EEE PC 901 + Debian Squeeze, applications only use 50% CPU. How is it treated?

Question

linux

There is an EEE PC 901 with Intel Atom on board, and there is Debian Squeeze, in which each application loads the processor by no more than 50% (judging by the System Monitor's graphics and by feeling, everything is running rather slowly). For example, when copying files or downloading heavy software (Firefox), the monitor shows loading almost exactly 50%, when playing video (720p, it slows down shamelessly) it shows 60 percent, probably because video and sound playback are 2 different processes.
Prior to this, Ubuntu 8.10 stood, everything worked fine (and noticeably faster), and in System Monitor the processor load reached 100%.
Google could not help me with anything, there was only hope for your help.
PS Another unpleasant feature on the same netbook - after about an hour and a half of continuous audio playback, the sound starts to wheeze, and after a few minutes the wheezing disappears and then everything works as it should. If, after the beginning of the interference, you press a pause and immediately release it, then the interference disappears for another hour and a half. The problem is most likely software, because I tried to connect a USB audio card and got the same glitch. Has anyone else experienced this? How is it treated?

Answer 1

This atom has hyper-threading. Maybe your applications can only load one core? And the system monitor considers it dual-core and shows that only one core is occupied.

Answer 2

You have 2 cores, which ones do not matter. If the application is single-threaded, then 1 thread cannot use more than 1 core. And if you run the same chrome, in which the tab is a process (although I don’t have it on 1000HE), and each process can load one core, having 2 processes that use the CPU, then you can get a maximum of 200%. open top and press the 1 key. At the top, you will see indicators for each CPU.

Answer 3

Then how does my CPU load reach 100% if several applications are running at the same time, for example, when a 720p video is played + Gimp is loaded?
Previously, on Ubuntu, each application could load the processor up to 100% and everything worked noticeably faster than now.