Episode #145


Saving CPU Cycles

Dear Lab With Leo, I often go to sleep at night leaving my computer on so I can listen to your podcasts as I fall asleep. Even though the fan on the computer is silent when I go to sleep at night, it is always humming away when I wake up in the morning. I’ve come to the conclusion that scripts running on websites are the culprit. I usually have many open firefox windows going at the same time, and Task Manager revealed that indeed firefox was what was using up cpu cycles (thus causing the fan to run), which alerted me to the fact that some scripts on websites will continuously eat up your processor even if you are not actively using those sites. My question is, is there a way to determine which website(s) are the offending parties? If so, it might be possible for me to block unwanted scripts from eating up my cpu cycles by using the NoScript plug-in for firefox If you would like for me to ask my question on air, I usually get home from work around 6pm Eastern time. I don’t know how this correlates to when you are recording the show, but I hope you will answer this question even if I can’t make it on the show! Thanks for all the great knowledge you share!

Johhny, Chapel Hill, NC



I’m not sure I agree with your diagnosis. Do you find this happens on all sites or just some. When Firefox is closed does it happen. There are lots of other things your computer could be doing to rev up at night, including indexing the hard drive.

I do like the NoScripts extension for Firefox - it’s definitely the safest way to surf. But I find it a pain so I rarely use it.