new kde on f13 is very noisy!

[Chris Rouch]

On 8 November 2010 17:13, Rex Dieter <rdieter at math.unl.edu> wrote:
> On 11/08/2010 03:02 AM, Chris Rouch wrote:
>> Over the weekend yum pulled in the newest version of kde for f13
>> (4.5.2 I think). Since I rebooted and logged in my laptop seems to
>> have the fan going most of the time. Gkrellm shows both CPUs are doing
>> something, and top confirms that kwin and plasma desktop are each
>> using between 10% and 30% CPU. For comparison on my f12 desktop at
>> work they use between 2 and 5% cpu.  I don't know what the used before
>> the upgrade, but I do know the fan was usually off except when the
>> machine was loaded.
>>
>> This happens with only one window (firefox), and that only having a
>> couple of tabs open.
>>
>> Is this something I can change? If so, where do I need to look?
>
> Depends on a lot of things.
>
> What video driver is in use?

Latest nvidia, from rpmfusion
>
> What arch?

x86_64

>
> Is flash installed, and any applets running in any of those flash tabs
> you mention?

Yes it is installed, but none of the tabs are visibly using it (I
had/have gmail and a bbc news page open - the latter is static).

>
> Are destkop effects enabled?  Which effects?  (blur in particular, is
> known to cause degraded performance/load with many driver combinations).

Desktop effects are enabled. I had blur enabled and I've just disabled
it. No immediate effect - the fan is still spinning, though the cpu
percentages are now down to 10-15%.

Switching off all desktop effects makes a big difference. kwin is no
longer in top's list of cpu hogs, and plasma desktop sits around 1%
until I actually do something, when it goes to around 15%.

Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Chris