Thank you for your insight.

However, i am not able to test this solution on my system, as I decided to
solve the problem by formatting my hard drive and installing a different
operating system.  I was not able to wait for a solution to this problem, I
needed to accomplish a usable system sooner rather than later and kubuntu
9.04 was clearly not a usable system.

If this problem is resolved by the ubuntu group in the future I may consider
reinstalling this OS.

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Psychotron <email address hidden> wrote:

> I might have the same problem. For me it seems to be composite related.
> So Xorg uses full CPU when composite is enabled and running. So either
> disabling composite in xorg.conf or suspending it (Shift-Alt-F12 with
> KDE4 Kwin) gives normal CPU usage. Resuming it lets it go up again to
> 100%.
>
> I did not have this problem with my nvidia card and proprietary drivers.
>
> I can't check the fglrx driver as my card is not supported anymore.
>
> I'm using Jaunty, and the card is an Radeon R420
>
> --
> Excessive CPU usage after 9.04 upgrade
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/394300
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> I recently upgraded my laptop from Kubuntu 8.10 to Kubuntu 9.04.  Laptop
> has 2 gbs of ram, 1.6ghz P4m.  Ran fine under 8.10; however it is unusable
> in 9.04 due to high CPU usage of XOrg.
>
> When not running any applications beyond what is setup in KDE (as in, no
> web browser, no email, no text editor, no games ...) I find XOrg using 98%
> of my CPU or more.  Even Konsole windows are nearly unusable.
>
> I have found that no amount of time seems to resolve this problem, I can
> leave the system on overnight and XOrg will still be at 98% or more.  I have
> also found that if I ssh in to the system instead, response is as expected;
> it seems to be driven by the local setup.  If I log in locally first, then
> log in from another system while still logged in locally, I can see the
> excessive CPU usage of XOrg.  However if I log out locally, leaving the
> system running, I can ssh in and things are normal (XOrg at less than 10%
> CPU).
>
> I have tried reconfiguring xorg.conf via dpkg-reconfigure, that did not
> solve the problem.  My current xorg.conf does not have a driver line in it;
> is there a different file that specifies the video driver?
>
>
> -----
> Additional work on the same system has shown that this is almost certainly
> related to the video driver.  System has ATI Radeon Mobility graphics.  When
> the commercial radeon drivers (as in xorg-driver-fglrx) are installed and
> chosen through xorg.conf, system will boot and allow login, but XOrg stays
> at a near constant 95% of CPU.  When installed and not chosen (running VESA
> instead), system does not complete boot process; though is accessible
> remotely via ssh.  When uninstalled and using VESA through xorg.conf, system
> does boot and behave normally, however VESA graphics default to 640x480.
>
> Tried doing the same with the "ati" open source drivers, this did not solve
> the problem, rather the same problems observed with the xorg-driver-fglrx
> were seen.
>