what is kernel_task???

[beaumk]

so, i exchanged my problematic MBPr 13" 512 8G.
and for 3 days, i had no problem and as i monitors "Activity Monitor"
i did not see kernel_task.
it was yesterday, when this demon came back on......
now it takes up 2.4GB of ram and only takes more and more as time goes by.

i googled about kernel_task and i found no luck about this situation.
kernel panic has not happened yet, but im so worried...

rebooting only does decrease the amount of ram taken to about 500MB not eliminating the process...

what the heck is this and how do you guys deal with it?
my friend who has mav. on his 2010 MBP never gets kernel_task.

every post i googled said that kernel_task is part of OS X, then how come some do see them but not all?

 

[WallToWallMacs]

so, i exchanged my problematic MBPr 13" 512 8G.
and for 3 days, i had no problem and as i monitors "Activity Monitor"
i did not see kernel_task.
it was yesterday, when this demon came back on......
now it takes up 2.4GB of ram and only takes more and more as time goes by.

i googled about kernel_task and i found no luck about this situation.
kernel panic has not happened yet, but im so worried...

rebooting only does decrease the amount of ram taken to about 500MB not eliminating the process...

what the heck is this and how do you guys deal with it?
my friend who has mav. on his 2010 MBP never gets kernel_task.

every post i googled said that kernel_task is part of OS X, then how come some do see them but not all?

Because by default 'Activity Monitor' doesn't show all processes by default, only the user processes. Regarding memory usage - there is allocated and actually memory used and kernel_task takes into account memory that has been allocated out of main memory for the video card - that is the case for dedicated video cards as well since it uses main memory as spill over capacity when video card memory runs out.

 

[Peace]

kernel_task is the OS kernel..It loads the low level drivers for the computer.

 

[beaumk]

unfortuntely,

i just had kernel panic!!!!!!
srly!!!


Anonymous UUID: 6F07DE48-9AA4-8091-9FB7-707FF0BACB47

Sat Feb 1 20:23:42 2014
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff8011e5211d): "zalloc: zone map exhausted while allocating from zone buf.8192, likely due to memory leak in zone kalloc.64 (1011552192 total bytes, 15805502 elements allocated)"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-2422.75.4/osfmk/kern/zalloc.c:2494
Backtrace (CPU 2), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff8115d5ade0 : 0xffffff8011e22f69
0xffffff8115d5ae60 : 0xffffff8011e5211d
0xffffff8115d5af60 : 0xffffff8011fc7a0a
0xffffff8115d5afc0 : 0xffffff8011fc73fb
0xffffff8115d5b090 : 0xffffff8011fc66c1
0xffffff8115d5b0d0 : 0xffffff8011fc6897
0xffffff8115d5b0f0 : 0xffffff8012156dc2
0xffffff8115d5b150 : 0xffffff801219100c
0xffffff8115d5b170 : 0xffffff801218e0f7
0xffffff8115d5b280 : 0xffffff8012159051
0xffffff8115d5b420 : 0xffffff8012158d14
0xffffff8115d5b4a0 : 0xffffff8012168fb6
0xffffff8115d5b670 : 0xffffff8011ffc30b
0xffffff8115d5b6d0 : 0xffffff8011fd4d7b
0xffffff8115d5b750 : 0xffffff8011fd46d4
0xffffff8115d5b810 : 0xffffff8011ff3814
0xffffff8115d5b8b0 : 0xffffff8011ff358d
0xffffff8115d5ba20 : 0xffffff8011fdd8d2
0xffffff8115d5bc00 : 0xffffff80121afb3c
0xffffff8115d5bc30 : 0xffffff8011e230a4
0xffffff8115d5bc60 : 0xffffff8011e22eef
0xffffff8115d5bce0 : 0xffffff8011e5211d
0xffffff8115d5bde0 : 0xffffff7f929f2726
0xffffff8115d5be60 : 0xffffff7f929f215c
0xffffff8115d5bee0 : 0xffffff7f929f1e0b
0xffffff8115d5bf30 : 0xffffff80122320c5
0xffffff8115d5bf60 : 0xffffff801223d497
0xffffff8115d5bfb0 : 0xffffff8011ef32b8
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.kec.pthread(1.0)[619F6A5D-FFA2-3B59-9993-958FD7154B83]@0xffffff7f929ed000->0xffffff7f929f7fff

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: Google Chrome He

Mac OS version:
13A3028

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 13.0.2: Sun Sep 29 19:38:57 PDT 2013; root:xnu-2422.75.4~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: C51C3998-66EA-3C1B-A46E-90943DA76DF4
Kernel slide: 0x0000000011c00000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff8011e00000
System model name: MacBookPro11,1 (Mac-189A3D4F975D5FFC)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 88078305236842
vm objects:34153728
vm object hash entri:4641960
VM map entries:4660240
pv_list:13271040
vm pages:146312568
kalloc.16:99200288
kalloc.32:81498816
kalloc.64:1011552192
kalloc.128:1000620032
kalloc.256:671780864
kalloc.512:16650240
kalloc.1024:3596288
kalloc.2048:1523712
kalloc.4096:27246592
kalloc.8192:3710976
mem_obj_control:1853984
ipc ports:3556640
threads:1179072
vnodes:31705680
namecache:10771200
HFS node:43315680
HFS fork:14860288
decmpfs_cnode:4177152
buf.8192:85180416
ubc_info zone:8366760
vnode pager structur:3910720
Kernel Stacks:3244032
PageTables:68849664
Kalloc.Large:18605649

Backtrace suspected of leaking: (outstanding bytes: 93184)
0xffffff8011e51c23
0xffffff8011e2aa2f
0xffffff801224b48d
0xffffff80122b649e
0xffffff7f93ef84a8
0xffffff7f9263c116
0xffffff7f9263c1d3
0xffffff7f92636eeb
0xffffff7f92636e65
0xffffff7f926163fd
0xffffff7f9260da58
0xffffff7f9260d9ef
0xffffff7f9260be29
0xffffff7f9264ae17
0xffffff7f9264adc6
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily(4.2.1f2)[A57E3391-213B-352D-8A95-4E4B245748F9]@0xffffff7f92606000->0xffffff7f926a2fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily(660.4.2)[EA8F4997-7E83-3705-BCB8-2D9CE09A528C]@0xffffff7f924a6000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily(23)[D203F7D3-47CA-382B-B401-8535CD4CBC49]@0xffffff7f925f5000
com.apple.driver.IOBluetoothHIDDriver(4.2.1f2)[5F88A211-A579-3D6E-84CC-8D0313372781]@0xffffff7f93ef3000->0xffffff7f93f04fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily(2.0.0)[54E6C360-B687-3491-BE0B-2AE9D4620140]@0xffffff7f92567000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily(4.2.1f2)[A57E3391-213B-352D-8A95-4E4B245748F9]@0xffffff7f92606000

last loaded kext at 22452242699468: com.apple.filesystems.smbfs 2.0.0 (addr 0xffffff7f93f1e000, size 335872)
last unloaded kext at 21417681882231: com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCDC 4.2.1b5 (addr 0xffffff7f93f1e000, size 16384)
loaded kexts:
com.razer.common.razerhid 8.66
com.apple.filesystems.smbfs 2.0.0
com.apple.filesystems.autofs 3.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient 3.5.13
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager 4.2.1f2
com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC 1.60
com.apple.driver.ApplePlatformEnabler 2.0.9d1
com.apple.driver.AGPM 100.14.14
com.apple.driver.X86PlatformShim 1.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA 2.5.8fc1
com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet 1.0.0d1
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltIP 1.0.10
com.apple.driver.AppleSMCLMU 2.0.4d1
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X 7.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHWAccess 1
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC 1.7.0
com.apple.driver.AppleCameraInterface 4.20.0
com.apple.driver.AppleBacklight 170.3.5
com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl 1.1.12
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelHD5000Graphics 8.2.0
com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport 4.2.1f2
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelFramebufferAzul 8.2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCButtons 240.2
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyboard 240.2
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader 3.4.0
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless 1.0.0d1
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib 1.0.0d1
com.apple.BootCache 35
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub 660.4.0
com.apple.driver.XsanFilter 404
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage 2.4.5
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort 2.9.5
com.apple.driver.AirPort.Brcm4360 820.21.47
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBXHCI 660.4.2
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleSmartBatteryManager 161.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET 1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC 1.7
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall 153
com.apple.security.quarantine 3
com.apple.driver.IOBluetoothHIDDriver 4.2.1f2
com.apple.kext.triggers 1.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 10.0.7
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib 2.5.8fc1
com.apple.vecLib.kext 1.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily 1.9.4fc11
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib 1.14
com.apple.driver.X86PlatformPlugin 1.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily 4.2.1f2
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC 3.1.6d1
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 5.7.0d1
com.apple.driver.AppleBacklightExpert 1.0.4
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController 1.0.11d1
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface 91
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport 2.4
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport 4.2.1f2
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController 2.5.8fc1
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily 2.5.8fc1
com.apple.AppleGraphicsDeviceControl 3.4.28
com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2 98.9
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily 2.4
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMultitouch 240.9
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver 660.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPInAdapter 3.1.2
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltDPAdapterFamily 3.1.2
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltPCIDownAdapter 1.4.3
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice 3.6.5
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass 3.6.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily 3.6.5
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub 650.4.0
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite 656.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient 660.4.2
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily 2.6.0
com.apple.driver.AppleThunderboltNHI 1.9.8
com.apple.iokit.IOThunderboltFamily 3.2.3
com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family 600.34
com.apple.driver.mDNSOffloadUserClient 1.0.1b4
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily 3.2
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily 660.4.2
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily 2.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM 2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime 2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily 1.1
com.apple.security.sandbox 278.10
com.apple.kext.AppleMatch 1.0.0d1
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 7
com.apple.driver.AppleKeyStore 2
com.apple.driver.DiskImages 371.1
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily 1.9
com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily 23
com.apple.driver.AppleFDEKeyStore 28.30
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform 2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily 2.8
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily 1.4
com.apple.kec.pthread 1
com.apple.kec.corecrypto 1.0
Model: MacBookPro11,1, BootROM MBP111.0138.B03, 2 processors, Intel Core i5, 2.6 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 2.16f58
Graphics: Intel Iris, Intel Iris, Built-In, 1024 MB
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x112), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (6.30.223.154.47)
Bluetooth: Version 4.2.1f2 12982, 3 services, 23 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en0
Serial ATA Device: APPLE SSD SM0512F, 500.28 GB
USB Device: Internal Memory Card Reader
USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
USB Device: BRCM20702 Hub
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Thunderbolt Bus: MacBook Pro, Apple Inc., 17.2

 

[Shrapnel]

I notice you seem to have Razer's drivers loaded. I was seeing pretty similar random kernel panics on a system I have. With the backtraces being in the IO USB and Bluetooth area I would uninstall those first myself personally. Their Mac drivers need some work in my opinion.

Good luck.

-Shrapnel

 

[Weaselboy]

my friend who has mav. on his 2010 MBP never gets kernel_task.

every post i googled said that kernel_task is part of OS X, then how come some do see them but not all?

Prior to Mavericks, the Activity Monitor only showed "user" processes and kernel task (KT) was not shown by default. Now with Mavericks (like you have) all processes including KT are shown by default. This is why you are reading about some users seeing it and others not. If you did not see it on Mavs earlier it is because you had the sort order of the process list set in such a way KT was not in the viewable part of the list, but it was there.

Think of KT as sort of the traffic police for other system processes. It controls most operations to/from the OS. So if, for example, you have a driver (process) acting up and consuming high CPU cycles that will normally manifest as high KT memory and CPU usage. So KT is not the problem, it is just a symptom of the problem... and that is some underlying process running amok.

Try getting rid of the Razer drivers like Shrapnel suggested then reboot. If you still have the problem, start Activity Monitor and go to the CPU pane and sort by CPU usage, then look for any processes with high CPU usage.