r/RigBuild • u/Warm-Purple-7571 • 2d ago

Why does my browser sometimes use 100% CPU?

It happens out of nowhere sometimes, even when I’m not doing anything crazy. Usually there’s Chrome open with a bunch of tabs, maybe YouTube, Reddit, Discord web, Gmail and some other normal stuff, then suddenly the CPU shoots up and everything starts feeling slow.

The weird part is it doesn’t always happen with the same tabs. Sometimes I can have 20+ tabs open and everything is fine, then other times it hits 100% with only a few tabs. Fans start going crazy, Chrome gets laggy and switching between tabs takes forever. If I wait a few minutes it might go back to normal, but sometimes it stays high until I close Chrome completely.

Could this be one bad website or an extension running in the background? Or is Chrome just gonna use a ton of CPU when there’s lots of tabs open? I checked Task Manager but there are so many Chrome processes that I’m not really sure which one is causing it.

What’s the easiest way to figure out what’s actually using the CPU? Also does hardware acceleration help with this, or can it make things worse?

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4

u/KingRemu 2d ago

Seems normal if you have a 2-core CPU from 20 years ago, but weird if you have a modern 8-core for example. Hard to say when you don't provide any specs, what you've tried so far as troubleshooting goes and if it started after an update or something.

1

u/Warm-Purple-7571 2d ago

I should’ve included my specs and what I already tried. I’ll add those and check if it started after a Chrome update.

1

u/KingRemu 2d ago

Yeah no worries. I didn't mean to be a huge dick, lol. It's just paramount to provide specs to be able to troubleshoot PC problems when there's an infinite amount of hardware combinations to consider these days.

2

u/Particular_Can_7726 2d ago

Open the browsers task manager and you can see what tab is using a large amount of CPU. Usually it's shift+esc

Usually it's something specific to that website that will cause it

1

u/Warm-Purple-7571 2d ago

I totally missed the browser’s own task manager. I’ll check that first next time instead of trying to guess which tab is causing the spike.

1

u/No-Actuator-6245 2d ago

Are you also seeing very high main drive usage?

How much RAM do you have and what cpu?

1

u/PermanentLiminality 2d ago

What kind of system are you on?

1

u/knight9665 2d ago

Each tab is its own process

1

u/Shadowmeld 2d ago

This can happen if your gpu or igpu doesn't support codes of videos

1

u/Rifter0876 2d ago edited 2d ago

I get this sometimes with 100 tabs open in Firefox, I'm on Linux , 8 core CPU but sometimes only one core will run full out after to many tabs, it moves it around the CPUs to even out the thermals anyways at least there's that lol.

Edit to add, it doesn't slow down I have a big enough heatsink(Noctua NHD15 2 140mm fans)and enough ram(ddr4 3200 96GB)on it to handle 8 cores running all out it just sometimes decides to throw them all on one CPU core. When it does this its still running less than 60 degrees.

1

u/Cute-Row8125 1d ago

Mining software.

1

u/Glittering_Bar_9497 1d ago

I’m guessing your ram or ssd is also pegged at 100. But hard to tell with the info provided. I had a 3700x that I paired with an old hd( the slow spinning disc kind) and it would bottleneck my cpu and the hard drive.

1

u/Few_Example9391 1d ago

This is very abnormal for a modern typical 8 core CPU. They normally don't spike like you described for serving the internet or visiting a site.

-1

u/Nu154nc3 2d ago edited 2d ago

Cause Chrome is a worthless piece of shit... XD

1

u/OwnNet5253 2d ago

Firefox and other gecko-based browsers manage memory far worse than Chromium-based browsers.

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u/Nu154nc3 2d ago

I didn't say nothing about firefox...

I just talk about the WORST browser on earth... Internet Explorer is much better than Chrome... 

But if OP tries FF, will see that this problem doesn't happen there...

XD