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Mac/Apple comp help...

Discussion in 'Other Off Topic Forum' started by Seth, Dec 2, 2006.

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  1. Seth

    Seth Formula 3

    Feb 8, 2004
    1,551
    Texas
    #1 Seth, Dec 2, 2006
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    im not a member of any apple forums or anything and havent searched around much, but does anyone know what this 'kernal task' is??? and why in the world is it using so many resources????? and how do i get rid of it? i clicked on 'quit process' told me it might mess up stuff, didnt care, clicked ok, entered my password then, nothing happened...

    anyone know?

    also it is taking up the most real, virtual memory, the next highest is safari with 66 MB real, and 281 virtual mem!!!?!
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  2. Doody

    Doody F1 Veteran

    Nov 16, 2001
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    #2 Doody, Dec 2, 2006
    OSX is built on top of UNIX. their flavor of UNIX uses a Mach Kernel. i don't know specifically about OSX, but in theory that's your Mach Kernel. it's the core of what's running the computer.

    i have no clue if that level of resource usage is appropriate, but i assume you don't generally want to screw around with that process.

    i'm sure someone more knowledgeable of OSX can chime in (my Mach experience is from my NeXT days way back when).

    doody.
     
  3. Seth

    Seth Formula 3

    Feb 8, 2004
    1,551
    Texas
    #3 Seth, Dec 2, 2006
    thats what i thought at first, but this kernal "appeared" a while ago... it never used to be there, for a while after it appeared safari ran very very slow... then i stopped some kernal that was linked to safari and its been working fine since then... but this one is still there...
     
  4. WJHMH

    WJHMH Two Time F1 World Champ
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    #4 WJHMH, Dec 2, 2006
    As a new Mac user, I'm glad to know this.
     
  5. djui5

    djui5 F1 Veteran

    Aug 9, 2006
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    #5 djui5, Dec 2, 2006
  6. Seth

    Seth Formula 3

    Feb 8, 2004
    1,551
    Texas
    #6 Seth, Dec 3, 2006
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    very intresting... i dug around in console and what not and in activity monitor and found how each process has a parent process, well all pretty much lead to kernal_task, then while in console i found a MASSIVE error log, something like 3000 pages long about some error loading "something" i say something cause its all in Hex... hmmmm, i just need to find a way to stop that...

    here is the info on kernal_task and safari... from what i can figure the kernal is stuck trying to load something that just isnt there and hung up on it??? notice how the kernal task has no unix or system calls??
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  7. Kingair33

    Kingair33 Formula Junior

    Aug 28, 2006
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    #7 Kingair33, Dec 3, 2006
    Hi Seth not to jack the thread but me and Blair tried to call you last night or the night before but I just wanted to say hi officially. Ohh and eventually I will post pics of the Aston bits on facebook but it doesnt like my computer right now.

    Alex.
     
  8. CGIEGER

    CGIEGER Karting

    Mar 3, 2006
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    Chris Gieger
    #8 CGIEGER, Dec 4, 2006
  9. Seth

    Seth Formula 3

    Feb 8, 2004
    1,551
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    #9 Seth, Dec 4, 2006
    hahahahahahaha did you try and call on friday???
     
  10. Kingair33

    Kingair33 Formula Junior

    Aug 28, 2006
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    #10 Kingair33, Dec 4, 2006
    Something like that, my memory is a little foggy for some reason...
    does the cell still work on the island?
     
  11. Seth

    Seth Formula 3

    Feb 8, 2004
    1,551
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    #11 Seth, Dec 4, 2006
    intresting... ive tried flashing the memory already, and nothing happened. but there was a while back when i tried to us an HP printer and my computer was not happy about that...

    also the error log isnt hex... started translating it and its just all jibberish...
     
  12. CGIEGER

    CGIEGER Karting

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    #12 CGIEGER, Dec 5, 2006
    Ya know...I'm starting to wonder if this is an issue at all or if it's just what the kernal_task is supposed to require...like Doody suggested. And, maybe it's only now monitoring the memory usage properly ever since a recent OS update.
    Have you noticed any major performance issues?
    FWIW: right now my kernal_task is using 122 MB: Real Memory and 1.57 GB: Virtual Memory...and I don't notice any performance issues. And, I have the following programs open: Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, Acrobat, Firefox, Safari, Excel, PowerPoint, Entourage, iChat, QuarkXpress, Dashboard and Activity Monitor. Then again, I'm using a 2.5 GHz Quad Core G5 with 2.5 GB RAM.
     
  13. Seth

    Seth Formula 3

    Feb 8, 2004
    1,551
    Texas
    #13 Seth, Dec 5, 2006
    i only notice major issues with safari, and when ever i get that spinning wheel thing happening, i'll check the activity monitor and the #threads running starts jumping back and forth between 47 and 48... quite random and odd... also if i have to run virtual PC to access MS acess everynow and then i have to turn off everything, including all widgets to get enough RAM other wise the kernal task will take it up... b4 i could run virtual PC, itunes, ichat, and safari, as well as have an external HD plugged in and it was fine... now i cant...

    also my specs are 1.5Ghz powerPC g4, w/ 1Gig Ram... 2 years old now? i think... pretty old but still running strong
     
  14. CGIEGER

    CGIEGER Karting

    Mar 3, 2006
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    Chris Gieger
    #14 CGIEGER, Dec 6, 2006

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