High CPU usage in Chrome/Opera
When I open 1-2 tabs with sites that have many images (e-shop as an example) the CPU usage gets to 100% for Chrome/Opera/Firefox.
What I've tried:
- Reset Chrome to default settings
- Disabled all extensions
- Disabled "Use hardware acceleration" in Chrome settings
- Checked task manager in Chrome. Couldn't find anything except that a process called "Browser" takes all the CPU (100%+)
- Run malware check on MacOS with 2 different programs (avast and malwarebyte)
- Run diagnostics after restarting MacOS
Looks like any browser with webkit engine suddenly started consuming 100% CPU on any site which has at least some dynamic content, maybe images or some JS or something like that. Basically any site.
MacOS version: Big Sur 11.1
CPU: 2,5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
RAM: 16 GB
Graphics: Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
Solution 1:
Having the same issue. It's not very good even in Safari. I suspect the mtlcompilerservice, as I load pages I see a lot of instances of it in the Activity Monitor, consuming high CPU. TGPro shows high temperature of the CPU, 90+ celcius. Video playback heats up the device but loading pages and browsing around is the worst offender.
I have the 15" mid 2014 model with Iris Pro & Nvidia gt 750m. I thought the reason for overheating/fans-kicking-in-whenever-they-please was that Apple changed some things as to how GPUs work in Big Sur.
I'll try installing Big Sur to a separate volume, and if that doesn't help, I'll re-install macOS, starting from High Sierra and update here.
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Idle temp: 54-60 C
Browsing: 70+ C
Solution 2:
Setting two system preferences, reduce transparency and reduce motion, seem to have made a significant difference for me across several browsers:
- Open the Apple menu, open ‘System Preferences’, then select the “Accessibility” preference panel
- Choose “Display” settings
- Check the boxes for “Reduce motion” and “Reduce transparency”
- Exit out of System Preferences
*Suggestion and steps from OSXDaily article; citation below.
Casual observation using Activity Monitor suggests browsers now use something like 30% of the CPU and memory (very casual method: I left the same moderately large number of windows and tabs open in Safari as I made the changes. Before: many fan cycles, much heat, many spinning beachballs, high % of resources in Activity Monitor. After: dramatic absence of all these telltales.
My guess at the reason: I noted a significant change in the appearance of the top bars of each window; browsers with lots of windows open may require a lot of resources just to calculate how all of them should appear with partial transparency.
I ran across this suggestion in a Jan 20, 2021 OSXDaily article macOS Big Sur Slow or Laggy? 8 Tips to Help Speed Up the Mac Again - credit to them for the solution.