How to disable the startup of an unwanted system process that uses up CPU recources?

[t0gg1e4u]

Hi

since recently I have a system-process that runs under root that coggs up to 25% of my CPU time just after start up. It is called 'sh' and I assume I installed it unintentionally through an old installation app a couple of days ago. I am able to kill the script (I assume thats what it is) withought having any problems otherwise and without beeing restarted by the system (thats the reason why I assume its not an operating system process - beside i didnt have this a couple of days ago).
Now I could live on killing it everytime I start my system, but I would prefer to disable it all together. is there a way to identify the script file and/or the place this script is started? -> I do think it is started through launchd, since this is a parent process of this 'sh'-process. And no, I dont have an uninstall script.

I am using os x 10.6.2

thanks

martin

 

[maflynn]

sh is usually a script shell so its executing something, how dow you know its not needed. What did you install or run? What happens when you kill it, does it restart again?

 

[t0gg1e4u]

I dont know, I just assume:

- it doesnt restart after killing it.
- my system seems to run smoothly without it
- a couple of days ago after startup the CPU usage was normal: more than 90% idle (right now I am running blender, firefox, itunes, mail and actvitymonitor and they together use only 4% - idle 90%). with that shell script system activity goes up to 45% without having anything started. which really doesnt sound like a core process.
- I do think I got through an installation of a software that didnt work for my system - but I am not sure and there is no uninstall script.

 

[t0gg1e4u]

It was as I thought. A StartupItem inside /library/StartupItems. This little application was very usefull to identify the script:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8056/process-wizard