Kernel_task on a new MacBook Air

Hi.

Has anyone had any luck getting his money back from Apple?

My MacBook Air 2,13 Ghz, Rev. C is barely usable.

Kernel_Task is using two times 100% of my CPU and I can't watch a movie or surf the web while syncing my iPhone.

The MBA is a complete disaster in engineering.

What is actually the position of Apple support at the moment? Do they acknowledge the problem?

Cheers
Marb

For what it's worth, I found a solution to my problem. I take a frozen gel pack, and lay the computer on it. The kernel_task problem resolves within seconds of doing this, so the problem is definitely thermal. I don't think I can get Apple engineering to change this, but at least the rapidly conducting aluminum case dissipates heat as soon as a heat sink is available.

I had the same issue that a lot of people have described above; Aggressive Kernel task, overheating, followed by involuntary shut downs. The hardware test returned error: 4SNS/1/40000000:TsOP-128.000. Which I've since learned means hard drive sensor error; ref: http://macosx.com/tech-support/mac/received-error-4sns-1-40000000-thop/333699.ht ml.
This started a month ago @ 2 years from the date of purchase. Coolbook and smcFanControl kept me in business for a short time until my keyboard and trackpad stopped responding; at least external peripherals still worked. Suspecting a firmware update was to blame, I wiped out the system and reinstalled, to no avail. So I gave up and brought it my certified apple repair shop and they determined it's probably the main logic board @ $600 to replace or we could send it back to Apple for a "lower half repair" for $360. I went for the later.

I just got it back today and Apple replaced the
main logic board,
left and right clutch,
antenna,
magnet,
bezel,
and
thermal module.

Wow am I ever glad I sent it back. I thought this machine was in pristine condition. Apparently it needed more help than I thought.

It's been running for 3 hours and so far so good. I'll give it a good test next week.
I do have one complaint. There's a consistent 3 second long ticking noise every 7 seconds; very consistent. It's getting quieter but it hasn't gone away yet.

Hi guys just picked up on this as a prob - to throw into the mix - got the 1.8 with flash when it first came out - has been fine until the last couple of months - use istat and sometimes it runs just fine in the high 70 degrees today its been playing up in the low 60's - not entirely sure its simply temperature based - certainly peeing me off though - shutting all running apps does always fix it though.

I don't the kernel issue is isolated to any specific model of MBA based on past threads... is an issue across the board....

I've had the same problem some months ago, called the service - they didn't know the problem 😉 They told me to get it checked at a service point - that's what I did. They said there's some sensor on the logicboard defective and they replaced the logicboard and the complete upper case including keyboard. No problems since then.

Dear walnussbaer.

You seem to be from Germany and it has been a cold winter there the last few month. I'm eager to know what your MBA does in late spring or summer. Please keep us posted.

Cheers
mar.b

I don't see any problems. I've already spent one summer with my air without any problems. Funnily the problems started in the winter...

How much did they charge you ? I am not covered by Apple Care any more and have the same problem. Anyone has any ideea about the price for that fix if it isn`t under warranty ?

They didn't charge me anything - it was unter warranty. I still don't know why they changed to whole upper body but it seemed to be nessecary. The costs would probably be enormous. I guess the logiboard alone would be around 700,-

APPLE Are you listening?!? This is just unbelievable. I have had this problem since I bought my MBP 4 years ago and I've been watching the threads for this problem...they come, they go. No one ever gets a reproducible fix for the problem and YOU say nothing and do nothing.

What is the root cause of the kernel_task running out of control? I want a fix for it. I really, REALLY do. I have been waiting for years nothing happens.

Yes, I love my machine. Yes, it's great. But NO you guys are out to lunch in the kernel_task-running-out-of-control department. *PLEASE OH PLEASE* say/do something????

I've had my MBA 2.13 SSD for about 8 months now. Things were good the first 4 months. Love how thin and light it is. Now, over the past say 3 solid months, it's barely usable. I see others saying the same thing.

I restart, repair permissions, sometimes trash system/user caches, but the overheating and resultant sputter keeps rearing its ugly head. I even have Flash disabled in Safari.

I also don't open more than 5 programs at any one time. Right now 4 apps are running (iTunes, TextEdit, Pages and Safari - 2 tabs open)... the Air is hot, CPU at 55 C. Boiling. Always boiling. Heats up within 5-10 minutes from sleep. I can't seem to do anything really substantial on this without it overheating and freezing. Very frustrating.

And I keep losing HD space. I read an interesting article about how OS X does not yet play nice with SSD. That when you delete things space isn't always freed up until you restart. I have confirmed this, sometimes seeing my available disk space upon restart increase by 4-5 GB. As I am typing this, I can feel the heat from this unit radiating everywhere...

Another poster said that the Air was an engineering disaster. He may be right. While there is so much to love about the Air, it's performance is beyond flawed. I can't really use this. I wonder what Apple will do for me. I have really given this a good run. And now that I have an iPad with a stand and a bluetooth keyboard, there seems to be even less reason to keep this, as it is, afterall, a companion to my larger MBP.

Just another overheated MBA user searching for answers... with none to be found.

I have tried the thermal test and it definitely has something to do with the kernel_task issue. Chilling the mac with gel packs reduced the percent of cpu used from 150 to .9%. I will be taking my MBA in for repair on Monday!

The answer is simply, the Air is broken by design, if your air first performend and now does not it seems to me you have dusty vents, let it check from your local repair center.
Blowing them out can give you another bunch of months until the entire thing reappears. Also if your environment is hot which is rather usual, then you might also run into thermal issues. (At least in my experience, at my last air months I was using dried cool gel packs to cool the lemon down which helped to keep the kernel task at bay)

But given my 2 years of constant gripes with the Air I can say is get rid of the lemon asap. The Air is simply a machine broken by design.

I am not on a 13 inch macbook pro and could not be happier, as portable as the air although heavier, and a real workhorse.

The root cause is pretty clear to me. In the first incarnation of OSX for the AIR the kernel task did not exist, but the air started to do core shutdowns due to thermal problems the machine has (or gets after a while), after that Apple issued an update which should get rid of the core shutdowns they were gone, but whenever the machine reaches a certain point of processor heat the kernel task, probably a task pushing idle instructions onto the processor rears its ugly head.

Just cool the machine down while you have it and you can see once the machine cools down the kernel task dissapears...
You do not need an official statement from Apple regarding all this. I had my Air long enough to figure it out myself.
Glad I got rid of this lemon, seriously.