Kernel Task is using CPU and slowing down MacBook

A few suggestions for you

1. You probably need more RAM, especially if you are using virtualization software
2. I’d get rid of
   1. Chrome
   2. the com.cycling74 driver (frequent flyer on this discussion)
   3. the google keystone agent (another frequent flyer. Known for slowing things down by frequent phoning home. The good folks at Google have a definite talent for writing software that does not play well with Mavericks.) HOWTO: Remove Google Software Update on Mac OS X - Raam Dev
3. the kodak stuff can’t be good.
4. in general you have a lot of background processes going on, all of which are running all the time, using up processor and memory resources, and most of which don’t actually do anything useful anyway.
5. these three need to be fixed:
   1. [failed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist
   2. [failed] com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication.plist
   3. [failed] com.apple.rcd.plist

Boot into your recovery partition (restart, hold down ⌘R until you see the Apple logo), and use Disk Utility to repair your hard drive. Repair permissions too while you're there. If that doesn’t work, reinstall Mavericks over your current installation. If that doesn’t work, do a clean reinstall (and don’t reinstall all the background processes you don’t need).

The 2 places I’ve seen recommended most to buy reliable RAM are below. I have purchased RAM several times from Other World Computing and have always been very satisfied with the product and service. They also have on-line instructions on how to replace the RAM. OWC has also tested RAM above what Apple states is the minimum. I now have 6GB installed on a machine supposedly limited to 4 GB.

Crucial

Other World Computing

You have already good advice from Arthur, point 5 however, let it go. nothing to do for now.

I concur with the need for more ram: too many PageOuts.

Uninstall Chrome and use either Safari or Firefox or Opera.

I am not sure about GlowWorm. Autodesk in the Cloud I am not familiar with either.

Take Autodesk out of the LoginItems.

Delete hp-message-center out of Library/LaunchAgents.

Start apps manually when you start using them, Quit apps when you stop using them.

get rid of it by uninstalling the app, that it is of.

Hello Niall, after rethinking it: I propose, in addition to the whole discussion, to uninstall Parallels Desktop completely, then restart and install it again (check that you have at least the latest update of version 8). It looks like a the actual installation is not correct. You loose nothing VM.

Lex

Hello Arthur,

I have the same problem... I just reinstalled my mac completely because if this problem. But it did not change at all.

Here my Etre check:

EtreCheck version: 1.9.13 (49)

Report generated 12. August 2014 22:02:06 MESZ

Hardware Information: ?

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) (Verified)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,2

1 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

8 GB RAM

Video Information: ?

Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 512 MB

AMD Radeon HD 6750M - VRAM: 1024 MB

Color LCD 1440 x 900

System Software: ?

OS X 10.9.4 (13E28) - Uptime: 0 days 5:9:59

Disk Information: ?

TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF disk0 : (750,16 GB)

S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

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

Fabian´s MacBook Pro (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 749,3 GB (182,04 GB free)

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

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-898

USB Information: ?

Apple Inc. iPhone

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Information: ?

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: ?

Mac App Store and identified developers

Kernel Extensions: ?

[loaded] com.sophos.kext.sav (9.0.61 - SDK 10.7) Support

[loaded] com.sophos.nke.swi (9.0.53 - SDK 10.8) Support

Startup Items: ?

TuxeraNTFSUnmountHelper: Path: /Library/StartupItems/TuxeraNTFSUnmountHelper

Problem System Launch Daemons: ?

[failed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist

Launch Daemons: ?

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support

[running] com.bjango.istatmenusdaemon.plist Support

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist Support

[running] com.sophos.autoupdate.plist Support

[running] com.sophos.configuration.plist Support

[running] com.sophos.intercheck.plist Support

[running] com.sophos.notification.plist Support

[running] com.sophos.scan.plist Support

[running] com.sophos.sxld.plist Support

[running] com.sophos.webd.plist Support

[loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist Support

[loaded] org.wireshark.ChmodBPF.plist Support

Launch Agents: ?

[running] com.bjango.istatmenusagent.plist Support

[running] com.sophos.uiserver.plist Support

[loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist Support

User Launch Agents: ?

[running] ws.agile.1PasswordAgent.plist Support

User Login Items: ?

iTunesHelper

GrowlHelperApp

Dropbox

Alfred

CleanMyDrive

Aktivitätsanzeige

Internet Plug-ins: ?

SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.1.0 Support

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 14.0.0.145 - SDK 10.6 Support

Flash Player: Version: 14.0.0.145 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30514.0 - SDK 10.6 Support

Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

Audio Plug-ins: ?

BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9

AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - 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 Support

Growl Support

Tuxera NTFS Support

Time Machine: ?

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU: ?

17% firefox

11% coreaudiod

7% WindowServer

4% Shazam

3% hidd

Top Processes by Memory: ?

516 MB firefox

131 MB SophosAntiVirus

123 MB SystemUIServer

106 MB Finder

98 MB mds_stores

Virtual Memory Information: ?

3.63 GB Free RAM

2.08 GB Active RAM

647 MB Inactive RAM

1.12 GB Wired RAM

916 MB Page-ins

5 MB Page-outs

Please help me.

Thank you in advance:)

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is marked solved, less people are likely to look at it. You can link to this one.

Try un-installing Sophos and CleanMyDrive.

Un-install using the developer’s instructions to make sure you remove all parts of the application. Some people recommend not installing an application unless you know how to remove it.

Sophos Uninstaller

I agree with Eris: start a new thread. If you want the participants in this thread to find you fast also put the link to the new thread here.

Take all entries out of the SystemPreferences/Users&Accounts/LoginItems (withe the minus sign).

After uninstalling Sophos and CleanMyDrive (by the makers of CleanMyMac, the wel known system crapper), as per EricRoot;

also uninstall Alfred, Growl, they ad nothing to Mavericks.

Your Flashplayer is outdated, read here to update it cleanly becauseyou have a mix of old and newer installed:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1267823

I am not familiar with the NTFS driver and its workings in Mavericks, if there is no need for it, uninstall it.

Dear Arthur,

here is mine. The same speed symptom and kernel task problem on iMac.

thanks for any suggestion.

EtreCheck version: 1.9.15 (52)

Report generated 1 Sep 2014 22:18:20 GMT+2

Hardware Information: ?

iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) (Verified)

iMac - model: iMac12,2

1 3.1 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 4 cores

4 GB RAM

Video Information: ?

AMD Radeon HD 6970M - VRAM: 1024 MB

iMac 2560 x 1440

System Software: ?

OS X 10.9.4 (13E28) - Uptime: 0 days 0:24:3

Disk Information: ?

WDC WD1001FALS-403AA0 disk0 : (1 TB)

S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

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

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 999,35 GB (599,55 GB free)

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

HL-DT-STDVDRW GA32N

USB Information: ?

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

2.0 8,29 GB

S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

DISK_IMG (disk1s1) /Volumes/DISK_IMG: 8,29 GB (7,91 GB free)

Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Information: ?

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: ?

Anywhere

Startup Items: ?

HW_CreateNetwork: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HW_CreateNetwork

HWPortDetect_driver: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWPortDetect_driver

Launch Daemons: ?

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support

[not loaded] com.gopro.stereomodestatus.plist Support

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist Support

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist Support

[loaded] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist Support

Launch Agents: ?

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist Support

User Launch Agents: ?

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support

User Login Items: ?

iTunesHelper

Internet Plug-ins: ?

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 14.0.0.145 - SDK 10.6 Support

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

Flash Player: Version: 14.0.0.145 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update

Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.6 Support

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30514.0 - SDK 10.6 Support

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 60 Check version

Audio Plug-ins: ?

BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9

AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9

iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

iTunes Plug-ins: ?

Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9

User Internet Plug-ins ?

Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 6.2 Support

3rd Party Preference Panes: ?

Flash Player Support

GoPro Support

Java Support

Time Machine: ?

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU: ?

23% firefox

8% WindowServer

2% plugin-container

1% coreaudiod

1% fontd

Top Processes by Memory: ?

365 MB firefox

139 MB com.apple.IconServicesAgent

135 MB WhatSize

102 MB plugin-container

82 MB Finder

Virtual Memory Information: ?

1010 MB Free RAM

1.58 GB Active RAM

622 MB Inactive RAM

842 MB Wired RAM

743 MB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

As to the others:

start a new thread. If you want the participants in this thread to find you fast also put the link to the new thread here.

Lex

Hello Arthur,

Could you help me with mine,

Here is my report

EtreCheck version: 1.9.15 (52)

Report generated 2 de septiembre de 2014 09:25:48 GMT-4

Hardware Information: ?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013) (Verified)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro10,2

1 3 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2 cores

8 GB RAM

Video Information: ?

Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: (null)

Color LCD 2560 x 1600

System Software: ?

OS X 10.9.4 (13E28) - Uptime: 10 days 14:14:34

Disk Information: ?

APPLE SSD SD512E disk0 : (500.28 GB)

S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 499.42 GB (157.5 GB free)

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

USB Information: ?

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Thunderbolt Information: ?

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: ?

Mac App Store and identified developers

Kernel Extensions: ?

[not loaded] com.ZTE.driver.ZTEUSBCDCACMData (1.3.6) Support

[not loaded] com.ZTE.driver.ZTEUSBMassStorageFilter (1.3.6) Support

[not loaded] com.displaylink.dlusbncm (1.11.0 - SDK 10.6) Support

[loaded] com.displaylink.driver.DisplayLinkDriver (2.1 - SDK 10.6) Support

[not loaded] com.motorola-mobility.driver.MotMobileMS (1.0.0 - SDK 10.5) Support

[not loaded] com.motorola-mobility.driver.MotMobileMTP (1.2.1 - SDK 10.5) Support

[not loaded] com.motorola-mobility.driver.MotMobileUSB (1.2.1 - SDK 10.5) Support

[not loaded] com.motorola-mobility.driver.MotMobileUSBLAN (1.2.1 - SDK 10.5) Support

[not loaded] com.motorola-mobility.driver.MotMobileUSBLANMerge (1.2.1 - SDK 10.5) Support

[not loaded] com.motorola-mobility.driver.MotMobileUSBSwch (1.2.1 - SDK 10.5) Support

[loaded] com.rim.driver.BlackBerryUSBDriverInt (0.0.67) Support

[not loaded] com.rim.driver.BlackBerryUSBDriverVSP (0.0.67) Support

Startup Items: ?

ChmodBPF: Path: /Library/StartupItems/ChmodBPF

Launch Daemons: ?

[running] cn.com.zte.PPPMonitor.plist Support

[failed] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support

[running] com.displaylink.displaylinkmanager.plist Support

[loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2.Agent.plist Support

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist Support

[loaded] com.parallels.mobile.kextloader.launchdaemon.plist Support

[running] com.rim.BBDaemon.plist Support

Launch Agents: ?

[not loaded] com.displaylink.useragent-prelogin.plist Support

[running] com.displaylink.useragent.plist Support

[running] com.parallels.mobile.prl_deskctl_agent.launchagent.plist Support

[running] com.rim.BBLaunchAgent.plist Support

User Launch Agents: ?

[loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.diskSpaceWatcher.plist Support

[loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.scheduledScan.plist Support

[loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.trashWatcher.plist Support

User Login Items: ?

iTunesHelper

iCleanMemory

Internet Plug-ins: ?

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 14.0.0.145 - SDK 10.6 Support

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

Flash Player: Version: 14.0.0.145 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update

Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.4.3 - SDK 10.6 Support

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30514.0 - SDK 10.6 Support

iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0 - SDK 10.8

Safari Extensions: ?

OpenIE

Audio Plug-ins: ?

BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9

AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - 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 Support

Time Machine: ?

Skip System Files: NO

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 465.12 GB Disk used: 318.44 GB

Destinations:

TimeMachine [Local] (Last used)

Total size: 465.44 GB

Total number of backups: 13

Oldest backup: 2014-07-26 13:30:26 +0000

Last backup: 2014-09-02 04:37:45 +0000

Size of backup disk: Too small

Backup size 465.44 GB < (Disk used 318.44 GB X 3)

Data [Network]

Total size: 2 TB

Total number of backups: 11

Oldest backup: 2014-07-02 16:10:51 +0000

Last backup: 2014-08-18 14:04:07 +0000

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 2 TB > (Disk size 465.12 GB X 3)

Time Machine details may not be accurate.

All volumes being backed up may not be listed.

Top Processes by CPU: ?

9% WindowServer

2% DisplayLinkUserAgent

1% Activity Monitor

1% DisplayLinkManager

1% fontd

Top Processes by Memory: ?

229 MB Mail

131 MB Safari

123 MB Finder

115 MB systemstats

115 MB WindowServer

Virtual Memory Information: ?

2.01 GB Free RAM

3.33 GB Active RAM

416 MB Inactive RAM

1.22 GB Wired RAM

7.40 GB Page-ins

290 MB Page-outs

As to the others:

start a new thread. If you want the participants in this thread to find you fast also put the link to the new thread here.

Give details in the next thread about what you did with CleanMyMac: if you did nothing else than cleaning caches, you may uninstall it completely and go on after restart. Otherwise it is now being advised to format your drive, install OSX, and reinstall apps you need, and transfer user data by hand (not from TM). CMM kills your system for goos.

And uninstall iCleanMemory: it is counterproductive to Mavericks, and badly programmed.

General advise: never download apps from sites as Softonics, Macupdate, Cnet (download.com) etcetera: they manipulate the installer to give access, and/or generate adware and so on.

Lex