High CPU resource usage

[iamme99]

Even after setting Coretemp to a 5 second update interval, this utility is the #1 app in terms of CPU cycle consumption on my system (Intel E6750 CPU)!

See:
http://i.min.us/iKzpU.jpg

Why does a relatively simple app consume so many CPU cycles?

[iamme99]

So no one finds this interesting or worth discussing?

Are there any alternatives to CoreTemp that are less resource intensive?

[The Coolest]

I don't know why in your case Core Temp takes up so much CPU time.
I've tested it before and it was working perfectly fine on my E6850.
Basically Core Temp has background threads for accurate frequency calculation which run at all times at 20ms intervals, they are as efficient as I could make them and I haven't seen any other user report a similar issue.
In my experience I usually get less than 1 minute of CPU time per day on my current system.

[iamme99]

I don't know why in your case Core Temp takes up so much CPU time.
I've tested it before and it was working perfectly fine on my E6850.
Basically Core Temp has background threads for accurate frequency calculation which run at all times at 20ms intervals, they are as efficient as I could make them and I haven't seen any other user report a similar issue.
In my experience I usually get less than 1 minute of CPU time per day on my current system.

Here's a new screenshot:
http://i.min.us/idzOaG.jpg

I had increased the polling interval to 7500 milliseconds. Coretemp appears to have used 3 HOURS of CPU time over the last 3 days of uptime!

It's not like this is causing any major impact. It just seems that you have some code somewhere that needs to be looked at. I would think that you would want to get to the bottom of this problem.

I'd suspect that few people ever look at performance logs, so I doubt most would notice anything. I just happened to notice it while I was looking at something else.

Can you show a screenshot similar to mine (maybe use the free Sysinternals Process Explorer)? I don't see how this could be something on my system that only affects your application and no others.

I tried turning on your log function but that doesn't do much more than just log the temp readings. If you have some other log setting I can enable for more detail, then let me know and I will try it out.

[The Coolest]

What application are you using for such detailed information?
My current uptime (system in sig) is just under a week, Core Temp has been running since the system has started.
Current CPU time is 2m:41s using Task Manager.
Note that in my case I have 4 running threads. I really wonder what it is that could cause this high CPU usage in the child threads.
All they do is calculate CPU frequency using a rather simple algorithm. Is the frequency detected properly? Including speedstep changes.
Could you check if the "On the fly FSB detection" is turned on in Settings -> Advanced?

[iamme99]

What application are you using for such detailed information?
My current uptime (system in sig) is just under a week, Core Temp has been running since the system has started.
Current CPU time is 2m:41s using Task Manager.
Note that in my case I have 4 running threads. I really wonder what it is that could cause this high CPU usage in the child threads.
All they do is calculate CPU frequency using a rather simple algorithm. Is the frequency detected properly? Including speedstep changes.
Could you check if the "On the fly FSB detection" is turned on in Settings -> Advanced?

1. The monitor app I use is called TaskInfo:
http://www.iarsn.com/taskinfo.html

Also as I mentioned, you can also use the free Sysinternals Process Explorer app.

2. Calculating CPU frequency? What does that have to do with reporting CPU temperature? Please explain.

I have my CPU overclocked 20% to 3200 MHz. But I also have the BIOS options EIST and C1E enabled.

I DO NOT have "On the fly FSB detection" enabled.

Aren't you the creator of threads? If so, then why would you have 4 threads and I show 5 threads? Hmmm.

[The Coolest]

Since Core Temp also provides some CPU information, its crucial for it to also report accurate clock speeds.
Thus Core Temp also displays the CPU frequency.
I'm not going to go into much detail about how Core Temp works internally, but Core Temp creates a thread for each processor thread and calculates the frequency per thread, there is also a separate main thread. In your case there are two cores and each core can run one thread, in my case I have two cores but each can execute two threads (Hyperthreading), that is why I said that in my case I have four of such threads running and never saw such a problem.
There is something that eats up CPU time, regular calculations wouldn't cause such a high CPU time.

http://imgur.com/awUWA.png

[iamme99]

Since Core Temp also provides some CPU information, its crucial for it to also report accurate clock speeds.

- I am looking at your main window and I am watching the CPU Frequency line change regularly between 2999.75MHz and 3199.73MHz. I already have other apps that provide me with all the CPU info I need (e.g. CPU-Z). I fail to understand WHY you think it is necessary for your app to repeat this information, particularly since as you state:

"There is something that eats up CPU time, regular calculations wouldn't cause such a high CPU time."

At this point, all I can say is that the problem appears to be in CoreTemp because I am not seeing any problems from any of the other apps I run.

If you don't already have it, you need some kind of debug option to collect data. Maybe you are getting into some kind of comparison or error checking recursion problem with CPU's the dynamically change their speed and/or are overclocked?

P.S. I don't know what your screen paste is really showing since you failed to include the column headers. And could you put that screenshot in a scrollable window? My FF (at least), stretches out the text to the width of this screenshot element, which is annoying.

[The Coolest]

First of all, I don't have to explain myself to anyone about why I think a certain feature is important for my program to have or not. I personally think that having a frequency reading is important and so do many other users, who may not like the idea of running several programs at once to get an idea about what is happening with their processor at a certain point in time.
Second, it is probably a problem with Core Temp on your setup, I didn't say it wasn't. What I meant was that in normal operation, when these threads are running correctly, as you hopefully can understand, CPU time should not be that high, actually it's supposed to be low.
There are no loops or recursions which could cause this high CPU time. Right now I'm busy with other things, unfortunately, to start digging into this issue and finding the culprit so it will have to wait.

I edited the previous post with a link to an updated screenshot.

[The Coolest]

I just took another look at your screenshot. Seems like the problem is stemming from the kernel driver, which is strange. Right in the kernel is where the problem occurs.
Now that I know where I should look for the problem I'll take a look when I can find the time.

[iamme99]

I just took another look at your screenshot. Seems like the problem is stemming from the kernel driver, which is strange. Right in the kernel is where the problem occurs.
Now that I know where I should look for the problem I'll take a look when I can find the time.

Here's another screenshot from SI Process Explorer. It does seem to confirm that the issue is with the kernal CPU time. I also notice that CoreTemp is generating an awful lot of "Other I/O's" (ranking #4 in my system). Perhaps this is another clue for you?

http://i.min.us/idLOgE.jpg

When do you think you will get time to look into this problem further? Days? Weeks? Months?

[The Coolest]

I'm not sure about the time frame, but at least a month or so.

The high number of I/Os is fine because Core Temp polls the driver very often.
Here is mine.
You can see that Kernel Time in your screenshot is way beyond normal.

http://imgur.com/soDAZ.png

[iamme99]

OK.

Meanwhile, I've been giving Realtemp a try. No problems with this app for rme. Very minimal resource usage on my system. It does what I need it to do.

Thanks.

[The Coolest]

Have you been able to resolve the issue, or did you give up?
Will you be willing to give it another go, and maybe work with me a little bit to see if this problem can be found and fixed for the next release?
Please PM me your IM address/contact and I'll contact you.

[iamme99]

Have you been able to resolve the issue, or did you give up?
Will you be willing to give it another go, and maybe work with me a little bit to see if this problem can be found and fixed for the next release?
Please PM me your IM address/contact and I'll contact you.

I think you identified what the problem was in your previous posts in this thread. You also were quite clear in stating that it was your program and YOU would do things the way you wanted to do them.

RealTemp has low overhead and meets my requirements. So I don't have any interest in further work on this issue.

[The Coolest]

Ok.

[raminscc]

Sorry to bump but I'm having the same issue.
Core temp on average is using about 8-15 % of my CPU resources at idle.

I'm very sad that i'll have to use something else until this is resolved.

BTW this is on my i5-480m laptop cpu.

Just tried real temp which uses under 1% at all times, so i'll be using that for now.

[The Coolest]

Can you post a screenshot of Core Temp on your system, as we did in this thread in earlier posts?
Also if you have any instant messaging account, please PM me the details, maybe we could have a "debug" session.

[i7-Dude]

I get the same thing when waking my i7 laptop from sleep sometimes. CPU usage sticks at 15% until I close coretemp.

BTW, Coretemp = Worst installer EVER! Really, WTF man? I won't recommend this program to anyone because I don't want them blamimg me for all the crap that gets installed.

[The Coolest]

The lockup problem has been solved, and will not exist in the next release.

Regarding the installer, to opt out of installing the extra stuff, you have to click Decline.
Or you can use the standalone version when you click on "More downloads..."

[natsuto]

The average temperature of the core is idle for about 8-15% of my CPU resources. I am very sad, I will have to use something else, until it is resolved.

[unL33T]

CoreTemp is using 15% of my 2.8 ghz quad core right now. 15% doesn't bother me enough to immediately switch to something else.

Intel i7-2820QM, HT enabled, Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit.

[The Coolest]

Are you both using the latest RC3?

[unL33T]

Thought I was running the latest version but I guess I was wrong. Updated it now. I'll report back if the problem comes up again.

[The Coolest]

The latest version is 1.0 RC3, the RC3 designation will appear in the title. If it isn't there then you're running an earlier version.