kernel_task

Bits_n_Bobs

hi all,

I am running os x 10.4.11 and it is very unstable at the moment, I have been checking the Activity Monitor as the hard drive seems to be doing some serious reading / writing occasionally, when I am not really saving / opening stuff.

Everything seems ok, except in the Disk Activity viewer I can see that I am indeed getting huge spikes. The other thing that is strange looking (to my mac-ignorant eyes) is that kernel_task is gobbling up 1.2gb of virtual memory, could this be the reason for the unstability?

I have already run disk repair, verify disk permissions etc - all to no effect by the way

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

thanks

b_n_b

babypink

what apps are you running? How much RAM have you? Are all RAM modules working?

A screenshot of activity monitor or top would be very helpful (while going through one of these phases)

Bits_n_Bobs

In terms of aps, usually some Adobe CS3 ones, MS Office ones (Entourage pretty much always), Yahoo messenger and firefox

4x512mb of ram, in the status of the 'About this computer' window they are all marked ok, its a Dual Core Intel 2.66ghz processor, not sure how that might have any bearing on things, but then I am no expert on all or anything Mac:)

I have attached a screen grab of the Activity Monitor as per your suggestion, unfortunately it is not going through the usual phase - the usual phase is a spike in the read data on the chart at the bottom, which I assume is Data Written, however you can see that kernel task hogging 1.2gb of virtual data!!

Any help / suggestions would be great,

Thanks

eddyc

Its probably spotlight indexing your drive. You can turn it off in the preferences, its crap in tiger anyway

Bits_n_Bobs

Thanks eddyc - is it just a matter of dragging the hard drive icon into the 'Privacy' window pane in the spotlight preferences to do this (I am clueless!!)?

leeroybrown

The kernel's memory space and page caches are probably accounted for against the kernel_task process. That particular memory is nothing to worry about.

babypink

spotlight is looked after by the mds process....eddyc is probably right about spotlight being the cause. Next time it happens open a terminal window and type "top -u" or sort the activity monitor by CPU usage.....this'll give you the culrpit of the heavy HD usage. kernel_task looks after most of the underlying low-level OS functions. I wouldn't be worried about it unless it chews up lots of CPU....then you're looking at maybe dodgy drivers. That kind of VM usage is fine.

When you say unstable, what do you mean?

Bits_n_Bobs

Thanks for the replies - what I mean by unstable is frequent crashes with no pattern that I can discern (by this I mean no one particular app seems to cause the crash).

Generally when the crash occurs I have to switch the machine off by holding the button down for 5/10 secs (dunno what the phraseology for this is). Once I have done that and restart it it does not pick up the hard disk. Even inserting the install CD and booting from that, it still does not pick up the hard disk in disk utilities. What (weirdly!!) seems to work is leaving the machine switched off for 1/2 an hour or so and THEN restarting it - hey presto, its back up and running!!

I know this sounds mad, and I cannot figure out any logic to it (but I claim zero intelligence in anything mac), but its driving me nuts. I switched from a pc platform (which had its own share of problems, but I could generally figure them out) to this new mac, and I loooooove it, but this is insane!

Thanks again for your suggestions to date!

babypink

first thing i'd suggest is to run the Apple Hardware Test, because this is kinda strange!

- Insert Disc 1 of the restore discs you got with the machine.
- Reboot and hold D as soon as the chimes sound.....keep it held until this icon appears
http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/51/3030811169100361/www.info.apple.com/images/kbase/303081/303081_1.jpg
- Do the full test when it loads up

Bits_n_Bobs

Thanks for the tip Babypink, ran that, it passed no problems came up! I guess I should be somewhat relieved lol

I will try to catch the heavy hd usage with activity monitor set on the CPU usage next time it happens - I have no understanding of the terminal window, and am slightly concerned that if I go near it I will f*sk up more than I solve...

Thanks again