0
  Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.14
5

While typing the above response, I went to shorten it using the mouse to click where I wanted to make the edit. I also have a touchpad but that I noticed stopped working at that point in time. I mouse clicked the strong text but had no keys.

I did not have anything but the plain jane firefox when the overheating began. I did after install an add block (several related) but then either a page didn’t work or what I don’t recall but I removed all of them.
So then it was back to plain. In Chromium there are no add ons or extensions ever added to it–it’s “out of the box”

6

some more info

systemctl --failed
  UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB DESCRIPTION
0 loaded units listed.



$ journalctl --boot --priority=err
Apr 06 16:41:59 nobody kernel: x86/cpu: VMX (outside TXT) disabled by BIOS
Apr 06 16:43:02 nobody lightdm[865]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control f>
Apr 06 16:43:41 nobody pulseaudio[968]: GetManagedObjects() failed: org.freedes>
lines 1-3/3 (END)


swapon
NAME      TYPE       SIZE USED PRIO
/dev/sda1 partition 15.2G   0B   -2

This is top output- the fan is only slight at the moment:

$ top

top - 16:57:37 up 15 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.51, 0.66, 0.60
Tasks: 195 total,   1 running, 194 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  4.2 us,  2.0 sy,  0.0 ni, 90.4 id,  2.7 wa,  0.4 hi,  0.3 si,  0.0 st
MiB Mem :   3721.4 total,   1832.7 free,    832.3 used,   1056.4 buff/cache
MiB Swap:  15594.0 total,  15594.0 free,      0.0 used.   2429.5 avail Mem 

    PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND  
    633 root      20   0  358436  63488  35980 S  13.6   1.7   0:56.90 Xorg     
   1911 laurie    20   0 1170312  62836  48232 S  12.0   1.6   0:02.82 xfce4-t+ 
    957 laurie    20   0  837876  65360  51484 S   2.3   1.7   0:10.37 xfwm4    
     32 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3   0.0   0:00.14 ksoftir+ 
     40 root      20   0       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:00.59 kworker+ 
     84 root      20   0       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:00.58 kworker+ 
    106 root       0 -20       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:01.40 kworker+ 
    943 laurie    20   0  160892   7652   6728 S   0.3   0.2   0:00.29 at-spi2+ 
   1003 laurie    20   0  673132  51332  42164 S   0.3   1.3   0:01.34 panel-9+ 
   1242 laurie    20   0   16.7g 244868 189612 S   0.3   6.4   0:36.10 chromium 
   1278 laurie    20   0   16.6g 135464 117664 S   0.3   3.6   0:03.92 chromium 
   1789 laurie    20   0   24.7g 146412 108056 S   0.3   3.8   0:04.16 chromium 
   1951 laurie    20   0   10660   4028   3416 R   0.3   0.1   0:00.23 top      
      1 root      20   0  166712  11928   8804 S   0.0   0.3   0:02.16 systemd  
      2 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.0   0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd 
      3 root       0 -20       0      0      0 I   0.0   0.0   0:00.00 rcu_gp   
      4 root       0 -20       0      0      0 I   0.0   0.0   0:00.00 rcu_par+

Top after starting youtube video. But, par for the course, the fan is not going wild at the moment…

$ top

top - 17:05:40 up 23 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.62, 1.04, 0.82
Tasks: 204 total,   1 running, 203 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  6.0 us,  2.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 90.8 id,  0.2 wa,  0.5 hi,  0.3 si,  0.0 st
MiB Mem :   3721.4 total,   1303.3 free,   1127.1 used,   1291.0 buff/cache
MiB Swap:  15594.0 total,  15594.0 free,      0.0 used.   1995.6 avail Mem 

    PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND  
    633 root      20   0  376924  67936  39308 S  12.3   1.8   2:04.08 Xorg     
   1911 laurie    20   0 1165888  68160  48924 S   9.9   1.8   0:09.04 xfce4-t+ 
   2127 laurie    20   0   28.9g 463872 239384 S   5.3  12.2   2:38.59 chromium 
    968 laurie     9 -11 1558760  36652  26096 S   3.3   1.0   0:09.91 pulseau+ 
    957 laurie    20   0  837876  65620  51488 S   2.3   1.7   0:19.91 xfwm4    
   2174 laurie    20   0   17.0g 115000 100708 S   1.7   3.0   0:03.81 chromium 
   1406 laurie    20   0   16.6g 116864 100220 S   1.0   3.1   1:42.35 chromium 
    976 laurie    20   0  498192  64860  48352 S   0.7   1.7   0:04.56 Thunar   
   1003 laurie    20   0  673360  51760  42408 S   0.7   1.4   0:02.41 panel-9+ 
     39 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3   0.0   0:00.31 ksoftir+ 
    106 root       0 -20       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:02.86 kworker+ 
    969 laurie    20   0  474816  51476  41688 S   0.3   1.4   0:06.76 xfce4-p+ 
   1242 laurie    20   0   16.8g 250996 191856 S   0.3   6.6   0:58.65 chromium 
   1278 laurie    20   0   16.6g 137260 118224 S   0.3   3.6   0:14.02 chromium 
   1305 laurie    20   0  563700  36352  26996 S   0.3   1.0   0:00.63 xdg-des+ 
   1442 laurie    20   0   28.7g 156452 121820 S   0.3   4.1   0:05.95 chromium 
   2251 laurie    20   0   10660   3940   3328 R   0.3   0.1   0:00.88 top
7 
journalctl --boot -1 --priority=err
Apr 06 15:14:23 nobody kernel: x86/cpu: VMX (outside TXT) disabled by BIOS
Apr 06 15:14:57 nobody lightdm[858]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control f>
Apr 06 15:15:34 nobody pulseaudio[956]: GetManagedObjects() failed: org.freedes>
Apr 06 15:55:23 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to initialize >
Apr 06 15:57:58 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query devic>
Apr 06 16:00:14 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query devic>
Apr 06 16:27:22 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query devic>
Apr 06 16:29:32 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query devic>
lines 1-8/8 (END)...skipping...
Apr 06 15:14:23 nobody kernel: x86/cpu: VMX (outside TXT) disabled by BIOS
Apr 06 15:14:57 nobody lightdm[858]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control f>
Apr 06 15:15:34 nobody pulseaudio[956]: GetManagedObjects() failed: org.freedes>
Apr 06 15:55:23 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to initialize >
Apr 06 15:57:58 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query devic>
Apr 06 16:00:14 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query devic>
Apr 06 16:27:22 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query devic>
Apr 06 16:29:32 nobody kernel: psmouse serio1: synaptics: Unable to query devic>
8

Top output Fan is now-blaring blowing full blast. Chromium has 2 manjaro pages, 1 google search, 1 youtube and 1 opened page followed from a link in youtube to the mfg website.

$ top

top - 17:18:22 up 36 min,  1 user,  load average: 1.76, 1.55, 1.16
Tasks: 204 total,   1 running, 203 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  9.5 us,  3.4 sy,  0.0 ni, 86.3 id,  0.0 wa,  0.6 hi,  0.2 si,  0.0 st
MiB Mem :   3721.4 total,   1139.0 free,   1271.5 used,   1311.0 buff/cache
MiB Swap:  15594.0 total,  15594.0 free,      0.0 used.   1916.1 avail Mem 

    PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND  
    633 root      20   0  378188  67936  39308 S  15.6   1.8   3:37.49 Xorg     
   1911 laurie    20   0 1165888  68632  49160 S  12.3   1.8   0:13.46 xfce4-t+ 
   2541 laurie    20   0   28.8g 238620 132256 S   7.6   6.3   0:34.61 chromium 
   2127 laurie    20   0   28.8g 363928 149384 S   5.6   9.6   5:21.92 chromium 
    968 laurie     9 -11 1558892  36992  26340 S   3.3   1.0   0:37.57 pulseau+ 
    957 laurie    20   0  837876  65620  51488 S   2.6   1.7   0:33.95 xfwm4    
   1406 laurie    20   0   16.6g 124236 107432 S   2.6   3.3   3:39.25 chromium 
   2174 laurie    20   0   17.0g 115056 100708 S   1.3   3.0   0:14.77 chromium 
    981 laurie    20   0  493996  71816  44964 S   0.7   1.9   0:02.62 xfdeskt+ 
   1003 laurie    20   0  673360  51760  42408 S   0.7   1.4   0:04.02 panel-9+ 
   1242 laurie    20   0   16.8g 253816 191928 S   0.7   6.7   1:31.49 chromium 
     59 root       0 -20       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:00.34 kworker+ 
    106 root       0 -20       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:05.02 kworker+ 
    969 laurie    20   0  474816  51476  41688 S   0.3   1.4   0:09.35 xfce4-p+ 
   1278 laurie    20   0   16.6g 139528 119276 S   0.3   3.7   0:26.41 chromium 
   2360 root      20   0       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:00.24 kworker+ 
   2652 laurie    20   0   10660   4032   3420 R   0.3   0.1   0:00.07 top      
      1 root      20   0  166712  11928   8804 S   0.0   0.3   0:02.20 systemd
9

From your captures, the CPU doesn’t have that much usage. If anything heats up, i’d rather think it’s the iGPU.
Have you tried disabling hardware acceleration in the web browsers?

10

yes. Disabling hardware acceleration was the first thing I tried in both browsers. Since the last post, I’ve been trying to catch top output because the fan jumps up and Chromium use will say 89% cpu use, and then decline. It showed 66% but by the time the command to save output it dropped. this is with a video on youtube playing and 2 manjaro pages open, mousepad, terminal with tops running, thunar

top - 17:41:43 up 59 min,  1 user,  load average: 1.38, 1.53, 1.44
Tasks: 203 total,   1 running, 202 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 27.9 us,  5.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 65.9 id,  0.0 wa,  0.7 hi,  0.3 si,  0.0 st
MiB Mem :   3721.4 total,   1210.9 free,   1146.8 used,   1363.7 buff/cache
MiB Swap:  15594.0 total,  15594.0 free,      0.0 used.   2101.9 avail Mem 

    PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND  
   2127 laurie    20   0   28.8g 389844 163064 S  46.0  10.2  14:51.12 chromium 
    633 root      20   0  378256  68392  39312 S  28.1   1.8   6:42.87 Xorg     
   1406 laurie    20   0   16.6g 102224  85440 S  24.5   2.7   8:38.82 chromium 
   1911 laurie    20   0 1165760  68388  49160 S  15.9   1.8   0:19.50 xfce4-t+ 
    957 laurie    20   0  837876  65620  51488 S   4.3   1.7   0:59.07 xfwm4    
    968 laurie     9 -11 1558892  36764  26112 S   3.3   1.0   1:27.91 pulseau+ 
   1789 laurie    20   0   24.8g 148000 111344 S   3.0   3.9   0:05.54 chromium 
   3005 root      20   0   15188   6364   5588 S   2.6   0.2   0:00.08 systemd+ 
    969 laurie    20   0  474816  51476  41688 S   2.0   1.4   0:13.92 xfce4-p+ 
   2174 laurie    20   0   17.0g 115380 101036 S   1.3   3.0   0:34.50 chromium 
    106 root       0 -20       0      0      0 D   0.7   0.0   0:09.82 kworker+ 
   1003 laurie    20   0  673360  51760  42408 S   0.7   1.4   0:07.02 panel-9+ 
   1242 laurie    20   0   16.7g 258224 193192 S   0.7   6.8   2:11.22 chromium 
     13 root      20   0       0      0      0 S   0.3   0.0   0:00.51 ksoftir+ 
     14 root      -2   0       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:02.94 rcu_pre+ 
     84 root      20   0       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:02.35 kworker+ 
    159 root       0 -20       0      0      0 I   0.3   0.0   0:00.46 kworker+ 
    438 dbus      20   0    9812   5928   4232 S   0.3   0.2   0:00.74 dbus-da+
11

after trying yet another browser, while also experiencing intermittent keyboard failure after typing, I started investigating and trying to resolve the keyboard issue. In the process, I found some services that were turned on that I don’t use (ie. cups and I think the culprit, apparmor that ran hourly) that were not enabled by manjoro default setting. I’m not sure what program took the liberty of changing those settings… In Chromium last night even after all this, the combination of running a video on a social media platform while reading another page that had adds on it, set the fans into high gear- it slowed after closing the page with ads. Ad blockers will help- wasn’t running one at the time.

Thanks for your helpful suggestions.

12

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