Anyone having or had a problem with kernel_task running uploads in back ground and can't figure out what its doing

Question

My iMac is running kernel_task and using a lot of upload bandwidth. I talked to isp this morning he said that I was topping out on the upload side while download was normal. He also said that it started about 3 weeks ago but I've been looking and trying to remember what I did as far as installing or changing setting and I can't figure it out, also using a magicjack on computer but tried without it and still the same and its hard to use the phone when other party only gets every other 4 or 5 words. HELP PLEASE!! driving me crazy.

Answer 1

You have something that is uploading data from your network, so you may have a runaway application doing this. If you quit all your running applications does the problem still exist? If so then you may have a corrupted system process.
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder.  Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu.  Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order.  If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar.  Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process.  See if that helps.  Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Create a new user account with admin status, then log out of your account and log into the new account. Does the problem still exist?
Also, try basic repairs:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Lion/Mountain Lion
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.