kernel_task is using 100% CPU when waking from sleep

yup its finally solved in 10.9.2

rMBP late 2013

It seems to be solved for me, too.

(MBA 2013 13", 10.9.2.)

I tried everything that caused that problem previously and everything works fine 🙂

17" macbook pro mid 2011 experiencing memory leak, not exactly as described, but memory leak nonetheless with kernal task using 2-300% of cpu... fixed as of 10.9.2 (so far). thank god. 10.9.2 actually feels like the first stable release of mavericks.

now to just get apple remote desktop fixed.... 😝

Sad to say after two days of being ok after the 10.9.2 update my Macbook Air is once again suffering battery draining issues and the kernel_task 100% issue. Unfortunately if I can't trust my MBA to stay in sleep mode with the cover closed I am going to be forced to shut it down every day which kind of defeats the whole purpose of "instant on" access to my MBA.

Thanks Apple. I really wish I had not updated from 10.8.6 to Mavericks. 10.8..6 was working perfectly. ><

well you are making me paranoid. Mine is working fine since 10.9.2.

I just checked my syslog and noticed there were wake events occurring during the whole night while my MBA was in sleep mode. I also noticed after the 10.9.2 patch the PowerNap option had turned itself back on. I have now turned off the PowerNap and deleted and recreated my power management PLIST file and recreated it. Hopefully this will now fix the issue.

So, the 10.9.2 fix appears to have resolved the kernel_task problem ( for me, the answer was to quit iTunes ), and I know we've also had an iTunes update in the past few days.

Sadly, I'm now seeing a few problems with the MacBook Pro with Retina Display failing to resume after suspend ( wake up ).

I got a Crash Report: -

Date/Time: 2014-02-28 06:18:01 +0000

OS Version: 10.9.2 (Build 13C64)

Architecture: x86_64

Report Version: 18

Event: Sleep Wake Failure

Steps: 0

Hardware model: MacBookPro10,1

Active cpus: 8

================================================================

Code: 0x13006c00

Model: MacBookPro10,1, BootROM MBP101.00EE.B02, 4 processors, Intel Core i7, 2.3 GHz, 16 GB, SMC 2.3f36

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Built-In, 1024 MB

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, PCIe, 1024 MB

Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 8 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x484D5434314753364D465238432D50422020

Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 8 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x484D5434314753364D465238432D50422020

AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0xEF), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.100.22)

Bluetooth: Version 4.2.3f10 13477, 3 services, 15 devices, 1 incoming serial ports

Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en0

Serial ATA Device: APPLE SSD SM256E, 251 GB

USB Device: Hub

USB Device: FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

USB Device: Hub

USB Device: Hub

USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

USB Device: BRCM20702 Hub

USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Bus: MacBook Pro, Apple Inc., 23.4

earlier, and have sent that off to Apple.

Let's see what comes next ....

Ok the kernel_task 100% issue seems to have disappeared. The wake requests with cover closed are still occurring though. The battery isn't draining as bad as before but it still drained to 80% of zero usage over the weekend. 10.8.6 did not have this issue.

So something is still waking up the Air but without detail it is very hard to know what that is. I assume there is an active program installed with Mavericks that is checking the network at regular intervals. The trick is finding the culprit.

Mar 1 00:00:15 MacBook-Air kernel[0] <Debug>: Wake reason: ?

Mar 1 00:00:57 MacBook-Air kernel[0] <Debug>: Wake reason: ?

Mar 1 00:01:37 MacBook-Air kernel[0] <Debug>: Wake reason: ?

Mar 1 00:02:14 MacBook-Air kernel[0] <Debug>: Wake reason: ?

Mar 1 00:02:52 MacBook-Air kernel[0] <Debug>: Wake reason: ?

The above is an extract of the wake events.

Ok woke up this morning and noticed my Macbook Air fan was running 100% and my Mac was basically cooking itself inside my laptop cover. Enough is enough. I am going to do a full clear and reinstall of Mavericks to try and stop this major issue which to be honest has now become a health hazard especially if it cooks so badly the Air battery explodes. I am so f..king annoyed with myself that I went ahead and upgraded what was a perfectly working Air under Mountain Lion to this abomination called Mavericks.

I have sort of the same problem. I am not sure if kernel_task uses 100% of the CPU of my MBP.. Right now it doesn't is just uses around 3% (maybe because i just restarted my laptop), but my laptop is remarkably slow after installing Mavericks. I did'nt had this problem before. Before installing Mavericks I could easely run a few applications without having any speed problems. I recently installed Adobe CS6 aswell and I am only using Photoshop wich shouldn't take that much of my CPU.

Could someone take a look?

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,2

1 2 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

4 GB RAM

Video Information:

Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 384 MB

AMD Radeon HD 6490M - VRAM: 256 MB

System Software:

OS X 10.9.1 (13B42) - Uptime: 0 days 0:16:20

Disk Information:

TOSHIBA MK5065GSXF disk0 : (500,11 GB)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209,7 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 499,25 GB (191,31 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-898

USB Information:

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Configuration files:

/etc/hosts - Count: 15

Kernel Extensions:

com.iospirit.driver.rbiokithelper (1.21 - SDK 10.6)

Launch Daemons:

[System] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.iospirit.candelair.daemon.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.iospirit.candelair.sync.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.realvnc.vncserver.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist 3rd-Party support link

Launch Agents:

[System] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.parallels.desktop.launch.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.parallels.DesktopControlAgent.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.parallels.vm.prl_pcproxy.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.realvnc.vncserver.peruser.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.realvnc.vncserver.prelogin.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist 3rd-Party support link

User Launch Agents:

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link

[not loaded] com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-[...]@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist

[not loaded] com.facebook.videochat.[redacted].plist 3rd-Party support link

[not loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link

[not loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist 3rd-Party support link

[not loaded] com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper.plist 3rd-Party support link

User Login Items:

Spot Remote Server

smcFanControl

iTunesHelper

smcFanControl

Spotify

RightZoom

Internet Plug-ins:

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.4.4.2 3rd-Party support link

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 12.0.0.70 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0 - SDK 10.8

Flash Player: Version: 12.0.0.70 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

AdobePDFViewer: Version: 10.1.1 3rd-Party support link

Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

NP_2020Player_IKEA: Version: 5.0.7.0 3rd-Party support link

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.1.0 3rd-Party support link

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.10411.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Outdated! Update

Audio Plug-ins:

BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9

AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9

iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

iTunes Plug-ins:

Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Flash Player 3rd-Party support link

Flip4Mac WMV 3rd-Party support link

Growl 3rd-Party support link

Old Applications:

DockPlistEdit: Version: 7.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

/Library/Parallels/Uninstaller/Parallels Hypervisor/DockPlistEdit.app

SLLauncher: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight/OutOfBrowser/SLLauncher.app

Wondershare Helper Compact: Version: 2.2.6.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

/Applications/Wondershare Helper compact/Wondershare Helper Compact.app

SA Color Finesse 3 UI: Version: 3.0.6(275) - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

/Applications/Adobe After Effects CS6/Plug-ins/Effects/Synthetic Aperture/(CF3 Support)/SA Color Finesse 3 UI.app

dynamiclinkmanager: Version: 6.0.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/dynamiclink/CS6/dynamiclinkmanager.app

Wondershare Helper Compact: Version: 2.2.6.4 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

/Users/[redacted]/Library/Application Support/Helper/Wondershare Helper Compact.app

dynamiclinkmediaserver: Version: 6.0.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/dynamiclinkmediaserver/1.0/dynamiclinkmediaserver.app

Remote Buddy: Version: 1.22 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link

Time Machine:

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

3% WindowServer

2% EtreCheck

2% Activity Monitor

1% sysmond

0% netbiosd

Top Processes by Memory:

143 MB com.apple.IconServicesAgent

135 MB Google Chrome

90 MB mds_stores

82 MB Spotify

61 MB WindowServer

Virtual Memory Information:

1.04 GB Free RAM

1.52 GB Active RAM

524 MB Inactive RAM

947 MB Wired RAM

430 MB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

Thanks.

I've been having the same issue and just stumbled across this post. I unplugged my headset and, just as everyone else describes, kernel_task stops growing, and it is slowly shrinking now. I can not imagine why it has not been addressed in the latest update (I'm running 10.9.2).

I too have notice my fan running and upon opening Activity Monitor I see the Kernel Task problem. Upon awaking I don't see the issue until after 10 minutes or so...

Another thing too, my Mac (Mavericks) Mini runs 24/7. My Sound is run through an Audioengine D1, so the random CPU usage is bypassed? Or not? Either way it is an issue. I can only think that there is a backround script running at various times throughout the day. Hope this helps.

Sitting here in kernel_task la la land.

I have a vintage Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro running 10.9.2

The kernal_task problem just began for me, out of the blue. I can not recall any updates other than 10.9.2 about a week ago. The CPU usage is floating between 550 to 700% and has rendered this machine useful useless for much of the work I need to do.

In the pursuit of fancy new technology perhaps Apple has broken the stable old technologies. I got up at 3.30am to get working on a project and it's now 5.30am, all time so far wasted reading many others' same problems.

My 2008 MACPRO died last week, and now this, what should I do!?

After 10 years with Apple I might give Microsoft a call.

Yes, the audio plug removal, sleep/wake cycle seems to kill the problem but then it starts again a few minutes later.

System uses 80% CPU, User using 5% and Idle is 15%. Welcome back bloatware, not!

Heading off to find a thread on how to clean install 10.8 and hoping it doesn't take a day to do!

Hi guys,

what are the standard numbers for kernel_task for CPU and Memory as well? I have MBA 2013 13".

Thank you

There are no standard numbers, once anything is installed on a new Mac it becomes non standard.