OS X :: Unexplained Disk Activity - Track Process?
Oct 17, 2009
I'm running 10.5.8 on a 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac. The machine often slows down dramatically and i can hear the internal drive going like crazy. When I look in Activity Monitor however there's nothing chewing up much CPU. I can see that there's a lot of disk activity going on however. Unfortunately I don't see anyway in activity monitor to see what processes are accessing the hard drive. Does anyone know of a way to track down what processes are accessing the disk?
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Mar 21, 2010
I just bought an iMac 27" 4 cores, the one with the Intel i5. Sadly, this computer feels like my first iMac in terms of speed - it is sluggish and the reason for this is that the hard drive is being thrashed excessively. By using iStat Menus, I can clearly see that the disk is being constantly read, constantly at 3 MB/s, which is insane since I am not copying anything: I thought the culprit was Spotlight, so I turned off indexing on my main HD and the problem still persists. I cannot find one utility out there that will let me know what process is beating the crap out of my hard drive. Is there such thing for OS X? Something like Windows 7 resource monitor is exactly what I am looking for.
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Jan 17, 2010
I apologize if I missed a similar problem, but i think this is an unusual thing. Ok, so occasionally after my uMBP has been on a while (say, 1.5+ days?) sometimes when doing little more than doing a little web browsing, I'll see in both Activity Monitor and iStats that i'm using about 60-70% of my processor, but there is no visible process that is taking up the CPU. the issue is temporarily resolved by logging out or restarting. Does anyone have any ideas? I've tried running what available malware scanners there are for the mac, but nothing has come up.
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Nov 26, 2010
A while back I installed an application that allowed me to stream media from my Mac to my PS3, called Gridcast. It didn't work well, so I got rid of it. Since then I have had two processes constantly running, "gridcastd" & "GridCastAlerts." When i select and quit the processes nothing happens, they just continues to run.
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Jun 30, 2009
I've got the activity monitor open in front of me. There are the usual apps I can see, Logic, FF, iTunes, Finder, MS Messenger etc etc. Though there is a lot of other stuff, I don't know what it is (probably system stuff?). For instance there is configd, syslogd, mds, cron most of these have root inb the server column. In the User column for my name I can see mdworker, pboard, launchd and couple of others.
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Jan 1, 2011
I just found a 'hidden' process running in Activity Monitor. If it weren't for the indication of 64 bit under virtual memory, I wouldn't have noticed anything. This is the first time that I've ever seen a 64 bit process running with root privileges. On top of that, it's hidden. Whenever I try to quit or even force quit it, it comes back. Should I be concerned? I'm little worried right now. This wouldn't have any relation to the sudden loss of several fonts that occurred a few days ago, would it? (I lost Century Gothic)
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Jun 13, 2012
On a new (June 2012) MacBook Pro running OSX 10.7.4 I am seeing a process called "unzip" in the Activity Monitor. It pops about every 5 seconds and is using anywhere from 5%-35% of the CPU and then goes away, then comes right back.I am having some system performance issues and I am wondering if this is the culprit.
Info:
MacBook
Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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May 30, 2010
I have never seen this before, to my recollection. It has no CPU activity, has 10 threads, 27.05 MB Real Memory, and 972.89 MB Virtual Memory.
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May 2, 2012
Had my Itunes hacked today and was just looking through my activity monitor for key-loggers and I found "Isboxd" which I can't find online so I just wanted to see what it was just in case before I deleted it.
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Mar 9, 2009
For some strange reason, my early 2008 Mac Pro keeps making hard-drive access sounds / head-moving sounds. It's been doing it non stop for 3 days now. The sounds are short, about 3 per second, about as fast as you would read this: "grind grind grind" then a short half-second pause, then repeat. Sometimes there's a longer 1-2 second delay. But it almost always seems like triplets, "grind grind grind"
I have no apps or background processes running that I've been able to discover. I've checked startup items, launch agents, and launch daemons.
I've checked Activity monitor but I see nothing unusual, and no correlation with any cpu activity.
I've checked disk utility and SMART is verified, permissions are repaired, and the disk is verified to be "OK."
I've tried fs_usage, lsof, and top, and see no correlation to anything.
I'm clearly missing something and am hoping someone can point out what it is? What else can I do to determine what the disk activity is doing? Are there any apps or other UNIX commands to check? Or is my drive dying?
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Apr 13, 2010
Okay, simple summary; I've got an external drive that I use for downloading large files, and for music (to reduce activity on my main drives), and this is exclusively used by Transmission (bittorrent), and iTunes as a result. However, very rarely I can hear the disk thrashing away, and this will continue even after I quit both programs, the only way I can seem to make it stop is by unmounting the drive and remounting it again.
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May 10, 2009
I usually just turn off my monitor at night but for some reason, the HD constantly makes spinning noise even then the computer hasn't been used for hours ( i don't run time machine ).
Is there any way to tell what process is causing this stupid HD activity? My previous Dell machine was so much more quiet than this POS. I prefer not having to explicitly put the machine the sleep every time.
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Sep 1, 2009
I have SL installed since the release day and I've noticed that for some reason my hard drive is a lot more active than it was before. At first I thought it was indexing something (such as the spotlight index that needs to be built) but this has been going on for days now. Even during very light computer work (just one firefox window with macrumors) de disk still keeps going like crazy. It's not constantly, but definitely way more frequent than on leopard.
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Mar 1, 2012
I have noticed a lot of disk activity reading and writing, it maxes out in bursts up to a couple of minutes at a time and overall seams to be reading and writing a lot of the time, with no processor activity at all. There is no obvious culprits in the activity monitor but terminal displayed large number of read and writes for mds, but spot light is not indexing (no dot in Mag glass) and this has been happening from months now.
Possibly longer noticed it when recieved replacement drive due to crook seagate, may have been doing this but could not hear it. Running last Snow Leopard on iMac 27 mid 2011 i7 custom with 8 gb of ram. also should note this unit has had load of issues Bad Ram, some software problems would not sleep (software) none of which have ever manifested on any of my other (older) macs. Also have noted that this drive activity does seem to coincide with using safari on occasion??
Info:
iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Jun 1, 2008
When I attempt to verify or repair disk permissions the process starts and then stops. The following message appears in a drop down message box: First Aid failed. Disk Utility stopped verifying (repairing) on G4HD because the following error was encountered: no valid packages. My disk verifies in working order. I have used DU from the installer disk and obtained the same resulting error message. I have run Tech Tool Pro's optimization and maintenance sequences. I reinstalled Security Update 2008-003 PPC thinking it might have been the problem. This permissions verification/repair problem and a problem with my firewire external HD and iPod failing to mount started after I installed the security update. (I am not asking for help with the firewire drive problems here - that is for another forum) I am running 10.4.11 on a G4. I guess my next step is to reinstall 10.4.6, the version I bought
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Apr 22, 2009
I have an alu iMac with a 500GB HDD. There is about 200GB free. Every time I run the Bootcamp Assistant, choose a Windows partition (doesn't matter what size), it sits with the progress bar spinning for ages before it gives me the error "Disk could not be partitioned as some files cannot be moved. Please reformat the disk and try again". There is no way I can back the disk up, reformat, reinstall and re-update everything. No other apps are running when I run the Bootcamp Assistant.
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Apr 22, 2012
I have made repeated attempts to burn playlists to disk. But now the tracks are recorded as untitled tracks (with numered order). When I reload the CD's to itunes, I'm prmpted that that itunes can't get track info. THis used to work perfectly, now fails every time. Interface errorr? Perhaps disks too old?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
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Jun 26, 2010
I've got a G5 iMac which is 5 years old now, it's got 2Gb RAM and 75Gb HD In the past couple of weeks it really slowed down and then it started having panic attacks and random freezes. It also crashed with a what appeared to be a wierd zig-zag pattern [see attached jpeg - this happens even when the log-inscreen is on] I hadn't installed any new applications or anything and it had been fine upto then. I've ran the hardware test a few times, which has said everything is fine: video, memory, logic board all passed. So I backed everything up, scrubbed the HD, installed a fresh system 10.4, which Software Upgrade then took upto 10.4.11; Installed some of the apps and put some data back on - but leaving about half of the HD empty The random crashes are happening more and more frequently, crashing, panic attacks and i am forced to do a hard restart every time Is there anyway out of this or is it a case of old machine, on its last legs and needing a new one?
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Sep 21, 2009
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.
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Feb 26, 2010
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).
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Oct 3, 2005
almost everytime I use airtunes, somewhere in the middle of a song, the music will quit unexpectedly. sometimes the music will resume in a three-count, sometimes longer, sometimes not at all. When i look at itunes, it looks like the song is just paused - meaning the little diamond that shows where you are in the song in the display along the top isn't inching along anymore, however the actual PAUSE button on the upper left has not been selected (meaning there is not a PLAY arrow displayed. the double bar PAUSE button is still showing). I have tried:
stopping the song (clicking the PAUSE button) and then starting it again
quitting itunes and restarting
restarting my ibook (G4)
unplugging my airport express and plugging it back in to reboot
using the airport admin aplication
completely unplugging EVERYTHING (modem, airport base station, airport extreme) and then slowly rebooting them all in order
upgrading itunes to the current version
at first, I thought it was a problem with airtunes, like the signal got lost or something, but after looking at itunes and realizing the song isn't *going* anymore, i thought the problem was with the application. but I don't know. I've never experienced this if i use the computer speakers, but then again, I hardly ever use them so I really don't know that for sure. oh, and I bought my airport base station *after* the airport express, and I'm pretty sure this problem was happening when my "network" was just my ibook and the express. (my experience level: I'm a former PC'er. I'm fairly knowlegable, but more on the software end. I know *nothing* when it comes to mac hardware.
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Jul 4, 2010
I you review this: [URL:...] you can see I have been dealing with this for a while. I am just about to run the apple hardware test again but I am hoping someone might have a new idea.
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Mar 9, 2010
I'm trying to diagnose problems with a friend's MacBook Air who due to language barriers cannot get help from the Apple Store. He has a Rev. A MacBook Air (with the 1.6GHz and 80GB HDD) and Snow Leopard. My friend is new at computers (this is his first computer) and only goes online to read the news, check the weather, travel research, etc. So the Air is the perfect machine for that. The issue started with a few weeks ago, he called me to ask me how to fix his internet. I wasn't sure where to start, but I suspected the Airport card. After testing the USB-to-Ethernet adapter which did not work, I figured it was something else. He told me everything gave him the "red" dot in Network Preferences (Well he didn't know to check there, as I had to tell him where to go). A PRAM reset fixed that which is good and he was able to go online again. Over the past few days he has called again because his computer would constantly freeze. At first it would be freezing and then it would work again after a few minutes. Sometimes it would just freeze and would require a forced shutdown (power button—5 seconds). Now of late it sometimes does not boot. I have been notified that it does boot past the gray screen, but stop right before when the desktop loads. Here is where it difficult: I do not know how to continue.
I can't have him run hardware tests off the Installation DVDs because he does not have an optical drive and even if he did, he would not be able to relay me the results of any test. I cannot have him take it to the Apple Store because well they wouldn't be able to speak his language). All my family friends come to me for computer help, so that's no good and his neighbors are well not Mac proficient and again call me for computer help. He does not email, text, send MMS, etc. So I can't even get the console files. I would like to suggest a Erase and Install, but again with no optical drive and the difficulty of explaining things over the phone—I don't think I can do it. Any one has suggestions on how to proceed? Maybe even what's wrong? The only thing I can think of is to give him my MacBook Air and have him give me his and then I can figure it out later, but that's a bit inconvenient (but I'm definitely willing to do that if that's the only solution).
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Feb 24, 2008
i just bought it and am having a little trouble exporting a track i made. i didnt do much to it, just cut it and can not figure out how to export. i go to the export option and then try and save it to the desktop but it is not there when i go to find it
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Jan 10, 2011
I'm not sure if this is cause for concern but it seems like my "free" memory has been really low as of late.
I use Safari and Mail 90% of the time. The other 10% is occasional iTunes use, MPlayer use, and Preview use. Is it time for me to upgrade to 4 GB of RAM?
Note - I do use the following extensions in Safari: AdBlock and YouTube5.
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Apr 3, 2009
I installed Leopard from an OS disk I purchased to upgrade from Tiger. I just went to launch Activity Monitor and it is not there? I checked Applications and Utilities. From what I read it seems that Leopard should have activity monitor.
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Jun 1, 2009
I ran clean my mac for the first time a couple days ago. ever since then I have been noticing that random apps won't open. I've only found 3 so far but it's a big problem. they are transmission, pixelmator, and activity monitor. now transmission and pixelmator I can redownload but how do I get activity monitor again.
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Sep 18, 2009
So maybe what I am looking for is in the activity monitor, but I just can't find it. I always see people on here posting screen shots of their CPU usage. If they have a quad core machine then there are four columns with blue in it showing the usage. Where can I find this in OS X, or is this a 3rd party program?
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Nov 5, 2009
Im running SL (updated of course) on my MacBook Pro 4,1. Im fairly new to Macs and to be honest I didnt even know about Activity Monitor till very recently. So I figured I would check out whats going on with my system and fire it up. Activity Monitor does not respond. It starts to open but then sits at this screen with a beach ball...
After a while I usually just Force Quit. Ive ran Onyx recently as well as Disk Repair and everything seems ok.
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Jun 27, 2010
so, not sure what I did, but recently these little windows pop up that tell me what certain applications are doing. Currently they show up when I change a song in itunes a last.fm window pops up to tell me the song changed, and it also pops up in skype it pops up telling me the other person is typing and when they send there message. It's probably something really dumb that I didn't realize I did, but I can't seem to figure it out.
They are all the last.fm windows covering the screen. They usually don't show up in that mass amount, but I just skipped through itunes so a bunch of them would show up and get the point across
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