top reports root system activity

clifford227 · 01-17-2010, 06:04 PM

Hi,

I was hoping someone could help.

My system started running at 75 % CPU (its normally 20%), so I opened a terminal and looked at 'top', there are many processes running as root, the one thats sucking the CPU is this:

'user'- root, 'pid'-2963, 'command'-X.

below that there are a few processes of my user account, then alot more 'root' processes.

Is this normal or might I have a problem?

colucix · 01-17-2010, 06:18 PM

You may have a problem. At least due to the fact that root is logged in X (graphical) environment. This opens a lot of holes and potentially dangerous points of break. As a good practice it's better to run root commands from a terminal or a console.

The reason why the "X" process has a high CPU load may depend on desktop effects, transparency and so on. I would investigate if the same happens as a normal user and eventually disable the CPU consuming features if not really necessary.

clifford227 · 01-17-2010, 07:01 PM

Colucix,

this situation occurs when I am logged-in as a normal user. the 'top' command shows 20+ 'root' processes.