watchdog/0 process using all my CPU suddenly

Posted by jeffery_the_wind on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by jeffery_the_wind
Published on 2012-05-10T10:10:49Z Indexed on 2012/06/09 16:47 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 281

Filed under:

12.04

|

cpu

|

viruses

I have a fresh installation of Ubuntu 12.04, I have been running it for about a week. Suddenly today I noticed my computer freezes every 5 seconds. I restarted the computer and I still get this. I believe it is a process called watchdog/0 that is using all the resources. See the attached pictures.

How can I stop this? I can barely use my computer like this.

see CPU hits 100% when idle it is the watchdog process

UPDATE

Well I just did a cold reboot, (shutdown, unplug, and plug back in, and turn on) and it seems to have fixed it. After looking at the man page for watchdog, it seems that this process may stay on during a restart? so it is more like a soft restart? Why that happens I don't know.

© Ask Ubuntu or respective owner

Related posts about 12.04

Wipe 12.04/Windows 7 dual boot setup and start fresh new 12.04

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have an Asus u56e laptop running dual boot setup, Windows 7 and 12.04. I had Windows 7 first. I was wondering what's the easiest way possible to erase/format my drive (500GB) so that it deletes Ubuntu and Windows 7 so I can reinstall 12.04 onto my whole drive? Does the Ubuntu Live CD help make this… >>> More
In 12.04: Failed to load session 'ubuntu' [closed]

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Possible Duplicate: There's an issue with an Alpha/Beta Release of Ubuntu, what should I do? I'm using 12.04 beta. Today I was prompted to install some updates, which I did, followed by a reboot. On reboot, X starts, but all I see is a single dialog window in the middle of the screen… >>> More
Will final version of 12.04 use the power management changes found in kernel 3.3

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have seen in some version of Ubuntu that instead of making a huge change to update to the latest kernel, they take some of the good stuff out of it, for the sake of stability and put it on a previous version. In this case, kernel 3.3 has seen some very good power management enhancements that are… >>> More
Wired PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse do not work in 12.04 Live CD or after fresh 12.04 install - Foxconn D270S Atom Motherboard

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
My Wired PS/2 keyboard and mouse do not work in 12.04, either in a fresh install or from the Live CD. A USB keyboard and mouse will work. The PS/2 keyboard and mouse will work using the same hardware and a fresh 10.04 Ubuntu install or a fresh Windows 7 install. The motherboard is a Foxconn D270S… >>> More
Difference between 12.04 and 12.04.1

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I recently did a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04 two days ago. Or at least I thought it was 12.04, but actually 12.04.1. Now I'm having errors popping up from the grub loader. Error: no video mode activated which was apparently resolved in this bug# 699802. However these workarounds are for 11.xx… >>> More

Related posts about cpu

Speedstep and Intel x5570?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, My new server has 2 x X5570 CPUs. Now here is the output of grep -i hz /proc/cpuinfo model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz cpu MHz : 1600.231 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz cpu MHz : 1600.231 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU … >>> More
VMware ESXi - varying CPU time (CPU reservation)

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hello! I'm running FreeBSD 7.2 under VMware ESXi 3.5. Host has 2 physical CPUs and the BSD box is currently the only running VM. Only one virtual CPU is assigned to the VM. When measuring CPU time of a specific program, I get very different results from time to time. Processor usage is reported… >>> More
How to calculate CPU % based on raw CPU ticks in SNMP

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
According to http://net-snmp.sourceforge.net/docs/mibs/ucdavis.html#scalar_notcurrent ssCpuUser, ssCpuSystem, ssCpuIdle, etc are deprecated in favor of the raw variants (ssCpuRawUser, etc). The former values (which don't cover things like nice, wait, kernel, interrupt, etc) returned a percentage… >>> More
disparity between `top`'s given CPU % and process CPU usage total

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I've noticed that there are sometimes (large) differences between the reported total CPU usage and a summation of the per-process CPU utilization given by apps like top and wmtop. As an example: I recently ran a git filter-branch --index-filter on a fairly large repo, with the index-filter command… >>> More
How to read oom-killer syslog messages?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a Ubuntu 12.04 server which sometimes dies completely - no SSH, no ping, nothing until it is physically rebooted. After the reboot, I see in syslog that the oom-killer killed, well, pretty much everything. There's a lot of detailed memory usage information in them. How do I read these logs… >>> More