OS X :: Process "kernel Task" Taking Up Almost 100% Of CPU?
Jul 20, 2010
A few hours ago, I noticed my MBP start hanging and generally processing very slow. Apps would freeze at random times, and generally a lot of odd behavior.
I checked the activity monitor to see what might be causing this. It turns out, the process "kernel_task" is using almost 100% of my CPU. It has stayed within the 70-100% range, and has yet to go down. I tried many things, including restarting my Mac many times, but it remains the same.
Does anyone know why "kernel_task" is taking up so much of my CPU? Is there a way to somehow "reset" the process to get it back to normal?
P.S. I attached a screenshot of the process in the Activity Monitor. You can view it here:
EDIT: I just want to add that I think the "kernel_task" might have started eating CPU when I stopped a RAR program in the middle of extracting an archive. I'm not 100% sure though that this is when the problem started.
Is there any specific reason Kernel_Task seems to think he owns the place? What gives? It's like I turn my MacBook on and he's all like "oh hai! Ize just a system task! 50mb of memory? That's cool that's cool" Then only 2 hours later he's all like "Nah man, I just needed some more room see, it's like 120mb ain't dat much, k?"
I know that OS X handles ram real good and all, by freeing memory when it's required for higher-priority tasks, but I also know that it takes a bit more time to clear that memory AND re-allocate it...
So, is this a memory leak? And while I'm at it what about iChat Agent and Colloquy that are battling out to be RAM champ?
I've been recently realizing that every time i use safari or socialite for a few mins I get a lot of 'beach ball' time. The application would show in red (not responding) in activity monitor and kernel_task would have over 1,900 threads, that will decrease slowly after I force quit the applications.
My computer keeps freezing and applications keep shutting down unexpectantly. So when I went into the activity monitor I saw that Kernal_task and inkjet1 seem to be taking up the most CPU, threads, and memory. What are they? How can I make my computer more efficient? Are these processess causing my computer to be so slow and freezy?
I have been experiencing the fan running at high rpm and the computer completely slowing down when there is slight pressure applied to the bottom of my macbook pro. I went on Activity Monitor and it shows kernel_task running at over 100% cpu usage. I have already tried resetting PRAM and SMC but those did not work.
I was working on my Mac but is coming very slow sometimes so I found the problem is the kernel task.Â
Lex I already use the Clean My Mac and since the first time I delete a lot of things I don't even remember how many. Should I format my drive?Â
About the iCleanMemory so the system will clear the RAM by it self or should I do something different or use another program?Â
So here is the report: EtreCheck version: 1.9.15 (52)Report generated 2 de septiembre de 2014 16:58:23 GMT-4 Hardware Information: ? MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013) (Verified) MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro10,2 1 3 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2 cores 8 GB RAM Video Information: ? Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: (null) Color LCD 2560 x
[Code].....
Info: MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
I had my first leopard problem on my 1.67 15" powerbook last night. I lost bluetooth so I restarted, I went to the activity monitor and there was a kernel task eating up 152 mb of my ram. All updates are current and I have 2gb of ram. Any ideas as to what this action is doing. I also have a dual 2.4 g5 with 3.5 gb of ram(but no kernel task issues).
I have a 13inch MBP running Mavericks 10.9.4 with a 2.7 GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 500GB HD. I just recently had the machine Factory Reset. The only APP's I've added are PAGES, NUMBERS and KEYNOTE. When I check the ACTIVITY MONITOR it indicates that out of 16GB of RAM MEMORY, 5.51GB is being used. Usually ACTIVITY MONITOR indicates that as much as 9GB RAM is being used. This MBP is 3 years old and I clearly upgraded the RAM from 4GB (I think) to 16GB. Since this MBP used to run with only 4GB of RAM total; it seems to me that the current amount of memory being used, from 5.51GB up to 9GB out of 16GB total RAM is unusually high. In addition, the above numbers were displayed when only Safari and Activity Monitor are running. Is this normal for Mavericks OSX?
Info: MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), MBP 2.7 GHz i7 16 GB RAM, 500 GB HD
I've had my macbook pro repaired a few weeks ago (new battery and keyboard).. Ever since then every time I boot it its superslow ... + with high activity on kernel_task.. When I close the lid and open it after 5 seconds again the problem is gone.
So I've been noticing the fans on my MBP were starting to run pretty hard today which never happens. I checked the activity monitor and I have a process called SH (127) that was eating up like 12-15% of CPU. Does anybody know what this process is? Why is it taking so much CPU horsepower?
Noticed i was uploading at high speed (8MB/s) constantly. So i check activity monitor, and kernel_task is uploading huge amount of data, so far 20+gb this morning...
I'm not getting a massive CPU usage (10-15%).Â
Tried restarting, just starts up again after a couple of minutes.
Product name: Macbook pro 13-inch Processor speed: 2.5 GHz Memory: 4 GB Storage capacity: 500 GB Software: OS X 10.9.4 Â
In the memory tab in activity monitor, it shows kernel_task which takes up 440 MB. It takes a huge amount of my memory. Also, my macbook pro is running down. I believe that one of the reason for this is kernel task. How do I fix this?Â
I have a dual-core MBP, and when i try to run programs like mail, word, and firefox at the same time, the Intercheck process decides to take a lot of my CPU. Whenever this happens, i have to restart my computer, and if i don't, it will eventually freeze.Â
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
When I open Activity Monitor, kernel_task is using approx 240 MB of real memory, and 67 of virtual. All I have open is Safari (and Activity Monitor)Seems like alot of real memory for one process.
I have a problem with my iMac. I have on a second partition lion installed. Everything worked great, but since I updated to 10.7.4 booting needs about 5 minutes. Already checked the partition and the access rights.
Mac OS X 10.10.1 Yosemite/iMac mid-2011...My iMac is really slow to start-up, to run, and to have applications run. I have 32 GB memory, 113 GB hard disk capacity and it has never been slower in its life. There is a process called "bird" that is running almost constantly whenever I run Activity Monitor and it is taking up to 140% of CPU time. What is "bird"? Why is it running constantly and eating up so much CPU time? Why is my iMac so slow running Mac OS X 10.10.1 Yosemite?Â
Other issues on my iMac include: Software Update is supposed to be updating and installing updates automatically and it is not. When I log in, I see a blank white screen with an apple logo and a progress bar below. It takes forever for the progress bar to get 1/4 of the way across, then the screen flashes and the progress bar finishes the remaining 3/4 really fast. And then once logged in, it takes forever for my dock icons to appear, and my iMac hard drive is chattering like crazy even though nothing is running yet. Whenever I launch Safari I get a progress bar in the address field that goes 1/3 of the way across and frequently hangs. All of these issues never happened before Mac OS X 10.10.1 Yosemite.
Info: iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10), Safari 8.0
I just took a quiz online on Blackboard (university online suite for tests/homework/class notes) and I had to accept a trust certificate so a 30 min. limit timer would begin. After finishing the test, I looked in activity monitor and there are 2 processes: httpd(root) and http(_www). They are taking up about 2.6 GB of virtual ram each, and almost all of my physical memory is being used. Also, under the "kind" column, it lists them as Intel (64-Bit). What are these and why will they not disappear when I try to force-quit them?
I have a Mac Pro with several raid array and single drives attached (1x Wiebetech RTX600 Raid 5 through SCSI; 1x CalDigit HDElement Raid 5 through miniSAS; 4x internal drives).Unfortunately, due to various reasons (electricity outtage and software crashes), I'm experiencing system crashes and need to hard re-start the system. Upon restart, I am able to boot back into Mac OS X, but sometimes one, or both of the raid arrays will not mount.However, after a period of 0.5 - 2 hours, the array would magically re-appear again. Sometimes this might even happen to internal drives that I had mounted inside the chassis of the Mac Pro.
I am wondering if anyone knows of a good osx based alternative to Process Explorer on windows - what I'd like to be able to do is graph CPU and memory for a specific process and ideally see what network connections a specific process has open. atMonitor seems to do this pretty well generally, but not for specific processes (this is for monitoring a multiplayer flash game).
Yes you read that right. Your brand spanking new MBP will use a 32-bit kernel as default.
You can force 64-bit kernel but some of your hardware will not be working.
So all that marketing crap about the benefits of 64-bit etc are all B.S.
I don't want a million threads about how this will not effect the running of 64 bit apps, etc. because it will. Your 64-bit app will run but it will not be able to address more than 4Gb of RAM.
There are also many more advantages to having a 64-bit kernel.
sometimes my ram usage is really high with no programs open and i see that its kernal task thats doing this. when i restart my computer its fine but i wanna know what this is and why this keeps happening
I have a task called 'named' running and it's taking up 100% of a single core (swtiches cores periodically, but 100% when it does). Any idea what this is and whether I can kill it? It looks like it belongs to Internet Sharing.
Edit: I just turned IS off and it disappeared. Turned IS back on and it seems to have killed 'named'.
recently I've noticed that my task bar doesn't let me know what programs are running. For instance, normally when a program is open, there's a small white dot under the icon, meaning the program is open. Now that doesn't appear anymore. Can anyone explain how I can turn this option back on? I might have inadvertently shut it off somehow.
There is this icon on my task bar that I can't seem to get rid of. I downloaded and installed an application to format an external drive, then when I wasn't happy with it, I deleted it. Unfortunately, when I deleted it, it didn't delete the icon it put in my task bar. I can click on it and get a menu and do a number of things. At the bottom of the menu I can choose "Disable DrivePulse". Nothing happens! I go to system preferences and look at my login items and it's not there! I find it in activity monitor, quit it from there, and it comes back a second later! I search my mac for Drive Pulse and Drive Genius 3 and I get no results! Can somebody help me disable this nuisance permanently? Is there a hidden file on my HD I have to delete?
I have a new Mac Pro (standard 2.8 configuration with 3 X 250GB in software RAID0) at my cable station at college. I was expecting this thing to be a real screamer, but I find myself a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it's still quite fast. But for CPU-intensive task in Final Cut Studio, I find it to be slower than it should be. For example, compressing a 6 GB DV file for an iPhone is taking 32 minutes. CPU usage is only around 30% per core. I've never been able to drive CPU usage above this level in any task (Handbrake, Final Cut rendering, etc.) I know that not all software is able to fully use all of the cores, but this doesn't make sense to me. Is this normal performance? Or could something wrong with the Mac Pro?
