OpenJDK Platform binary - very high power usage

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

OpenJDK Platform binary is some sort of background process involving Java, but I don't really know what it does. My concern is that on my computer (specs in my signature) its power usage is almost always rated "very high" compared to every other process being rated low or very low.

At idle, it also consumes 5-7% of the CPU which is higher than for any other process. All other components (memory, GPU, disk and network) are at 0-0.5%.

I read that very high power use could be due to an outdated video driver, so I updated that, but it made no difference.

Is this behaviour normal for OpenJDK Platform binary? Is it harmful? Is there any other way to reduce it?

 

[johnwhelan]

JAVA originally was a language that was interpreted. This meant it was very inefficient but as long as you had an interpreter on your operating system the code would run. It was developed by Sun Microsystems and is fairly popular. It was released as open source some years ago. Sun Microsystems was taken over by Oracle and today Oracle's version is a bit restrictive and demands a commercial license for practically anything. The US government doesn't think much of it from a security point of view.

These days most Java Virtual Machines are OpenJDK, Microsoft has one: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/java/openjdk/download and generally speaking it makes sense to download the latest version. I think the Microsoft version is a bit more efficient and secure than the Oracle version.

So somewhere on your machine is a .jar file that is being run that that is causing the CPU usage. If you aren't running something like JOSM.jar then it shouldn't appear in task manager. Because it runs on practically anything then it's a good target for Malware, bitcoin mining etc so I'd search your hard drives for suspicious .jar files and rename them before deleting.

Cheerio John

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

I checked and there are 87 .jar files on my Windows C: drive. About 95% of them belong to something called NetGuard. One file called jrt-fs.jar is in folder C:\Netguard\openJDK, so it looks like it is using OpenJDK.

The only non-Netguard .jar files are called Opera.jar and they both belong to some programs in the old Adobe CS3 graphics suite that I never use.

There is no mention of JOSM.jar.

What would a "suspicious .jar file" look like? Windows Defender reports no threats.

Bear in mind that I'm not a computer technician John, so I don't automatically understand what you've told me. Other than taking a look at that Microsoft link, I'm at a loss as to what, if anything, I should do.

 

[JCitron]

Check your start up items and disable the Java runtime applet if it's there.

Go to Task Manager - hit CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to bring it up and click on the Startup Apps tab.

Disable anything in there you don't need to run including the Java runtime applet.

The next time you start, this won't be running in the background. Reboot if you want this to take effect immediately just shutdown anything you may have running first.

 

[johnwhelan]

NetGuard is a bit of Java code that in theory blocks internet access. However if you're running Win 11 you already have the windows security firewall and since it runs in JAVA it can be expected to take up a considerable amount of CPU cycles.

Get rid of it would be my advice.

Cheerio John

 

[RetroRails12]

NetGuard is a bit of Java code that in theory blocks internet access. However if you're running Win 11 you already have the windows security firewall and since it runs in JAVA it can be expected to take up a considerable amount of CPU cycles.

Get rid of it would be my advice.

Cheerio John

can't delete a windows Security Firewall item! if you delete it your computer is at risk for hacking it. I did it once and had to pay the full price for the consequences it caused

 

[johnwhelan]

can't delete a windows Security Firewall item! if you delete it your computer is at risk for hacking it. I did it once and had to pay the full price for the consequences it caused

The suggestion was to get rid of netguard not a component of windows, although one of the antivirus companies did decide that an essential component of windows was a virus once and quarantined it. They spotted it after a couple of hours but by that time a few hundred thousand machines mainly in Asia had to have windows reinstalled. They weren't popular.

Cheerio John

 

[RetroRails12]

The suggestion was to get rid of netguard not a component of windows, although one of the antivirus companies did decide that an essential component of windows was a virus once and quarantined it. They spotted it after a couple of hours but by that time a few hundred thousand machines mainly in Asia had to have windows reinstalled. They weren't popular.

Cheerio John

had the same thing happen to me here in the USA was not fun to have to completely rebuild and reinstall windows to the Tune of 1K USD...

 

[JCitron]

You can thank McAfee for that. Their antivirus product is horrible and causes really bad machine performance. My brother had that installed on his new laptop. When he powered up the machine after the initial install, he thought the machine was suffering from some kind of hardware failure and was ready to return it. After uninstalling that and going with the built-in Windows Defender, the machine ran like a dream and still does today 6 years later.

Their mess-up wreaked havoc with big companies such as Oracle who is a bigtime McAfee user. I was lucky I missed that fiasco when I was there in support.

Oracle had some kind of deal with McAfee and we got stuck dealing with the End Point Encryption product aka EPE. Their EPE was like dealing with a virus infection on a daily basis. It caused machines to run dog slow; the account login was a separate entity that was supposed to sync up with Oracle's SSO and that failed miserably. With the constant calls to the "EPE support team", we ended up getting access to the server to generate an unlock code based called the COD or Code of the Day. The product was supposed to work with fingerprint recognition and that didn't work either. Once that failed, the system had to be decrypted, which took hours on end, then encrypted all over again, taking many more hours. If someone changed their password as required, EPE failed to sync, causing the ditto mess all over again.

Picture this nightmare with well over 680 people at the Burlington MA, Oracle Direct Hub supported by two support engineers - one other guy and myself.

 

[johnwhelan]

had the same thing happen to me here in the USA was not fun to have to completely rebuild and reinstall windows to the Tune of 1K USD...

But these days you are wiser no doubt and have a backup on an external drive from windows 7 backup including a system image and two win 7 data recovery CD / DVDs so you can just reinstall the system as it was. It says win 7 on it but it works with win10 and win 11.

Cheerio John

 

[RetroRails12]

But these days you are wiser no doubt and have a backup on an external drive from windows 7 backup including a system image and two win 7 data recovery CD / DVDs so you can just reinstall the system as it was. It says win 7 on it but it works with win10 and win 11.

Cheerio John

Didn't have Windows 7 had windows 10!!!!!!

 

[johnwhelan]

Didn't have Windows 7 had windows 10!!!!!!

Win 10 go to backup and look for older backup go to windows 7 backup and restore.

It still works perfectly and is part of windows 10.

Cheerio John

 

[RetroRails12]

Win 10 go to backup and look for older backup go to windows 7 backup and restore.

It still works perfectly and is part of windows 10.

Cheerio John

it killed my 10 year old PC John you just don't understand.... I had no backup drive or back up to restore from It Litterly Killed everything and how can you recovery something that doesn't work or isn't even recoverable for that matter....

 

[johnwhelan]

it killed my 10 year old PC John you just don't understand.... I had no backup drive or back up to restore from It Litterly Killed everything and how can you recovery something that doesn't work or isn't even recoverable for that matter....

It's called learning by experience. You do now of course have an external drive and make regular backups now? One with a power switch so you can turn it off when not in use is useful. You may need to buy an external DVD drive that can write to a dvd for the recovery drive. With a recovery CD or DVD provided the hardware still works you can recover from all sorts of things. You may even be able to recover using a USB recovery drive app, part of win 10 and 11 provided you create them before you hit problems.

I suggest you look at these on Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Cheerio John

 

[RetroRails12]

It's called learning by experience. You do now of course have an external drive and make regular backups now? One with a power switch so you can turn it off when not in use is useful. You may need to buy an external DVD drive that can write to a dvd for the recovery drive. With a recovery CD or DVD provided the hardware still works you can recover from all sorts of things. You may even be able to recover using a USB recovery drive app, part of win 10 and 11 provided you create them before you hit problems.

I suggest you look at these on Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Cheerio John

Its called can't afford them.. the ones on Amazon are Junk plus the company itself is run by a junk guy that can't run a company just ask the truckers that drop off at them plus using out of country workers something i won't get into because its an off topic topic.... by the way Who in there right mind has several hundred dollars laying around to buy an external drive for backup when they are on a low income... when you retire you will be scrambling for money to buy your food on a 1k dollar a month.... money and your state of mind simply don't understand what a disabled person has to go through on a daily basis to live and thrive...

 

[johnwhelan]

Its called can't afford them.. the ones on Amazon are Junk plus the company itself is run by a junk guy that can't run a company just ask the truckers that drop off at them plus using out of country workers something i won't get into because its an off topic topic.... by the way Who in there right mind has several hundred dollars laying around to buy an external drive for backup when they are on a low income... when you retire you will be scrambling for money to buy your food on a 1k dollar a month.... money and your state of mind simply don't understand what a disabled person has to go through on a daily basis to live and thrive...

Cheaper than paying a grand to have someone else sort it out for you. The HGST drives are definitely not junk and $100 total isn't that bad for a backup system. Best I can suggest is to create two USB recovery drive, should cost you under $15 for a brand name 16 gig drives but I don't think it will restore your system with software for you.

Have fun

By the way I'm retired too.

Cheerio John

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

So back to the actual topic, if I may.

The suggestion was to get rid of netguard not a component of windows

Glad you clarified that John (and thanks Retrorails12 for the input) because I was just about to delete or disable OpenJDK Binary...

I have some further information.

NetGuard on my computer is only there to manage my External Power Source apparently. If I open up the app, it shows a diagram of the battery state and the input/output voltages etc. If I un-install NetGuard, will it render my EPS useless, or will it simply mean I don't have an on-screen diagram of what it's doing? Could I just rely on the LED display on the EPS case itself which shows similar information?

In addition. the app seems to have developed something wrong with it because the screen now flashes constantly and none of its menus work. I found the installer for this app in my Downloads folder, so I could re-install it if required. Maybe I should just do that?

 

[johnwhelan]

We're getting a bit outside my area of expertise with external power supplies. You're obviously running a desktop not a laptop and when you talk about battery state that implies your external power supply has something like an LiFePO4 battery and an inverter possibly powered by a solar panel. Could you give a few more details?

Thanks John

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

I mistakenly called it an EPS above, but looking at the manual now I see the correct acronym would be UPS - Uniterruptible Power Supply. It's a Powershield Defender 1200. No idea what the battery is. No solar panels, just a big fat battery unit plugged into a 240v supply.

 

[JCitron]

Could I just rely on the LED display on the EPS case itself which shows similar information?

You can do that. It's one less thing loaded on your computer to interrupt other things that need resources. The software has connections to the Windows Management Interface (WMI) that allow it to send signals to automatically shut down your computer if the power goes out. Most home users don't do this, and it's usually used by big companies with servers and workstations running critical applications or large data servers. My APC UPS comes with similar software and I shut down the computer and peripherals plugged in to it manually.

UPSs contain quick-switching relays and other electronics to quickly switch to the internal lead acid batteries. These batteries are similar to small automobile batteries but not quite the same. The batteries will eventually wear down and need to be replaced usually through a trade-in program with the company that made your UPS.

The 1200 model number is most likely the total VA (watts) the unit has. Depending upon what other peripherals you have plugged in. These can last long enough for you to shutdown manually. I have my two displays and my computer and external hard drives. I get about 20 minutes to shut down everything before the batteries drain completely on my 2200 Watt unit.