Something's eating one core of my CPU - Debian - Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64
 

My machine has an Intel Core 2 Duo clocked at 3 GHz and is running the testing version of Debian. Constantly, something is eating one core of my CPU, using it 100% while the other is barely being used at all. They switch sometimes, so the other one runs at 100% for a while. The machine is completely responsive and just as fast as it is normally.

I have noticed a pattern. Every time I open a new program, they switch. I have attached a screen capture from my system monitor program. I would appreciate if somebody knew what's going on.

Try running top or htop from the terminal, and see what it lists as the top user of CPU :)

That looks to be from "System Resources". You should be able to just simply click "Processes" tab right beside the "Resource" tab you were in.

When looking at "Processes", click where it says "%CPU" to make the arrow next to it point up . What ever is eating you cpu will be listed right there on top of the list.

I ran top and it printed that apt-get as root was using 100% of a CPU, so I killed the process. I restarted the machine and it didn't come back. I don't know why it was using 100% of a CPU in the first place though. Any theories?