249554 - Problems with computer running with two CPUs (processors)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 277547

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Rocket]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.9.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.9.1

I am running firefox on a machine which has two Pentium3 processors. Frequently
some buttons in windows (for example firefox options) does noting. Sometimes new
windows (not browser windows, but any firefox windows) does not display at all
or only partially. Like I press Help/About and nothing happens or I r-click on
toolbar and chose Customize but that window drives out only half and shows
nothing except grey rectangle. Sometimes nothing happens if I type in URL and
press Enter on keyboard or Go button. This has been hapening since at least
firebird version 0.7. The only solution I found so far is to open Windows Task
Manager and Set Affinity so the firefox.exe works only in CPU0. And this has to
be done each time firefox is started.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start firefox
2. Do anything that involves user interface elements
3.

Actual Results:  
Firefox is not responding

Comment 1

[Rocket]

There is another problem that I forgot to mention. While firefox is allowed to
work in two CPUs, animated gifs does not animate correctly. They animate at
super fast speeds and only when mouse is being moved anywhere on the page. If
mouse is not moved - gif files do not animate. As soon as I set process affinity
for firefox.exe to CPU0 only, gif files start to animate normally.

Comment 2

[Rocket]

Additionally. If processor affinity is set to both CPU0 and CPU1, then text
cursor (both in address field and in text fields in page) blinks randomly and
only when mouse is being moved over the page page. As soon as proceessor
affinity is set to only CPU0, text cursor starts to blink normally.

Comment 3

[Chris Britton]

I think my problem is closely related to this one.  I run Firefox without 
problem on two single-processor systems.  However, when I run it on dual-
processor system, I see two weird symptoms.  First, the letters "Fi" are 
painted over any disabled buttons in the toolbar.  As if from the file menubar 
or "File" menu itself.  Second, performance really tanks.  Painting of dropdown 
menus and cursor movement are very slow and jerky.  CPU usage does not seem too 
out of line though.  It seems more like some sort of contention during event 
processing.

I'm seeing this on Firefox 0.9.2, Windows XP, dual-processor.

Let me know if I can provide more info.

Thanks. 

Comment 4

[Adam]

I'm having similar problems on an AMD64 4400+ X2 system. (Still running XP Pro
SP/2 32-bit.)
If affinity isn't set to CPU0 or CPU1 only, it will animate gifs at crazy speeds
as well as slow down javascripts, and make everything else (drop down lists,
including address bar and searches) generally slugish.

This has happend on releases, nightlies and my own builds.

I'm guessing since it's pretty base, that it would affect Seamonkey as well.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050730
Firefox/1.0.6 (ax)

Definitely something to look into with all the new dual-cores selling.
Hyper-Threading doesn't seem to be a problem or this would be more wide-spread,
but AMD64 X2's are going to see it.


Workaround: Open task manager, right-click the process (firefox.exe) and choose
"Set Affinity..." and uncheck all but 1 cpu.

Another workaround:  If you have the Win2k3 or WinXP Resource Kit with
imagecfg.exe, you can set the affinity to either CPU permenantly (edits the
exe). (some info and a link to the MS site for it
http://www.robpol86.com/misc_pgs/imagecfg.php )

Comment 5

[Adam]

Figured I'd download Seamonkey and give it a shot.
Seems to run fine with no assigned CPU. (CPU0 and CPU1 are both checked)

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050728

No issue there, atleast for me.

Comment 6

[Adam]

Sorry for multiple posts...

I realised that the Mozilla version was 1.7.10 for my version of Firefox, but
1.7.11 for Seamonkey. I thought maybe 1.7.10 of Seamonkey would be a better test
and it runs fine. So it's not something that seems to have existed in Seamonkey.
Seems to be Firefox only. Maybe that narrows it down a bit.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716

Comment 7

[Adam]

Update:
PowerNow/Cool 'n Quiet seem to be the problem for Athlon 64 X2's.
After installing the latest AMD driver and using /usepmtimer in boot.ini, the
problem is solved. It just gives everything a reliable time source instead of
using the cpu frequency, which is always changing.

Another AMD option is to disable PowerNow/CnQ if you're able to in your bios.

I don't know about the dual Pentium setups, but do you guys have some kind of
frequency scaling enabled (ie: dynamic cpu speeds depending on idle/load)?

Comment 8

[Jeff Stewart]

I've observed the same problem.  Animated GIFs and autoscrolling both appear
"jerky," or wrongly timed, on my new multiple-CPU machine (Athlon 64 X2 4600+)
running Windows XP Pro SP2.  Animated GIFs appear to "hiccup" during playback,
with pauses that coincide with "hiccups" in autoscrolling, indicating a problem
in a timing mechanism common to both.  I discovered that using Task Manager to
set firefox.exe's CPU affinity to CPU0 or CPU1 (but not both) solved the problem
instantly (no restart of PC or process required), and the problem returns
immediately when splitting affinity across both CPUs.

I have not attempted the workarounds suggested in this report involving BIOS or
AMD's Cool'n'Quiet software.