On my Windows 11 machine, Cursor 1.5.11 causes ~40% CPU usage (90W system power) while idle. (The Cursor process itself being only a partial contributor, see recording.)
Without Cursor, my system has ~6% CPU usage (35W) while idle.
Cursor 0.45.15 doesn’t exhibit this behavior.
Since uploading multiple files isn’t possible here, I merged screen recordings for the three scenarios into one. Order is (~20 sec. each):
Baseline
Cursor 1.5.11
Cursor 0.45.15
(I mentioned wattage because given Cursor’s ~1M users, if everyone experiences this problem, with similar waste, that’s a minor environmental catastrophe to the tune of Gigawatt hours per month.)
Steps to Reproduce
Run Cursor in the background, evaluate CPU usage in task manager.
Expected Behavior
Cursor should only consume minimal CPU when idle. (If any, since all that it should probably do is check for updates every once in a while?)
Screenshots / Screen Recordings
Operating System
Windows 10/11
Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)
hi @AndyO and thank you for the detailed report and the screen recording.
The memory consumption does look too high. As this is not a common issue with a default installation we need further information to identify the cause.
Please check Help > Open Process Explorer and post here a screenshot. It will likely show what is consuming so much memory.
Do you have any processes running in terminal within Cursor?
Does this also occur on a new project? (would indicate large chat storage)
Does this occur when you run with extensions disabled? cursor --disable-extensions
I gotta say - I don’t care about memory usage. High CPU usage is a serious problem.
Please check Help > Open Process Explorer and post here a screenshot. It will likely show what is consuming so much memory.
Here you go. I took it with only a single project open and extensions disabled.
Do you have any processes running in terminal within Cursor?
No
Does this also occur on a new project? (would indicate large chat storage)
If only an empty folder is open, this doesn’t happen.
But as soon as there is code, the complexity of the codebase doesn’t seem to matter. I opened 3 of different complexities and they all resulted in ~22% CPU usage.
The usage increases by number of simultaneously open windows though. Capping out at 54%, it seems:
2 windows ~38%.
3 windows ~54%.
4 windows ~54%.
Does this occur when you run with extensions disabled? cursor --disable-extensions
