Firefox and GPU heating

[LadyCrimson]

So I installed latest Firefox today and first thing I noticed is the Cisco codec auto-plugin. Got rid of that for the moment, doubt I have a need for it. Then I noticed FF increasing my GPU temp by 20C even when I have it open to nothing but a "blank" page. Used to only do it when playing videos (reasonable). Yes I have the hardware acceleration setting disabled.

 

Can't figure it out or if I can stop it from happening. Don't like that it's happening. (GPU monitor claims usage is almost non-existent to zero and CPU temps go up a little too but nowhere near as much). I don't think my GPU should be running 60C just to browse a forum/do a websearch.

 

Anyone else have this w/FF? Is it just the way FF is now?

[Humanoid]

Haven't noticed it personally, but the only obvious thing that comes to mind might be upgrading GPU drivers.

[Bartimaeus]

Do the clock speeds change when you have it open? I'm presuming yes, since I don't see why it would increase the temperature otherwise if there's no activity increase, but just making sure.

 

(Also, what version of Firefox do you have?)

Edited February 20, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[kirottu]

You might want to try this.

[ManifestedISO]

I don't know but I just used a can of compressed air to clean the inside of my case, and boom, cooler temps, even the fan noise sounds different, better, happier. Even the CPU fan was clogged like a ************. 

[mkreku]

I have the exact same problem with Chrome, but only for one specific site: imgur.com.

 

After going through a couple of pages of imgur, the fans start spinning like crazy on my GPU (it has three of them so it's pretty audible) and the entire page becomes unresponsive and slow as hell. It's really weird and annoying.

[LadyCrimson]

--Don't know about the clock speeds, didn't check that earlier.

--I clean out the case/gpu of dust 2 to 3 times a year, it's pretty clean-ish.

--Firefox 34.0.5 (last one b4 35, which is actually the latest latest, but I like to wait until I can d/l the executable rather than the little installer)

 

Haven't noticed it personally, but the only obvious thing that comes to mind might be upgrading GPU drivers.

Me to myself: "I don't see how that could be related to the browser, but it has been a few months since I updated nvidia, so what the heck." ... (do so) .... "Well I'll be dipped in ...."

 

GPU staying at 36C again ... and the weird thing is, now it's staying cool even when playing videos/Netflix, too. I do remember some long long past version of Firefox was when I noticed GPU temps rose during FF-video plays, even w/their hardware acceleration off. I've udpated nvida drivers many times since then and browser-videos still raised GPU temp all this time. So all I can think is that Firefox's hardware acceleration disable function hasn't been working properly (for me) and nvidia finally did something that changed that? (I made sure it was disabled looking at the about:config settings, btw) (edit: or the other way around - nvidia's drivers didn't recognize it properly for ages...)

 

Anyway, thanks Humanoid, GPU driver wouldn't have occurred to me as a fix at all.

 

Note to self: video drivers should now be updated when anything weird is going on with anything, not just video games...

[Bartimaeus]

That seems more like nvidia's fault, especially considering you said it was going to full clock speeds (I'm presuming that's what it was doing, since there's no other explanation for it gaining more heat) while watching videos, which isn't *usually* normal behavior - at least with even sort of new GPUs (I would say anything released in the last 5 years). It should only go to max clock speeds for 3D graphic displays, and none of that is 3D. An unusual problem.

Edited February 20, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

Now that you mention it, I did notice an increase in GPU temperature lately but I just figured it's because I haven't opened my rig up and cleaned it in too long, but it correlates with updating my Firefox.

[Gorgon]

I wouldn't know how hot my GFX is, it's not something I keep track of. If firefox somehow sets my GPU to 100% comperable to when it's idling in the bios, that would be bad. It's pretty noticable.

[Humanoid]

Doubt many people do - it's usually just something you notice when the fan speed suddenly ramp up to maximum for no discernable reason.

[LadyCrimson]

I have GPU temps showing r-side of the taskbar with the clock and such. Habit from playing games and doing video rendering during heat waves...

[Blarghagh]

Yeah, same for me, got Speedfan on autorun these days. Can't discern whether or not Firefox is the issue though.

[teknoman2]

i had a bsod about 30 minutes ago. while opening an incognito window of chrome while a normal was open (done it hundreds of times with no problem). highest temp at that moment was the CPU at 35C. i suspect that my HDD may be involved, it is rather old

[mkreku]

...while opening an incognito window of chrome...

 

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[LadyCrimson]

Not about over-heating but don't want to make a new topic just for it...

 

...anyone know of a way to get rid of the back/forward/reload icon buttons in the r-click menu?

 

[Elerond]

Not about over-heating but don't want to make a new topic just for it...

 

...anyone know of a way to get rid of the back/forward/reload icon buttons in the r-click menu?

 

 

You can make right-click menu look like it was in previous versions by copying following css code to your firefix profiles userChrome.css

#context-back image,
#context-forward image,
#context-reload image,
#context-stop image,
#context-bookmarkpage image{
   display:none !important;
}

#context-back:before,
#context-forward:before,
#context-reload:before,
#context-stop:before,
#context-bookmarkpage:before{
   content: attr(aria-label) !important;
  -moz-margin-start:32px !important;
}
#context-navigation{
   -moz-box-orient: vertical !important;
}
#context-navigation > .menuitem-iconic {
  -moz-box-pack: start !important;
}

If you don't know what userChrome.css is, then look this page first http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.php?title=UserChrome.css

 

EDIT: for some reason it loads error page for me when I click link so if it does same then here is URL as whole and it should work at least when you copy paste it to address bar

http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.php?title=UserChrome.css

Easiest way to find Firefox's profiles in windows is to search %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles (windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8[.1]) 

 

In profiles folder there should be folder named xxxxxxx.default  (x are random characters), where you can find chrome folder where you should create userChrome.css file or edit existing one if one exist already (you can just paste above code in end of file if one exist)

Edited February 25, 2015 by Elerond

[LadyCrimson]

Thanks.

[Luridis]

I think y'all are forgetting what a modern GPU actually is: A stream processor or, massively parallel single instruction multiple data floating point ALU. Programmers are finally breaking out of the legacy mold and starting to see the GPU as something used only for CAD and gaming. If they're offloading something to your GPU then it is because either the compiler, or the runtime VM seems to think that it will run more efficiently there. Additionally, with the growth of languages like Haskell, F#, Golang and now Swift, it will become more commonplace. Don't discourage the attempts CS engineers at making better use of your hardware.

 

https://helgeklein.com/blog/2014/12/impact-gpu-acceleration-browser-cpu-usage/

 

If something is firing up your CUDA cores, its probably calling one of the API's that use it.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL

Edited June 12, 2015 by Luridis