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kernel_task

post #1 of 4
4/21/07 at 10:38pm
Thread Starter 
I noticed something odd in my Activity Monitor lately.

The kernel_task process has 49 threads running and always uses up 70+ Mb of memory.

What's even scarier is that immediately after a reboot, without opening up any apps (beside Activity Monitor), I saw the same 49 processes and use of RAM, as well as occasional spikes in my network usage! I saw spikes mostly for the green line (data received) but also for data sent as well.

Is this just some regular polling process (possibly with my router), or do I have reason to be paranoid?
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post #2 of 4
4/22/07 at 3:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JavaCowboy View Post

I noticed something odd in my Activity Monitor lately.

The kernel_task process has 49 threads running and always uses up 70+ Mb of memory.

What's even scarier is that immediately after a reboot, without opening up any apps (beside Activity Monitor), I saw the same 49 processes and use of RAM, as well as occasional spikes in my network usage! I saw spikes mostly for the green line (data received) but also for data sent as well.

Is this just some regular polling process (possibly with my router), or do I have reason to be paranoid?

OMG, someone is HaXXoring teh MatriXX.

Kernel_task is nothing to worry about. It's a system process that normally has loads of threads:

http://bleepsoft.com/tyler/index.php?itemid=43

The Network activity can be a bit deceiving because I'm sure it scales the graph based on the usage. So even just transmitting 5k of data or something would show a spike when the network is not in use. If you ethernet two computers together, they transmit small amounts of data on their own.
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post #3 of 4
4/22/07 at 12:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JavaCowboy View Post

I noticed something odd in my Activity Monitor lately.

The kernel_task process has 49 threads running and always uses up 70+ Mb of memory.

What's even scarier is that immediately after a reboot, without opening up any apps (beside Activity Monitor), I saw the same 49 processes and use of RAM, as well as occasional spikes in my network usage! I saw spikes mostly for the green line (data received) but also for data sent as well.

Is this just some regular polling process (possibly with my router), or do I have reason to be paranoid?

This link might be a little clearer. But in layman's terms, the kernel is quartermaster of the OS. It hands out resources and runs some lower-level tasks. It's a pretty important function, and it's pretty essential. On my iBook, it uses about 10% of my RAM and about 5% of my processing power.

So you likely have little to worry about. If you're kernel's messed up, you'll notice.
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post #4 of 4
4/22/07 at 4:43pm
The kernel also transmits info over network loopback to communicate between processes. So even though you are getting enet traffic, it isn't leaving the machine for kernel_task communications.
Hiro's Hall of Shame ignore list: Tulkas -- because we know he wasn't born dumb.
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Hiro's Hall of Shame ignore list: Tulkas -- because we know he wasn't born dumb.
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