kernel_task consuming a lot of memory

nate

I'm running latest High Sierra OS, and keep seeing a very large kernel_task footprint in the Activity Monitor.

Any idea what that might be?



Thanks!

John

Thanks for the post, and sorry for the delay!

I'm less familiar with software issues than hardware -- my answer to OS problems is generally to wipe the drive and reinstall. :-) But I am curious how long it's been since you've done that, since people who have simply upgraded their OS since the beginning of time do tend to have some unique issues. If you have an external drive, it may be worth putting a fresh install of HS on that and seeing if the same problem occurs.

Basic question, but have you upgraded your HS to the latest incremental release?

Looking around online, it seems that many people with 2012-ish retina Pros are seeing this issue when they have an external display connected, presumably because the display is fairly taxing on the GPU, which increases the size of the kernel_task as it tries to compensate. So you might try disconnecting your monitor to see if anything changes. Many claim the same problem since Sierra...have you only seen the issue since the HS upgrade?

I haven't experienced this on my machine with a 27" display, but I have a 2014 15" Pro, so the difference in GPU might explain it (if the GPU is in fact related to the problem at all).