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H9321V
Participant
February 24, 2013
Question

Flash Player 11.6.602.168 high CPU usage

  • February 24, 2013
  • 1 reply
  • 7826 views

Hi,

I think I posted this in the wrong forum (Beta channel), so I post here again. Please forgive me if you have to read this twice. Any help would be much appreciated.

Our computer has 100% CPU usage every time we get in websites that utilize Flash, or watch youtube.

Browser: FireFox 19.0

Flash 11.6.602.168

Computer: HP Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz, 3G memory, up-to-date BIOS and other drivers.

Graphic card: EVGA GeForce 6200

Windows 7 32 bits

This window was freshly installed (2-3 weeks), has AVG on. We do not have many software's installed, except MS Office. All fans and CPU are clean. The computer runs fairly fast: we tried opening multiple FF tabs simultaneously, plus Excel, Word, Solitaire etc. without any problems. However, whenever we get into websites with Flash, the CPU uasage goes to 100% and stays there. Memory usage has always been stable, around 30%. We have tried the following steps, but it hasn't gotten better:

- Turned off all applications, opened only one tab with that website.

- Updated all drivers and applications: FF, Flash, Graphic card etc.

- Turned ON and OFF hardware acceleration for both Flash and FF, also tried to turn one On, the other OFF, and vise versa.

- Disabled all add-on's, extensions and Plug-in's, except Flash.

- Uninstalled and reinstall FF and Flash; restarted several times.

- Temporarily turned OFF protected mode.

- Uninstalled FF, Flash, then installed IE 9, then Flash for IE: didn't work.

- Uninstalled IE 9, Flash, then installed IE10 then reinstalled Flash for IE: also didn't work.

- We do not keep browsing history.

Examples of websites that we have had problems with: pbskids.org, barbie.com, and other school websites for kids to do homework or watch youtube.

While in many websites such as CNN.com, yahoo.com, when we opened it, the CPU usage did spike, but came back to 1-5% within 5 seconds.

This computer is for our kids. Do we really need to buy an i5 or i7 computer so the kids can play and do homework? Or is there any other way that we can do?

  Thank you

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    S
    SuperScirocco
    Participant
    February 25, 2013

    No your computer is acceptable as it is.  Assuming the RAM is 2x1GB and 2x512mb to allow Hyperthreading.    I have nearly the same pc as a backup with XP installed.

    Note - the Nvidia 6200 just plays video well, the cpu has to do the work.

    Correct Windows 7 Nvidia drivers installed?  Latest Java plugin?

    I  literally only use IE for Microsoft Update.   That doesn't use Flash anyways so I do not bother updating Flash for IE.

    Try verifying what version is installed via  Programs and Features.  I just checked and found that Flash did NOT update when I was sure it did.

    The Flash 11.6.602.168 changelog does not mention any security updates only bug fixes:

    "# New features:

    * Full Screen Permission Dialog UI Improvement

    - Changed the location of the permission dialog to the middle of the screen. Also improved the user experience when going into full screen mode by adding the "Cancel" button.

    * Graphics Data Query

    - Developers can read the structure of the display object and vector data at runtime. Game developers can use this feature to create complex Sprite Sheets, or exporters for any file format (e.g. SVG) at runtime.

    # Bug fixes

    * Numerous bug fixes for all browsers and platforms!"

    Do you have a saved full version of the previous release?

    View the list of running processes.   Plugin container.exe is  Firefox running Flash or Quicktime player etc.

    Security programs demand different amounts of CPU usage.  Some install 12 running processes, some use little except when scanning downloads.  Some are actually hijacked programs that infect computers.

    Here is a very lengthy thread on exactly the same topic, still a current thread:

    http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1043779

    H
    H9321VAuthor
    Participant
    February 26, 2013

    Hi,

    Thank you for your response. Here are my answers for your questions/concerns:

    • Our computer is an HP d520 Pentium 4 2.8A, and it does not have HT. After we installed Win7 and updated it to 2G memory, it was so slow when we got in those websites, and we thought it was because of the memory. We added 1 more stick (1G), and the situation did not get better. That was when we found out about the CPU. So, we have 3 one-G memory sticks on it.
    • All Windows drivers are updated automatically. Nvidia drivers is also up-to-date (we tried to use one downloaded from EVGA, but Windows refused it and said it already had the optimum certified driver for my machine, with a high version number of the driver, 310.90 vs 307.74).
    • Java: we had it then we diabled it. Do we need Java when we run Flash?
    • We downloaded Flash 11.6.602.168 through Adobe website for FF. For Chrome and IE, we updated through plug-ins, which also lead to Adobe website. Yes, they are 11.6.
    • You asked if we kept a full version of the previous release: not sure full version of what: WinXp? FireFox? Flash?  We do not keep Xp, and did not upgrade from Xp, but used a full version of Win7 instead. FireFox and other browsers: we downloaded from their websites and uninstalled the old versions every time, and do not have the old versions. Same for Flash.
    • List of running processes (with FF and Flash when they are turned on): avgui.exe, csrss.exe, dwm.exe, explorer.exe, taskhost.exe, taskmgr.exe, winlogon.exe, firefox.exe, FlashPlayerPlugin_11_6_602_168.exe – 2 of them, Plugin-container.exe.
    • We read the thread you suggested, not much help.

    After the previous post, we have tried these:

    • Installed and uninstalled Chrome: not help.
    • Experimented Clean uninstalling/installing the following Flash versions 10.2, 10.3, 11.2 together with Chrome and FF: not much help, actually worse.
    • Tried ad-block plus: help a little bit: videos are smoother, but CPU still high, about 100% for the kids’ websites such as Barbie.com pbskids.org, nick.com.
    • HTML5 actually uses more CPU than non-HTML5 for the specific youtube links (about hitting a can on the head of a guy with tennis ball) that was referred in one of the threads. For HTML5 50-80% CPU, while non-HTML5 40-60% CPU).

    So what do you think we can do? Thanks in advance!

    S
    SuperScirocco
    Participant
    February 26, 2013

    What I gathered from the other Adobe thread was that the issue is amazingly not resolved after over 3 years of the "cpu 100% in flash" syndrome.

    I asked about the java plugin because recently users were advised to disable java until a security issue was fixed, and supposedly the latest version is ok.

    The HPCompaq dc520: The onboard video might be causing a conflict.  It definitely should not be displaying.  I had errors (crashes) due to driver conflicts with my  Nvidia 6200 card.   

    This might be a good time to switch to an ATI video card with DirectX 10 such as the AGP HD2600 XT.` Windows 7 has to disable whatever requires DX10 for an old DX 9 card.     However a new card could cost half the price of a newer refurbed  Dell or HP SFF PC on ebay.

    Can do NOW: (I think you already did) - disable the Flash plugin,  so you miss all the toy ads.

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