Brand new 15" i7, kernal_task 584 MB! Slow!

[UnreaL]

So I guessed at first this was just a corrupt install, so I just did a clean install but my kernal_task is still happily sitting at ~584 MB real memory.

Before this, the system was easily reaching 1.4 GB kernal_task real memory, which, is as I'm sure you can imagine, makes the system painfully slow

What can possibly explain this? I'd be very grateful for any suggestions!

 

[UnreaL]

To keep this up to date; I have tried:

1) PRAM reset
2) SMU reset

No USB devices, waited for spotlight to do it's index, so that's not it.

I'm writing this from a 2010 13" also with 4GB memory, a fresh install on this takes less than 200 mb real memory with the kernal_task.

Trying a fresh install after zero'ing the HDD now.