Forum Discussion
Strange high CPU usage on youtube videos
I was playing some random Youtube videos in Edge and I noticed some unusual noise coming from the radiator fans (I have a custom fan curve based on CPU temp)
I looked into my motherboard debug display and saw CPU at 60C degrees, a bit warm I thought.
Ironically the video was this one (if you want to do some testing), I still have to check if it happens on every videos or only on specific ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrnUnGmc-Nw
I switched to Firefox and played the same video, CPU chilled at 45-50C... uhm, very strange.
Checked the codec, both Edge and Firefox were using the same vp09 at the same forced 1080p resolution. (youtube ambient mode disabled super resolution disabled in nvidia control panel)
EDIT; MAYBE I FOUND WHAT IS CAUSING THE HIGH CPU TEMPS/USAGE
It's the mouse cursor location, and/or the youtube player overlay.
If the mouse cursor is hovering on top of the video (triggering the player overlay) the cpu goes nuts.
As soon as the player overlay autohides and the mouse is moved away from the video, CPU temperatures (read CPU%) go back to normal.
This doesn't happen on chrome/firefox browsers, I also need to test again some flags (maybe there's one that triggers the bug)
Ignore what I wrote in the original post down below
Maybe an extension?
So I disabled every extensions and reset experimental flags in Edge, but CPU temp went up to 60C again.
At this point I created a new user profile
And this apparently solved the problem: Edge could play the same video while keeping CPU temps around 45-50 (no different from what I get on firefox).
I started adding all my usual extensions and flags, everything ok, no increase in temperatures and I was thinking: maybe the old profile got corrupted some way ? SPOILER: nope!
Scratching my head I started restoring my usual preferences, one by one...
As soon I enabled vertical tabs and clicked "Hide title bar" temperatures rised again over 60C degrees.
Trust me, I have replicated this issue at least 20 times, I couldn't believe it at first.
Whenever "Hide title bar" is enabled my CPU gets 15C degrees hotter compared to when I keep it disabled, while playing a simple 1080p video on Youtube
I didn't check the exact CPU % increase, but hotter means more stress/work on the CPU for sure.
Can you help me identify the cause of this problem?
I like the extra warmth while using Edge in winter season, but I suspect there's a bug somewhere that needs investigation.
Thanks,
and Happy Holidays!
More details
Tested Edge versions Stable, Beta and Dev
Windows 11 23H2 up to date
Nvidia Geforce 4080 (driver 538.58)
AMD 7950X3D
- the same
any ideas how to fix? Its just Google's keylogger and mouse tracker tracking what you do while YouTube is open in your browser. Skryabin Not sure how to stop it. Pretty sure they're doing it in response to adblocking. As in, they want to ruin your experience if you don't watch their crappy ads.
Yeah, I also think it's something related to this antiadblock war too
I have ublock installed
But it's strange I don't have the same thing on firefox+ublock.
I still don't have any idea how to stop that.
It's really annoying hearing my pc fans ramping up just for a 1080p low bitrate video
What was google motto time ago?
Don't be evil
Well played google, well played.
Skryabin I've solved the issue. In my case, i use Opera browser and i've been using uBlockOrigin adblocker since Operas implementation stopped working since Google starting going hard on adblockers.
At first i thought it was uBlockOrigin...but no, it was the Opera browser default adblocker which i forgot to disable. I disabled the default adblocker, left the uBlockOrigin running...and everything started working like a charm with the same CPU usage%...but there is apsolutely NO stuttering, lagging or bugs.
If you got the same issue, it's 100000000% the adblocker, whichever you have. IF you don't have an adblocker, maybe you had one before...reinstall the whole browser...if you NEVER used one, tell Google to f themselves and hope for a fast patch.
- I noticed high CPU usage in Firefox, especially when hovering over YouTube videos. At first, I worried my computer had malware using my browser for mining or sending data. However, I saw significantly lower CPU usage with Edge, which left me confused after reading your explanations
Thanks to you, I got some idea of the reason why sometimes, when I leave YouTube turned on in the background, my CPU and memory usage go up. In my case, not hovering over the player didn't help, but changing from the YouTube tab to another tab greatly reduced the CPU load.
- Same here, I'm using brave and as soon as I turned off the in built adblocker (Brave Shields) the cpu temp went back to normal. Thanks for the help guys.
Huh! This was quite interesting. This is exactly what I am experiencing right now. My CPU is running 9-12% and then when I hover my mouse over the YouTube player my CPU spikes to 60% immediately. For context, I am using Chrome with AdBlock free version. It appears to happen on all YouTube videos. The solution just seems to be don't hover the mouse over the player.
- I have the same issue, anyone has any idea to solve it? CPU clocks and temps skyrocket when mouse cursor is visible on the video (when the video controls are visible) if graphics acceleration is enabled.
It's the insane amount of Telemetry Collection that gets fired off the second you hover the mouse over just about any part of the page, I'm d@mn sure of it. 🤔
I found an extension called 'Luminous: JavaScript Events Blocker' from the Chrome Store, but unfortunately if you try to disable any of it Google tells you too take a long walk off a short pier & the page ends up breaking until it's reverted.😔
