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FF 59.n. High CPU, makes mouse unusable

  • 6 replies
  • 5 have this problem
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  • Last reply by BillMason

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Since installing FF 59.0.1 64 Bit on my Intel I7 12G machine running W7 Ultimate FF becomes unstable in a very short period of time (< 4 Hours at most) and requires restart. CPU (all 8 of them) usage becomes so high that you effectively lose mouse control. I have adjusted numbers of CPU's up and down.

I have built a new profile, ran without addons and in the safe mode. Doesn't matter. I have disabled/enabled hardware acceleration, enabled/disabled Clear Type and read all of the current "troubleshooting tips" all to no avail.

This did not exist in 58.N.N

Any suggestions?

Since installing FF 59.0.1 64 Bit on my Intel I7 12G machine running W7 Ultimate FF becomes unstable in a very short period of time (< 4 Hours at most) and requires restart. CPU (all 8 of them) usage becomes so high that you effectively lose mouse control. I have adjusted numbers of CPU's up and down. I have built a new profile, ran without addons and in the safe mode. Doesn't matter. I have disabled/enabled hardware acceleration, enabled/disabled Clear Type and read all of the current "troubleshooting tips" all to no avail. This did not exist in 58.N.N Any suggestions?

Chosen solution

Hi, it is a Holiday and Volunteer Support is not always around. Please revert all changes so the do not carry over to every update or version as when I had ver 57 I had issues as you where I had to play with the cores, eventually found a sweet spot. Now running at default but can go higher.

If you have very little ram, over 5yrs old, Quantum may not be for you or your system. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-to-firefox-extended-support-release-esr Though Optimizing Win7 and Defrag monthly helps.

Please try : uninstall Firefox. Then Delete the Mozilla Firefox Folders in C:\Program Files , C:\Program Files(x86) & C:\ProgramData Then restart system. Then run Windows Disk Cleanup. (Note: This should be Pinned and run Weekly, If never done below expect 10's of gig's) Then run it again and click the button that says Cleanup System Files. Note: your Firefox Profile is saved. But you should make a back up before you do :

Reinstall with Current Release Firefox 59.0.2 with a Full Version Installer

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

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All Replies (6)

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Hi, https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/15055/windows-7-optimize-windows-better-performance You could try this please : Go the 3 Bar Menu then Options --> General --> Performance and untick everything. change the recommended size lower then see how it runs. Note: 1 = No Multiprocessor = slow again. Try 2 Restart Firefox after making these changes please.

Note : Acceleration is for your Video Card, monitor to see if need to turn back on. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/performance-settings Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance

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As I stated in my first post I did try all of the suggestions. I've done the W7 optimization and have done the performance settings many times. No change.

As I stated I have changed the CPU option from 1 to 4.

Options 1, 3, 4 are terrible. Option 2 is barely tolerable, still requires a restart at around 6 - 8 hours.

Under Browsing I have tried turning off autoscrolling and smooth scrolling and see no difference.

I have turned on and off Hardware Acceleration with no difference.

So, the significant changes are the number of CPU's which adjust things from bad to terrible.

Mouse use causes 80%+ CPU spikes. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the mouse driver with no changes.

Again this started with FF 59.

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I guess there obviously is no-one that has any other suggestions here.

The problem still exists but I found one thing that minimizes it:

I went through Task Manager and lowered each Firefox process to "below normal."

Now I do not need to restart FF every 2 - 4 hours. Maybe someone smarter than me can figure out what the CPU priority has to do with this.

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Chosen Solution

Hi, it is a Holiday and Volunteer Support is not always around. Please revert all changes so the do not carry over to every update or version as when I had ver 57 I had issues as you where I had to play with the cores, eventually found a sweet spot. Now running at default but can go higher.

If you have very little ram, over 5yrs old, Quantum may not be for you or your system. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-to-firefox-extended-support-release-esr Though Optimizing Win7 and Defrag monthly helps.

Please try : uninstall Firefox. Then Delete the Mozilla Firefox Folders in C:\Program Files , C:\Program Files(x86) & C:\ProgramData Then restart system. Then run Windows Disk Cleanup. (Note: This should be Pinned and run Weekly, If never done below expect 10's of gig's) Then run it again and click the button that says Cleanup System Files. Note: your Firefox Profile is saved. But you should make a back up before you do :

Reinstall with Current Release Firefox 59.0.2 with a Full Version Installer

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

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Pkshadow,

Thanks for getting back to me. To keep it short, as I stated I have an I7 based computer with 12G of memory. So age and speed is not an issue.

I do all of the tune up's suggested as I have been doing so for 40+ years in the field.

However your suggestion to remove FF totally did lead me to one interesting action.

Looking at Add/Remove programs I found that a Ver 52.0 of FF was still installed even though I have followed the normal FF upgrade path since installation years ago. Obviously the normal upgrade path doesn't always clean things up.

At this time, I have removed FF 52.0 and returned the CPU Set Priority level of FF back to Normal and am continuing to run 59.0.2.

Things appear to better and I will continue to monitor.

Thanks. I will close this out in a few days if it has solved the problem.

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It appears that the FF Ver 52 that did not remove during the normal update path was the problem.

Since removal of it, the issue seems to be gone. I am closing this out now and thanks for the suggestions.

I would say that adding a check for old installs may be a good normal troubleshooting step.

Bill