2013-01-29, 11:16
Hi all,
I've recently gone to a combined XBMC and server machine using Ubuntu 12.04 with XBMC as a desktop replacement and running all my server tasks in the background (sickbeard, uTorrent, sabnzbd, headphones, couchpotato, plex, perforce etc.). The idea being that the server has to be on all the time anyway and it's nice to have xbmc ready to go without booting a second machine. I'm running it on an old laptop with some external hard drives for my enormous TV & music collection. The machine is a Core2 duo 2.2ghz with 4gb ram.
Anyway, while XBMC is idle it still seems to take 45% of the CPU for doing nothing but sitting on the home screen. I've been monitoring it from work for a few hours now and it is quite steady with the odd spike when I guess it updates something on a timeout (library maybe?). Edit: I've just noticed that this is 45% of 200% max as htop calculates a percentage per core.
So, my question is, is this normal? I know the home screen needs rendering etc, but 45% of the CPU on this spec machine seems very excessive. I can't see what else it's doing. If It is the render code would setting the screensaver to turn the monitor off stop the render code?
If this is normal, is there a way to get XBMC to quit on idle rather than sleep? That way I could have a script that could launch it again from a remote control button press.
I expected my server to tick over with little to no CPU time when idle, and in fact if you subtract XBMC from the CPU time it is ticking over at just a few percent. I'd rather not have the machine run at 45% CPU when doing nothing as this is an extra electricity cost, even if very small so would love to find a solution to this. I know it's not really a big deal, but it bugs me. Plus the fan on the laptop is almost permanently on high when idle which annoys my girlfriend
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Max
I've recently gone to a combined XBMC and server machine using Ubuntu 12.04 with XBMC as a desktop replacement and running all my server tasks in the background (sickbeard, uTorrent, sabnzbd, headphones, couchpotato, plex, perforce etc.). The idea being that the server has to be on all the time anyway and it's nice to have xbmc ready to go without booting a second machine. I'm running it on an old laptop with some external hard drives for my enormous TV & music collection. The machine is a Core2 duo 2.2ghz with 4gb ram.
Anyway, while XBMC is idle it still seems to take 45% of the CPU for doing nothing but sitting on the home screen. I've been monitoring it from work for a few hours now and it is quite steady with the odd spike when I guess it updates something on a timeout (library maybe?). Edit: I've just noticed that this is 45% of 200% max as htop calculates a percentage per core.
So, my question is, is this normal? I know the home screen needs rendering etc, but 45% of the CPU on this spec machine seems very excessive. I can't see what else it's doing. If It is the render code would setting the screensaver to turn the monitor off stop the render code?
If this is normal, is there a way to get XBMC to quit on idle rather than sleep? That way I could have a script that could launch it again from a remote control button press.
I expected my server to tick over with little to no CPU time when idle, and in fact if you subtract XBMC from the CPU time it is ticking over at just a few percent. I'd rather not have the machine run at 45% CPU when doing nothing as this is an extra electricity cost, even if very small so would love to find a solution to this. I know it's not really a big deal, but it bugs me. Plus the fan on the laptop is almost permanently on high when idle which annoys my girlfriend
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Max