Every 10 minutes xorg is loading Atom N450 CPU 50-65% resulting to battery drain and performance drop

[Giannis]

Every exact 10 minutes xorg process "/usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch -background none" is loading the CPU (Atom N450) for 5-10 seconds, to 50-65%, causing faster battery drain and performance drop (video playback hang)

Xubuntu 12.04 x64

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: xorg 1:7.6+12ubuntu1
Uname: Linux 3.3.1-030301-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Apr 20 02:14:29 2012
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta amd64 (20120328)
SourcePackage: xorg
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Sounds more like you have a gui cronned to make an X call every 10 minutes.

Remember, X is just a server; client processes are what drive X CPU load usually.

[Giannis (karzisss)]

i fopund it. It is not xorg bug. It is xfce4-xkb-plugin bug. When i add the "keyboard layout" on the upper table, the problem appear as i described. When i remove it from upper bar, the problem stopping.

I checked it many times.

[Giannis (karzisss)]

To reproduce the bug: Install xubuntu 12.04 x64 -> add xfce4-xkb-plugin to the upper panel -> track the CPU usage for 10 minutes idle

CPU Atom N450
GMA 3150
Acer D260-A

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sergey (megaexception)]

It seems that not only xkb plugin causes xorg to consume all cpu.
for me - any panel icon animation causes same effect.
checked with psi, psi-plus (received message indicator) and skype (logging in animation).
this issue appeared only after upgrade to 12.04.

[Andrii Vozniuk (andrii)]

I confirm what megaexception is saying. When I have System Load Indicator running, Xorg consumes 60% of CPU. After I quit the indicator, the load drops to 10%. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 Unity

[Giannis (karzisss)]

I can not corfim this. System load indicator does not consume any CPU % on my netbook (Aton N450).

[Sergey (megaexception)]

I have few more problems with intel video. Every 2-3 hours I have to restart Xorg or laptop because video driver causes screen image to be completely corrupt. After reboots I've noticed that problem with CPU load vanishes for some time. But occassionaly, it returns :(
So it is not 100% reproducible, but happens often for me.

[Giannis (karzisss)]

I corfimed the same on Athlon X2 3600+ and Xubuntu 12.04 64bit. Every 10 minutes every time i enable xfce4-xkb-plugin

[Zep (zep)]

I confirm what giannis (karzisss) said in his messages (every 600 seconds i. e. 10 minutes, and so on). Furthermore, on closing the keyboard layouts configuration window the CPU is for about 10 seconds 100 % busy. See also:
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6064
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=687112

There was no visible CPU usage in Xubuntu 11.10, but the xfce4-xkb-plugin could not remember keyboard layout settings for applications (they were being reset to the default language) during a session not interrupted by suspension or hibernation. And now, in the LTS version, it doesn't retain languages for applications and consumes in addition excessively the CPU -- it seems to get worse and worse.
Could anybody tell, has Xubuntu a decent keyboard layout switcher? I need one for 4 languages.

Xubuntu 12.04.2 (fresh install from xubuntu-12.04.1-desktop-i386)
Asus p50ij
3.2.0-39-generic #62-Ubuntu SMP Wed Feb 27 22:05:17 UTC 2013 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

[Charles (rochacj)]

Here is a workaround for most of the problems described above using a keyboard utility program called “gXneur.” Follow these instructions to use this program to completely replace the functionality of the xfce4-xkb-plugin:

1) Remove the xfce keyboard layout switcher / indicator from the panel, if it is installed.
2) Go into the xfce keyboard layout control panel. Under the “Layouts” tab, add whichever layouts you wish to use. (I use US English and Russian.)
3) DE-select “Use System Defaults” if it is selected.
4) Install gXneur “X Neural Switcher.”
5) In the gXneur “Hotkeys” panel, add “Alt+Shift_L” (or whichever combination your prefer) to “Rotate Layouts.”
6) In “Properties,” check “Autostartup” with a delay of 10 seconds.
7) Make sure gXneur has appeared in the xfce Application Autostart list. Add it if necessary.
8) Reboot. Test.

There are also many other useful functions in the gXneur program that you might find useful.

Debian Wheezy 7.3.0 i386 on Lenovo S12, Atom CPU.

[Theo Linkspfeifer (lastonestanding)]

There is no recent activity in this report, so I assume the bug was fixed.