[Juju_Money]

Colleague has a dual 2.7Ghz PowerMac, 2.5GB RAM (not recently altered)... since updating to 10.4.7 a strange thing started happening: whenever Firefox or Quicktime are simply opened, the processor usage shoots up to 90% and the fans kick in full steam. Closing them immediately returns status to normal.
Anyone experienced similar symptoms or know the cause and fix?
J/

[schokid02]

Initial thought, has he repaired permissions or run some other maintainance utilities (such as Coctail or Onyx)? That is recommended after doing an OS upgrade. May fix the problem, may not, but worth a try.

[Juju_Money]

Yes, permissions repaired on a regular basis, but has no effect with this. Still stumped...

[macworldguy]

Just a thought here:
try running the combo 10.4.7 installer
http://www.apple.com...47comboppc.html
and of course do the repair permissions after.
Also repair the "direcotry" ( which is different from repair permissions ) before and after with DiskWarrior 3.0.3.
Excuse me if you've tried that already.

[Juju_Money]

thanks for the suggestion, although you're right - they've already been done... It's a bizarre one, as it only happens with these apps, plus a couple of others (e.g Rosetta Stone - language course app). Clicking and holding the scroll bar sets it off, letting go stops it (although it's constant in Rosetta Stone). Hopefully 10.4.8 will fix it...