I’ve noticed that even when sitting on the main menu, not playing a movie, Plex is eating around 20% CPU of my Mac Mini 1.83Ghz C2D according to Activity Monitor. Any ideas why?
Thanks in advance…
It’s a know issue, the problem is a little to technical for me to actually grasp…
It is just drawing text at 60 cycles per second I think even when nothing else is being rendered.
If it is heating up your mini, I’d suggest this little guy, assuming you don’t have it already. 
Can take your temps way down: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049/smcfancontrol
I average 39C at idle and 50-55C at load. Huge difference from the 60C - 100C some Mini owners get. Means the 20% CPU usage is a non-issue as far as temps are concerned.
I was already using that, hehe! I was just wondering, really, since Plex not doing this = even less heat than with SMC running. What fan speeds are you running at? I don't see anywhere near 39C idling, but I don't run my fans that much faster than stock..
It’s spending lots of time deciding what needs to be drawn on screen and drawing it. There could be something pathological going on, haven’t had much success in tracking the issue down.
Ah, well the stock fan speed the Apple guys chose was only 1500 rpm. :P Waaaaay to low IMHO. The mobile chip is rated for 100C since it is designed for laptops with limited cooling, so they set the fan to not increase until almost 97C. You can tell these guys are engineers. :rolleyes: But for me I prefer something better than spec. ;) I also have it sitting on top of a metal external DVD burner that does dissipate the heat better from the underside a bit I think. The more cool air you can get flowing around it and the more room behind it to vent heat, the better.
I have a few pre made settings saved and manually jump to them based on what I am doing CPU-wise.
(RPM's)
Default - 1500
Low - 2300
Med - 3000
High - 3600
Max - 4500
Super Max -5500
On average I have it set on Med or High. (3000 - 3600). Roughly about 2x's the default speed. During extended render sessions I have run the fan at 5500 Super Max for almost 2 days straight with no effects that I can tell. But if you keep it at 3000 or so you should get anywhere from 38-44C in a 22C (72 degrees Fahrenheit) ambient room temp for the CPU's and anywhere from 30-40C on the other internal components. (Northbridge, ambient internal, Hard Drive.) The cooler it runs I think the longer the parts will last. So even if you were running it 10-30C cooler than the normal 70-95C I used to get at the default settings, it is a good thing.
If you have not tried it, I'd also suggest iStat Menus to monitor Volts, Temps, fans, CPU, Net bandwidth, etc.
[http://islayer.com/index.php?op=item&id=28](http://islayer.com/index.php?op=item&id=28)
- Blackstar
I'm on a 2GHz C2D macmini and might have a related problem.
When Macmini is idling: Temperatur ≈ 53°C and fan running at 2200 rpm. Barely audible.
When Macmini is at 60% cpu load from an app: Temperatur ≈ 62°C and fan running at 4000 rpm. Now its audible.
When Macmini is idling in Plex at 7-8% cpu load: Temperature ≈ 52°C but fan is screaming at 5300 rpm.
This is at 1920x1080 resolution but all other settings as default.
If I lower the res to 720 and run it in a window, the fan drops the speed back to idle levels.
No plex logs is to be found in var/tmp/
What might be the reason the fan revs that high without load?
/petter
We're taking up too much CPU at idle, or else the OpenGL graphic load is causing it.
Hello,
I’m new on this forum but the Plex app is beautiful, actually I’m using FrontRow but I study to change to Plex, only cpu idle use stop me…
So I make some investigation with Shark (Mac OS X developer tool) on XBMC V1.0, yes I know not Plex but the core is the same, not ?
(Plex and XBMC have the same behavior on my Mac, cpu idle consumption too high)
This tool allow to see what it doing the app and I see the app spend all the time in CapThread::Entry like if there is a loop to catch user event !!!
I post some picture of the tool in the next days if you’re interested…
I get the source code of XBMC (not Plex, because I’m not very aware to GIT, so if someone can help me on that) to build my own version and make the modification to not have the cpu at 20% on my Mac Mini…
Regards,
sturp
Oh sorry, my mistake, I didn't see the unit in my tool lol
here the picture: [http://img208.imagevenue.com/loc171/th_24675_Picture_1_122_171lo.jpg](http://img208.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=24675_Picture_1_122_171lo.jpg)
Ok all the time is spend in main loop, so I need to build my own version of plex to make a good profiling...
Someone can't help me to get the source code for Plex ?
Thanks
There is a how to compile guide here:
http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/How_to_Compile
Ok, maybe there is some problem with repositories because I can’t get the source code of Plex, so I take XBMC :unsure:
I built it, not easy, need lot of Mac Ports packages <_<
Anyway, I can make a task profiling with Shark and the result is on the picture.
XBMC spend time in SDL mutex handling, maybe it’s for the selected button menu blinking (not sure, I doesn’t know how the graphic layer SDL works)
I make another test in the next few days, maybe I remove the blink button to see if the cpu consumption is lower…
Note: If someone could help me to get the Plex source…
I’m following the how to compile steps right now to see if they are correct. You might want to ask on our Developer Forum. I’m going to move this topic there.
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