Open a previous conversation (local installation of Cursor IDE)
Submit a prompt listen to the fans spin up
CPU fans keep ramping up and Cursor is consuming a lot more CPU with the latest version. Nothing else running in the background at all. Dev only environment laptop with no nonsense installed.
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Request ID: f9a7046a-279b-47e5-ab48-6e8dc12daba1
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Additional Information
Add any other context about the problem here.
Does this stop you from using Cursor?
Yes - Cursor is unusable
Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor
No - Cursor works, but with this issue
The more details you provide, the easier it is for us to reproduce and fix the issue. Thanks!
What you’re seeing isn’t intended behavior, and it isn’t anything in your setup. As a conversation gets long, the window holds on to everything that’s built up in it (tool results, diffs, file contents), and each new prompt has to work over all of that, which is what drives the CPU climb. That’s also why a fresh chat clears it up.
A few things that help in the meantime:
Keep chats scoped to one task and start a new one for the next stage, which you’ve already found.
Push heavy work like large reads, searches, and log dumps to subagents. They run in their own context and only return a summary, so the bulk output never lands in your main chat.
When a window starts feeling heavy, reload it with Ctrl+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window. Worth doing early, since once the window is fully bogged down it can stop responding to the command.
This is an issue we’re tracking. No update to share yet, but I’ll post here when there is one. There’s more context in this thread if you’re curious.
I was hoping the recent update may fix this issue (3.14.7). Right now I don’t even have a lengthy chat in-progress but CPU getting hit within a few prompts. I like to view the changelog but all you provide is features and not fixes or am I wrong?
@MrCheese - That update wouldn’t clear this yet. The work for what you’re hitting is still in progress on our side, so it isn’t in 3.14.7. A short chat can still spike CPU when the agent is doing tool-heavy work in that turn (reads, searches, edits). Length amplifies it, but it isn’t the only trigger. Other chats left open in the same window can keep the load up too.
Same mitigations still help: one task per chat, push heavy work to subagents, and Ctrl+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window when fans start climbing. Closing other long chats in that window helps as well.
On the changelog: you’re right that the public changelog is mostly features and product updates, not a full list of every internal fix. When this lands in a build you can use, I’ll post here.
No timeline I can share yet. Our team is looking into this, and I’ll update this thread when there’s something concrete.
If fans still spin after a full quit (Cmd/Ctrl+Q, not just closing the window) with only a brand-new empty chat and no agent run yet, drop a screenshot of Help → Open Process Explorer while it’s happening - that would tell us if something else is in play.
