2010-07-18

Firefox is a CPU killer!

Since a couple of days, the mere act of launching Firefox is sufficient to get my Dell D430's CPU to overheat to the point of shutting itself down, within a few seconds of launching the application. Two questions:

  • Who the heck are the bastards that designed a laptop with such poor ventilation?
  • Who the heck are the bastards that coded such a hideous piece of bloated browser?

I know that I've previously vented out frustration over Firefox's shortcomings, but now this application-specific CPU overheating crap is just too much. Dammit!

5 comments:

Mehdi said...

- Did you try to start Firefox without a ~/.mozilla/? (yeah, it means restarting from a fresh profile but at least you'll know if it does work with a fresh start).

- Which version of iceweasel are you using? What are the activated extensions? Some crashs might happen due to crappy installed/activated extensions.

- Do you have Flash? Did you try without Flash?

Unknown said...

Flash. That's my problem and my CPU (and laptop) killer.

I have basically two applets that make me more or less safe: Gnome sensors applet and system monitor (show CPU).

I tend to stop the thing before it reaches to critical levels, but anyway... it's a problem because sometimes you don't even see the little Flash AD in the page you're browsing that it's killing you!

What I want to say is: I'm using chromium, so I don't think Firefox it's to blame here. Are you sure it's not Flash?

Anonymous said...

set toolkit.storage.synchronous to 0.
and
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers

to zero in about:config.

Martin-Éric said...

I'm using mozilla-swfdec, instead of Adobe or Gnash, precisely because mozila-swfdec never launches a Flash object until the Play icon is clicked, which significantly decreases the CPU load.

Additionally, I'll emphasize that CPU overheating just started happening a couple of days ago. It never happened before.

Unknown said...

I have a Dell Inspiron 5150 and every few months I have to remove the pillow of dust that builds up behind the heat sink otherwise the system overheats and shuts down.

I'd recommend taking the laptop apart and cleaning the ventilation system. Afterwards you can just use an air spray every once in a while.

Don't be too quick in blaming Firefox as the culprit. Your problem is primarily a ventilation problem that exists with numerous Dell laptop models. Any other program that puts enough pressure on your CPU should yield the same outcome.