I'm having a problem where the Finder uses WAY too much CPU time. It's using up to 100% of one of my cores.
I'm running 10.6.2 on a MacBook Pro w/ 6GB of RAM, plenty of fast (SSD) disk space. I also run DropBox and BackBlaze.
I've tried disabling my third party stuff (DropBox and BackBlaze), but that doesn't seem to help. It's killing my battery life!
Best Answer
I think I found my problem—one or more of the files on my desktop.
After moving the various clutter off my desktop, the Finder stopped using so much CPU.
I suspect that it was either calculating folder sizes (as Benjamin Schollnick mentioned) or maybe trying to create an icon preview.