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While many people complain about small battery life on notebooks, I'm much more annoyed by a hot one.

Normally, the best way to avoid this is by disabling flash on my browser, using click to play for every plugin etc. I also keep an eye on task manager to spot processes using too much CPU.

Firefox has been the biggest culprit of heating my laptop, bringing the CPU from comfortable 45ºC to over 80ºC by using 120% of one CPU and keeping this way indefinitely. Is there a way to avoid this?

Any ideas?

Support Data I use a Macbook Pro with Yosemite but I have the same issue on my other macbook pro with Mavericks.

Application Basics
------------------

Name: Firefox
Version: 35.0
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0
Multiprocess Windows: 0/1

Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days
---------------------------------

All Crash Reports

Extensions
----------

Name: Adblock Plus
Version: 2.6.7
Enabled: false
ID: {d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}

Name: LastPass
Version: 3.1.77
Enabled: false
ID: [email protected]

Graphics
--------

Device ID: 0x a2e
GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 OpenGL (OMTC)
Vendor ID: 0x8086
WebGL Renderer: Intel Inc. -- Intel Iris OpenGL Engine
windowLayerManagerRemote: true
AzureCanvasBackend: quartz
AzureContentBackend: quartz
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: none
AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0

Important Modified Preferences
------------------------------

accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar: 0
browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 358400
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false
browser.cache.frecency_experiment: 1
browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion: 7
browser.search.openintab: true
browser.search.useDBForOrder: true
browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand: false
browser.sessionstore.upgradeBackup.latestBuildID: 20150108202552
browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID: 20150108202552
browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone: 35.0
browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab: false
browser.tabs.warnOnClose: false
browser.tabs.warnOnOpen: false
dom.mozApps.used: true
extensions.lastAppVersion: 35.0
font.internaluseonly.changed: true
font.language.group: x-western
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.lastUpdate: 1415371485
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.version: 1.1
media.gmp-manager.lastCheck: 1422217539
network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
places.database.lastMaintenance: 1422375052
places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 104858
plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types: application/pdf
plugin.importedState: true
plugin.state.bjnplugin: 1
plugin.state.citrixicaclientplugin: 1
plugin.state.flash: 1
plugin.state.npsf_uni: 1
print.print_bgcolor: false
print.print_bgimages: false
print.print_colorspace:
print.print_command:
print.print_downloadfonts: false
print.print_duplex: 1769350756
print.print_evenpages: true
print.print_in_color: true
print.print_margin_bottom: 0.5
print.print_margin_left: 0.5
print.print_margin_right: 0.5
print.print_margin_top: 0.5
print.print_oddpages: true
print.print_orientation: 0
print.print_page_delay: 50
print.print_paper_data: 0
print.print_paper_height: 11.00
print.print_paper_name:
print.print_paper_size_type: 1
print.print_paper_size_unit: 0
print.print_paper_width: 8.50
print.print_plex_name:
print.print_resolution: 825440102
print.print_resolution_name:
print.print_reversed: false
print.print_scaling: 1.00
print.print_shrink_to_fit: true
print.print_to_file: false
print.print_unwriteable_margin_bottom: 56
print.print_unwriteable_margin_left: 25
print.print_unwriteable_margin_right: 25
print.print_unwriteable_margin_top: 25
privacy.cpd.offlineApps: true
privacy.cpd.siteSettings: true
privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs: true
privacy.sanitize.timeSpan: 0
security.disable_button.openCertManager: false
storage.vacuum.last.index: 1
storage.vacuum.last.places.sqlite: 1420131734

Important Locked Preferences
----------------------------

JavaScript
----------

Incremental GC: true

Accessibility
-------------

Activated: false
Prevent Accessibility: 0

Library Versions
----------------

NSPR
Expected minimum version: 4.10.7
Version in use: 4.10.7

NSS
Expected minimum version: 3.17.2 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.17.2 Basic ECC

NSSSMIME
Expected minimum version: 3.17.2 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.17.2 Basic ECC

NSSSSL
Expected minimum version: 3.17.2 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.17.2 Basic ECC

NSSUTIL
Expected minimum version: 3.17.2
Version in use: 3.17.2

Experimental Features
---------------------
5
  • what happens with other browsers? what model laptop?
    – meatspace
    Jan 26, 2015 at 18:43
  • You might want to consider a different Browser, avoiding flash (using HTML5) and cleaning the the air vents on your laptop with some compressed air.
    – TheXed
    Jan 26, 2015 at 18:52
  • Have you seen Is There A CPU Process Limiter For Mac OS X? Jan 26, 2015 at 19:49
  • In the address bar, go to about:support, then click on 'Copy text to clipboard'. Edit your question and paste the contents or link to where you've pasted it. This is to help troubleshoot the issue. Jan 27, 2015 at 6:40
  • added about:support data. Jan 27, 2015 at 19:12

1 Answer 1

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Have you tried Firefox in the Safe mode, with all add-ons disabled? Right now on my computer, Firefox is using 0.2% of CPU processing, though it goes up to ~2% when playing a Flash video on YouTube, so the behavior you're experiencing is not normal. To start in Safe mode: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode.

1
  • I'll try safe mode. Normally my firefox is really low on CPU but then I do something I have no idea what it is and CPU usage goes through the roof. When this happens, even closing all tabs doesn't return it back to normal levels, I kept it running for many minutes and it doesn't finish. Will comeback after some tests. Jan 27, 2015 at 19:16

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