CPU usage spikes: windowserver process to blame?

[MithrilFox]

Hey guys.

 

Got a unique situation. PC specs after the explanation:

 

At times, one of my CPU cores will spike to incredible usage. 80-90% or more usage on that one core. When it happens, it is isolated to one core at a time, sometimes shifting from one core to another. I can get it to happen consistently when viewing the preference panes for stuff dealing with video codecs, including all of Final Cut's preference panes. When I look in the Activity Monitor, it is "windowserver" that is the culprit.

 

Here's a screenshot of me viewing a little window to decide what audio codec to use:

 

 

 

Here's a screenshot of the same program, but viewing the video preferences:

 

 

 

Occasionally, after booting up Safari will do the same thing with any webpage, but after a brief period will quit. Anyone know what's going with windowserver that makes it go nuts at these times? It causes VERY noticeable slowdown. The issue started after I swapped out my old nVidia 8800GT for an ATI HD Radeon 3870. I did that because with the 8800GT I had bad horizontal tearing that I couldn't fix. I still have the 8800GT if someone can clarify that the horizontal tearing is fixable.

 

Here's my specs:

 

Mobo: P5K-V

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz

RAM: 8GB (tested)

Graphics: ATI HD Radeon 3870 (previous was 8800GT w/o this windowserver issue)

HDD/Optical drive: All standard stuff, SATA connections

[MithrilFox]

Well I found the culprit.

 

Believe it or not, quitting the X11 process fixed the problem. Apparently it had something to do with X11 and QE. If you know anyone else with a windowserver CPU usage problem, tell them to try force quitting X11 to see if it helps .