WindowServer high CPU on Yosemite
This is a follow up to So my Yosemite install is slow - what to do?
Since installing Yosemite a week or so ago my machine is very sluggish. I am a web developer so I change windows/apps a lot. Changing apps makes my machine hang for 2 or more seconds.
After observing the Activity Monitor I can see that WindowServer is taking up a lot of CPU when I move windows and also when I am just using one app. I have tried closing apps to determine which, if any, is causing the issue but haven't come up with anything useful yet.
Here is an example.
Even right now as I type is flips between 10% and 20% usage. I am only typing!
How can I fix this?
I had a similar issue with high cpu usage in WindowServer which I managed to get back to something more normal by removing any items in my menu bar that were making high frequency drawing updates.
In my case it was the Network Monitor from Little Snitch that seemed to be the biggest culprit.
From what I've collected yet, the following might be able to help you (find my personal experiences in italic):
- Mission Control: switch "Displays have separate Spaces off", switch Dashboard off. Dashboard as an overlay really slowed things down for me
- Fix disk permissions, reset System Management Controller, reset PRAM (Luis Mercado explained this well at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6623697). I had some minor success with this, but the issue started occuring later anyway
- Reduce transparency effects (it's in System Preferences > Accessibility under Display). I've tried this, it might improve the performance but I was missing the look so I've switched it back.
- Switch off automatic graphic switching (System Preferences > Energy Saver). This was the best option for me, as I don't really worry about energy consumption, but honestly I don't think that there should be a real need for this.
I'm not yet aware of a real solution yet, let's hope that Apple will fix this in 10.10.1.
edit: I've updated to 10.10.1 and the issue still persists, so I guess we will have to wait longer or go with the reinstall.
edit 2: Switching to El Capitan has vastly improved this, so for me, this is no longer an issue.
Hi, try this: Disable the "Display have separate Spaces"
LogOff and Login again, check the process...
all fine?