Xorg process takes too much time cpu

[Andrew Haninger]

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:46 AM, Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
> That's got to be the worlds most vague bug report!!!
>
> Dude, you really have to at least give /some/ details as to what's
> happening.
I absolutely agree with this and think that he'll have to write back
with more specific and definitive info before any resolution can be
made. However, I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and
say this is his first bug report ever on a free product where the
support is "you get what you pay for". Let's try to extrapolate some
things from his message...

> I have observed, since some days, xorg process takes too
> much time cpu. I didn't touch anything at all at my computer or files.
So, over the last couple days, for no particular reason, Xorg seems to
be taking up an inordinate amount of CPU. From the way he worded the
description and the lack of information, I'm going to guess that he's
not a hacker so he's not installing random packages here and there
that might cause problems. That makes it tougher as the reports will
tend to be more vague but it also means that there is likely less flux
in his system setup or deviation from the standard distro
configuration.

> I have Ubuntu Studio 7.1 and Nvidia Quadro FX 2500M.
Further evidence of newbiness: he just knows the basics and not all
enabled features. However, this may be important information. You
asked if he's using compositing. The only compositing manager I know
of is Compiz. According to DistroWatch.com Ubuntu Studio 7.1 doesn't
include Compiz[1], so probably not.

Here are my guesses:

1) Automatic updates installed new nVidia drivers, breaking OpenGL on
his system and causing a slowdown. (Pretty possible.)

2) A vulnerability was exploited on his system and someone is using it
for spamming or other network attacks that consume large amounts of
CPU, slowing things down. (Not too likely, I'd think, but not
impossible.)

3) He accidentally did something to cause his setup to be
half-working. (Also pretty possible.)

These are admittedly-poor guesses, but we didn't have much to go on.
In general, it's helpful for reports to include when or about when a
problem occurred and (more importantly) what may have happened between
the time before the problem appeared and after.

Logs are also useful. /var/log/Xorg.0.log is most likely to hold
interesting info in this case. He can't assume that you know
everything about his particular distro+hardware setup combination --
there are just too many!

So hopefully he'll write back (to the list!) with more info so that
someone can help, but give him at least one chance. (After that, oil
up the trebuchet and lob his flaming request back at full speed!)

Andy

[1] http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntustudio