With some help from a Google forum, I found the problem.

He said that Chat and/or Hangouts were turned on and they were trying to connect with the Google Talk Server and that was causing the strange CPU pattern.

He also informed me to use "Log Out" to close GMail instead of just closing the tab on my browser. Logging out resets the Chat and Hangouts features to OFF.

 

Cool. Congratulations.

 

With some help from a Google forum, I found the problem.

He said that Chat and/or Hangouts were turned on and they were trying to connect with the Google Talk Server and that was causing the strange CPU pattern.

He also informed me to use "Log Out" to close GMail instead of just closing the tab on my browser. Logging out resets the Chat and Hangouts features to OFF.

Gee... I have been pursuing that solution for about 60 min., to no avail.

This problem just started for me a day, or two, ago. I have (2) chrome.exe *32 processes consuming 40-50+ of the CPU!?! One is Gmail. I can close that tab or stop that process to see that it's Gmail.

I logged out. Restarted Gmail and the process claimed it 20+ of the CPU.

I haven't determined the 2nd problematic tab...

Hmm... Maybe I have to log out of Google??? I never used Chat or Hangouts....