[Bug][Kimi Desktop][macOS] Renderer high CPU causes WindowServer/GPU load and 80°C temperature

Product Feedback
1

Summary

On Kimi Desktop 3.1.6 for macOS, the Electron renderer process unexpectedly consumed high CPU and appeared to trigger continuous UI/GPU compositing. CPU temperature reached 78–80°C. Quitting Kimi caused the system load to drop immediately.

Environment

  • Device: MacBook Pro, Apple M5 Pro (18 cores), 64 GB memory
  • macOS: 26.5.1 (build 25F80)
  • Kimi Desktop: 3.1.6
  • Electron: 41.7.2
  • Time observed: 2026-07-31 around 09:17 (UTC+8)

Observed behavior

While Kimi Desktop was open during normal use, the machine became noticeably hot. Process sampling showed:

  • Kimi Helper (Renderer): approximately 77.8% CPU, 582 threads, about 690 MB memory
  • WindowServer: approximately 78.9% CPU
  • GPU utilization: approximately 48%, GPU temperature about 68°C, display running at 61 FPS
  • CPU temperature: 78–80°C
  • kernel_task: approximately 22.4% CPU, likely responding to thermal pressure
  • Load average: approximately 8.61 / 12.67 / 11.05
  • Physical memory: about 63 GB used, 16 GB compressed, around 0.48 GB unused

The Kimi main process itself showed only about 4% CPU in the monitor, while Kimi Helper (Renderer) was the high-CPU process. This looks more like continuous repainting, animation, or a renderer event loop than expected agent computation.

Result after quitting Kimi Desktop

Immediately after quitting Kimi Desktop:

  • All Kimi renderer/GPU helper processes disappeared
  • Total CPU idle increased to approximately 90.7%
  • One-minute load average dropped from about 8.6 to 3.0
  • WindowServer dropped from approximately 78.9% to 25.6%
  • Unused physical memory increased from approximately 0.48 GB to 1.7 GB
  • Total thread count dropped from approximately 10,057 to 9,077

Other applications such as Chrome, Edge, WeCom and Docker were also open, and memory pressure was high. However, Kimi Renderer was the highest user-process CPU consumer, and quitting Kimi produced an immediate, measurable reduction in system load.

Suspected area

Possible continuous renderer repaint, animation/task-status refresh loop, WebBridge state update, or Electron compositing issue. I do not yet have stable reproduction steps. Please let me know which logs or diagnostic files would help investigate this issue.

1 Like
2

Hello, I am experiencing the same issue, Kimi Desktop (renderer) taking up 101% CPU at 983 threads during operation.

3

Thanks for confirming — your numbers look very similar to what I observed.

In my case, Kimi Helper (Renderer) was using around 78% CPU with more than 580 threads, while WindowServer was also close to 80% CPU and GPU utilization was unusually high. As soon as I quit Kimi Desktop, the system load dropped immediately.

Your case is even more notable with the renderer reaching 101% CPU and 983 threads, which makes this look less like a machine-specific issue and more like a possible renderer/UI update loop or Electron compositing problem.

If possible, could you also share:

  • Mac model / chip

  • macOS version

  • Kimi Desktop version

  • WindowServer CPU usage while the issue is happening

  • Whether restarting Kimi temporarily resolves it

  • What page or feature you were using when it happened

If we are both seeing this on the same Kimi Desktop version, that should give the developers a much stronger reproduction signal.

4

Has anyone managed to resolve this issue ? I am on intel mid Macbook 2020 it’s crazy hot as well as on chrome too

5

This should be fixed in v3.2.1. Please upgrade to the latest version and try again. Thanks for the feedback, and let us know how it goes