CPU usage in top monitor

I have a V880 machine with 6 CPU a 1200 Mhz.
I'm running command: top -b -ocpu -s5 d5 5
%idle is going down from 95 to 70/50/30%
but I cannot see the processes which are consuming CPU !!!
What should I do to get my CPU-consumers ?
Can a get a summary of %user,%kernel for each top-5-process ?
load averages: 1.61, 1.49, 1.23 12:11:14
351 processes: 348 sleeping, 3 on cpu
CPU states: 44.3% idle, 14.2% user, 18.7% kernel, 22.7% iowait, 0.0% swap
Memory: 12G real, 185M free, 13G swap in use, 30G swap free
PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME CPU COMMAND
11524 sybase 41 10 0 195M 174M cpu/0 364.1H 12.99% dataserver
6877 root 1 60 0 1256K 824K cpu/6 0:09 3.08% cp
11820 NetCmmnd 125 58 0 39M 34M sleep 63.7H 0.96% ehd
3781 ugl601 1 0 10 22M 18M sleep 41.9H 0.60% PatrolAgent
11559 NetCmmnd 1 10 0 11M 9920K sleep 39.7H 0.49% CSCUBS_MsgEnric

Well, 22% of the "missing" time is io wait. which is really a kind of idle time, just time spent waiting for IO to complete.
I don't believe that IO wait time is reflected in the per process stats. So its hard to tell which process is waiting. Probably the cp at a guess..
I think kernel time is supposed to be reflected in the per process stats. But these things are only rough snapshots. So theres a fair bit of fuzz.

Similar Messages

Newbie having problems with noisy fan and high CPU usage in Activity Monitor

I am new to the world of Apple and have got my hands on a hand-me-down PowerBook G4 version 10.4.11. It works fairly well for everything but the Internet.
One of the first symptoms i noticed was that watching stuff on youtube was slow and jumped a lot. I checked a few things out and looked the CPU usage in activity monitor and this was about 80% to 100% when on youtube or even moving from page to page. I'e tried loads of stuff including repairing disk permissions, emptying caches and relaunching finder when the preferences file is on the desktop (not really sure what that was supposed to do).
The next thing I discovered was that if i disconnected the laptop from the mains and played youtube and some other applications the whole thing would go into sleep mode very quickly. I have got temperature monitor downloaded now although I already know it is getting very hot.
PS when it heats up the fan turns on because I can hear a whirring sound...
Would really appreciate some insight into this as it seems to be a good runner otherwise.
PS2 I have loads of free space left in the disk usage tab in activity monitor.
Big thank you in advance

Welcome to the world of PowerBook!
One of the first symptoms i noticed was that watching stuff on youtube was slow and jumped a lot. I checked a few things out and looked the CPU usage in activity monitor and this was about 80% to 100% when on youtube
Virtually no G4s are dealing well with web video anymore. The video technology used by modern developers puts a huge strain on a G4 processor. As this a choice made by coders, there is not much you can do about it. Some people suggest adding RAM but the effect is marginal considering it's the processor that's taxed.
Notebooks get hot. The fans in my 1Ghz 17-inch PowerBook from 2003 kick in between 130 and 140°F. The danger point is not until in the vicinity of 100F so don't sweat it to much. Make sure you do not cover the case bottom by setting the computer on a thick cloth placemat, pillow or other bedding item, or on your lap without a lapboard. The bootom of the case is part of the heat dissipation system and needs air under it to work
A lot of PowerBooks have, by now, lost some or all of their "feet" that gve a little space under the case. Don't bother looking for official replacements--get the silicone door/drawer bumpers from the hardware store that stick on. I found some about 3/16" thick that let more air under my PB thatn the mostly missing originals.
The next thing I discovered was that if i disconnected the laptop from the mains and played youtube and some other applications the whole thing would go into sleep mode very quickly
Your battery is likely dead from old age. Batteries only last about 2-3 years. You are seeing a sign of the battery lacking sufficient remaining capacity to run the computer. Get this utility:
http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/
(you'll need the 2.6.6 version for Tiger) and post what is says about "Health" and "Cycles."

Macbook Air running extremely slow - kernel_task at 300% cpu usage

I purchased my Macbook Air roughly 15 months ago and it's performance has constantly been impressive since I purchased it - until roughly a fortnight ago. I came home from work one afternoon and it was running at a snails pace. I had recently upgraded to Yosemite though I'm unsure if this had anything to do with it. I had also recently installed FitBit software to sync to my new FitBit flex.
It has continued to run in this manner constantly since the problem began. It is ridiculously slow, every single request takes a very long time to respond. Logging in takes forever. When I click on an app to open it, the icon bounces for 30 seconds or more, and it's not a smooth bounce either, it's quite a jagged bounce!
I'm hoping someone is able to provide some advice, guidance or help. The laptop is no longer covered by the 12 month Manufacturer Warranty, and I did not purchase an Apple Care plan as no Apple product I've owned before has experienced issues like this.
This whole experience is killing me! I'm suspecting hardware failure and I'm just so sad that this could happen to the laptop I've loved so much since I bought it!
The problem:
The kernel_task process is constantly running at 300% or higher cpu usage, with Activity Monitor indicating the processor is being maxed out by a system task. Also, the laptop's fan is constantly running at full capacity - from the moment the laptop turns on, or wakes up.
What I think the problem might be:
As a result of many, many Google searches, it appears that this behaviour may be due to the Macbook Air thinking it is overheating - and I will clarify here that it certainly is not. It is cool to touch, always, when this problem occurs. (yet the fan is almost taking off!). As a result of the MacBook Air thinking it's overheating, it not only is running the fan at a very high RPM (confirmed with iStat), but it also is intentionally choking the system with 'simple requests' in attempt to cool the computer down. Apparently this is a built-in feature of OS X. The kernel has priority over user tasks, causing all user tasks to be granted a lower priority, causing the computer to run INCREDIBLY SLOW. Even as I'm typing this, I'm about two sentences ahead of what is showing on the screen!
Steps I have taken:
- Read widely across the internet with every possible relevant search term I can think of
- Downloaded iStat to see if any of the temperatures are too high (they all seemed fine..)
- Disabled Bluetooth and Wifi. (no change)
- Reset SMC (multiple times.., no change)
- Reset PRAM (multiple times.., no change)
- Drained the battery completely (2 or 3 times, no change)
- Install Windows 7 on BootCamp in attempt to bypass the issue (CPU usage was 100% constantly in Windows also)
- Uninstalled FitBit software (no change..)
- Uninstalled other software I did not need (no change..)
- Attempt to boot into Safe Mode / Recovery Mode (even in this modes, the same thing is happening)
- Repaired Disk Permissions
- Backed up all personal data
- Used the built-in Internet Recovery mode to format my Macintosh HD and re-install a fresh copy of OS X (Mountain Lion). (no change…)
- Re-upgrade to Yosemite (no change..)
I've downloaded EtreCheck and here is the output:
Problem description:
OS X is running incredibly slow. kernel_task process is constantly using 300% and upward CPU usage.
EtreCheck version: 2.1.5 (108)
Report generated 20 December 2014 3:38:49 PM AEST
Click the [Support] links for help with non-Apple products.
Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.
Click the [Adware] links for help removing adware.
Hardware Information: ℹ️
MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2013) (Verified)
MacBook Air - model: MacBookAir6,1
1 1.3 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2-core
4 GB RAM
BANK 0/DIMM0
2 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
BANK 1/DIMM0
2 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported
Wireless: en0: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Video Information: ℹ️
Intel HD Graphics 5000 - VRAM: 1024 MB
Color LCD 1366 x 768
System Software: ℹ️
OS X 10.8.5 (12F45) - Uptime: 1:24:6
Disk Information: ℹ️
APPLE SSD SD0128F disk0 : (121.33 GB)
disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / : 120.47 GB (106.42 GB free)
Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB
USB Information: ℹ️
Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Thunderbolt Information: ℹ️
Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Gatekeeper: ℹ️
Mac App Store and identified developers
User Login Items: ℹ️
uTorrent Application (/Applications/uTorrent.app)
Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️
QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.1
JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.6.0 - SDK 10.8 Check version
3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️
None
Time Machine: ℹ️
Time Machine not configured!
Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️
      17% WebProcess
      16% storeagent
      15% Safari
      9% WindowServer
      9% repair_packages
Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️
404 MB repair_packages
395 MB WebProcess
129 MB Safari
86 MB App Store
64 MB Finder
Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️
1.77 GB Free RAM
1.76 GB Active RAM
140 MB Inactive RAM
623 MB Wired RAM
425 MB Page-ins
0 B Page-outs
Diagnostics Information: ℹ️
Dec 13, 2014, 09:47:32 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Kernel_2014-12-13-214732_[redacted].panic [Details]
Dec 13, 2014, 08:31:50 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Kernel_2014-12-13-203150_[redacted].panic [Details]
Dec 13, 2014, 04:54:18 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Kernel_2014-12-13-165418_[redacted].panic [Details]
Dec 13, 2014, 07:05:03 AM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Kernel_2014-12-13-070503_[redacted].panic [Details]
Dec 20, 2014, 02:15:38 PM Self test - passed

Hi,
I have an update so I thought I would share in case any other users are experiencing a similar problem.
I made an appointment with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store.
I went in and they ran a thorough diagnostic check on my Macbook Air and determined that the sensors were indeed faulty - several were providing no information "No reading" instead of providing a temperature. Thus, the Air was unaware of the temperature across multiple components.
Despite the laptop being outside the 12 Month Manufacturer Warranty, the Apple Store determined that it was covered under warranty through Australian Consumer Law - the laptop is now in for a complete repair under warranty at no cost to myself.
I couldn't be happier.

Softwareupdated process high CPU usage

I have a user with a fully updated Mavericks running on a mid-2010 Macbook Pro. She's been complaining of slowness on her system, and checking the Activity Monitor, I'm seeing the softwareupdated process taking up 90 to 115% of the CPU, for about 10 seconds at a time, about every 3 minutes. It shows up, spikes to the top of the Activity Monitor, then disappears again.
She's fully updated, so there's no reason it should be checking so often, and as a precaution I even turned off Software Updates, trying to figure out what the problem could be. That hasn't fixed the problem.
Any ideas on what else I can check or how I can resolve this?

Hi plochner,
It sounds as if you have a user who has processes trying to use a large amount of CPU time causing the MacBook Pro to slow down. As you have seen, you can track CPU usage using Activity Monitor. See this article -
Activity Monitor: View your computer’s processor activity
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5148
You can also look at Activity Monitor to view which processes are using high percentages of CPU time. See this article -
OS X Mavericks: About Activity Monitor
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5890
Select CPU at the top of the Application Monitor window and click the % CPU heading to sort by percentage. Look for the process that is causing the spike at the intervals you are watching for. This may help you find out what is causing the slowness issue.
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

Constant SBBOD with high cpu usage

Hi
since a couple of days ago I constantly get the SBBOD (spinning beach ball of death) on a Mac mini 2011 with Lion 10.7.3.
The system hangs up completely and the only this I can do is click around and move the windows but the clicks don't do anything and at some point after that everything just stops responding.
At this point I'm forced to do a hard reboot (power switch).
After that the system works for a while and then gets the SBBOD again.
During the SBBOD I can see syslog hogging all my cpu usage in activity monitor, but when I try to kill it or click into activity monitor the programm doesn't respond.
I guessed that something else was spaming syslogd with messages but after the hard reboot I don't see anything in console.
Since then I tried almost everything.
- hardware test, the short and long one -> nothing found
- repairing hard drive and permissions -> didn't help
- S.M.A.R.T says verified
- PRAM and NVRAM reset
- logged into guest account and started nothing -> SSBOD after ~hour
- started into save mode and left the comp running -> SSBOD after ~hour
- reformated(not zeroed) and reinstalled Lion(not from a backup) -> SSBOD after ~hour
Currently I'm trying to disable syslogd to see if some other process hogs all my cpu load instead of it.
I really hope one of you can help me, this thing is driving me nuts :/

Repairing the permissions of a home folder in Lion is a complicated procedure. I don’t know of a simpler one that always works.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy – do not type – the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
chmod -R -N ~
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. When a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) appears below what you entered, it’s done. You may see a few error messages about an “invalid argument” while the command is running. You can ignore those. If you get an error message with the words “Permission denied,” enter this:
sudo !!
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
Next, boot from your recovery partition by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the recovery desktop appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar.
In the Terminal window, enter “resetpassword” (without the quotes) and press return. A Reset Password window opens.
Select your boot volume if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.

Why the OC4J instance CPU Usage still 99% even all user already Logout ?

Hi All,
We are running OAS 10.1.3.3 with ADF BC Application.
At midnight when all user already logout, I notice that :
- on one instance, CPU keep on 99.9 %
- on the EM I see that there is there are 5 active sessions and 4 active request.
How can there are 4 active request while I am sure that I am the only one that login to the EM ?
I have tried to KILL -3 to create thread dump, but it doesn't work
How can I know, what are the those 4 active requests ?
What should I do to find out what consume the CPU ?
Thank you for your help,
xtanto
Edited by: xtanto on Apr 7, 2010 11:23 PM

Finally...proof that I am not going mad and that kglad's tweaks to his website make no difference at all to me.
Flash Player
Unacceptable CPU Use on Idle
Created: Tuesday 09:55 PM                   Updated: Yesterday 12:15 PM
Component/s:
ActionScript Performance
Security Level:
Public (All JIRA Users                                     )
Severity:
Performance
Reproducibility:
Every Time
Discoverability:
High
Found in Version:
Flash Player 10              - 10_0_1_218
Affected OS(s):
Mac              - OS 10.5
Injection:
No
Steps to Reproduce:
« Hide
Steps to reproduce:
1. Create empty FLA
2. Publish as AIR or SWF
3. Install/run AIR app, or run SWF in Stand Alone player or browser
4. Check CPU usage in Activity Monitor
Actual Results:
CPU usage of 3-6% on idle
Expected Results:
CPU usage of ~0% on idle
Workaround (if any):
None. Reducing frame rate reduces CPU use, but remains unacceptable even at 1fps.
This is a very serious issue, particularly for AIR applications. Having 3 or 4 AIR applications open on a Mac (a scenario that Adobe would like to see/promote) would use 10-20% of the CPU minimum, even when the applications are not doing anything. I also suspect that this is the root of at least some of the performance problems with Flash CS4 on Mac, as the stage core / swfPanel players are likely each using a sizable % of CPU even when idle.
Language Found:
English
Bugbase Id:
none
Triaged:
Yes
Participants:
Grant Skinner,             Manfred Karrer and             Tao Feng
Browser:
Other (specify version)

Slow computer -- High CPU usage

OK here's the specs of my computer:
G4 933Mhz, 1.5Gb Ram 80Gb internal HD, but booting from a 250Gb external firewire
Now the problem. My CPU usage in Activity monitor gets close to 100% system usage after a few hours even if I don't have more than a couple of programs running. I do notice that pmTool and Kernel_task are eating up the majority of the CPU cycles though. When I boot from the internal it happens as well, but to a much lesser extent.
I did an archive and install of the 10.4 on the firewire and the problem still exists. Current system is 10.4.8.
Any ideas how to stop this? It appears that this problem started about a month ago and the only piece of software that's been updated since then has been Skype and Second Life.
Eric

I have been looking at applications that might be eating up the processor and the only one that's doing it is the System right now. Restarting seems to help. I've been running for a couple of hours since the last restart and my current stats are 16% User and about 20%-60% System. pmTool seems to be the hog at the moment at 22.5% Kernel_task is only at about 6% though.
Any more information you'd like that could help to diagnose the problem let me know and I'll provide it. here's the current console log if that might help:
Mac OS X Version 10.4.8 (Build 8L127)
2006-10-28 09:23:15 -0700
FATAL: The database system is starting up
LOG: database system is ready
2006-10-28 09:23:26.521 loginwindow[91] FSResolveAliasWithMountFlags returned err = -43
2006-10-28 09:23:28.716 MediaCentral Launcher[233] http://datapump.equinux.com/channel/Component+Update?creatorCode=MedC&version=12 130&uniqueId=XB20401LM8G
2006-10-28 09:23:35.370 SystemUIServer[216]
MenuCracker
see http://sourceforge.net/projects/menucracker
MenuCracker is now loaded. Ready to accept new menus. Ignore the failure message that follow.
2006-10-28 09:23:35.383 SystemUIServer[216] failed to load Menu Extra: NSBundle </Applications/iClock Folder/iClock 2.app/Contents/Resources/MenuCracker.menu> (loaded)
Oct 28 09:23:45 video mDNSResponder: NAT Port Mapping (LLQ event port.): timeout
Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL http://www.sfgate.com/ from frame with URL http://view.atdmt.com/NYC/iview/sfgtxstw1840000732nyc/direct;wi.160;hi.600/01&74 3552460?click=http://oascentral.sfgate.com/RealMedia/ads/clicklx.ads/www.sfgate.com/main/743552460/Position2/SFGate/sttarwood_ttl_rch_1028_102 9_06/Starwood_Total_Reach_Sky101106.html/34353661666339633432383432343230?. Domains must match.
Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/28/MNGD7M1UNL1.DTL from frame with URL http://view.atdmt.com/NYC/iview/sfgtxstw1840000726nyc/direct;wi.728;hi.90/01&132 643488?click=http://oascentral.sfgate.com/RealMedia/ads/clicklx.ads/www.sfgate.com/news/article/132643488/Top2/SFGate/sttarwood_ttl_rch_1028_ 1029_06/Starwood_Total_Reach_Leaderboard101106.html/34353661666339633432383432343230?. Domains must match.
[303] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/28/MNGD7M1UNN1.DTL:T ypeError - Undefined value
Oct 28 09:37:29 video /usr/sbin/ocspd: starting
2006-10-28 10:04:38.004 TransmitSync[341] Sycning with identifier: com.panic.TransmitSync.Favorites
2006-10-28 10:04:38.005 TransmitSync[341] Was told to sync entity names: (
"com.panic.transmit.favorites.Collection",
"com.panic.transmit.favorites.Favorite"
2006-10-28 10:12:05.225 Translator[349] Invoked to sync conduit com.apple.Safari for entityNames: com.apple.bookmarks.Folder,com.apple.bookmarks.Bookmark
2006-10-28 10:42:15.385 SyndicationAgent[372] WARNING: BestCalendarDateFromString - can't interpret: '28 Oct 2006 13:12:00 EDT'
Main starting
2006-10-28 10:51:44.210 Skype[385] Logging to /Users/Video/Library/Application Support/Skype/Logs/skydebug-20061028-1051.log
2006-10-28 10:51:44.407 Skype[385] NSWindow does not support utility styleMask 0x10
2006-10-28 10:51:45.027 Skype[385] CFLog (0): CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
2006-10-28 10:51:45.029 Skype[385] CFLog (0): CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): The file name for this data might be (or it might not): /Users/Video/Desktop/Skype.app/Contents/Resources/SkypeEvents.plist
[303] http://secondlife.com/scripts/_flashdetect02.vbs:SyntaxError - Parse error

High CPU usage for no reason

Recently, my MBP becomes hot and its battery life becomes shorter, so I checked the Activity Monitor. The CPU is reported as ~37% User and ~22% System when it's idle. But I am not running anything besides Activity Monitor and all processes show normal CPU usage in Activity Monitor.
I also heard the harddisk keeping reading/writing. The Disk Activity persistently reported 0 Reads in/sec and ~30 Writes out/sec when the computer is idle.
I have repaired permissions, and reset the PRAM, but nothing changed.
Any help would be appreciated!

Workaround and Solution!
In a nutshell: The long and short of it is that many websites today are very resource intensive. The workaround is to share the load among two to four different browsers. This workaround works every time. The browser-builders will have to make the final fixes.
I urge all of you to duplicate my results!
I've been troubleshooting this with Apple for well over 2 weeks and just discovered the root cause and workaround a couple of hours ago. Here's what I sent to Apple:
Subject:
Root Cause Identified for Case 20244XXXX!
Body:
Insufficient Stress Testing and No Load Shedding!
Hello Annette, Jim and Steve,
Please see the attached screenshots.
Engineering, especially test engineering, needs to look at this! When this is resolved Steve can go on stage and show another Safari feature that is superior to Camino, Chrome and Firefox, etc. (I was able to replicate part of this using several boxes at a local Apple Store about a week ago!)
Here’s the deal:
I was blaming Safari because I rarely use other browsers.
1. Open Activity Monitor to All Processes and order by %CPU descending.
2. Launch a browser and go to http://streamingradioguide.com/streaming-radio.php?format=1&radio-format=News/Ta lk&includeAM=on&includeFM=on&includeHD=&includeLPFM=
or http://radiotime.com/channel/c_57922/News.aspx, open a few streams and watch the %CPU skyrocket. (I often channel-flip between several streams.)
3. Document the results.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for a second, third and fourth browser.
5. Repeat steps as needed on other test boxes. Repeat everything as needed.
6. Send the documentation of these tests to engineering.
7. Engineering: Replicate results and review all documentation.
8. Make Safari much more resource efficient than any other browser.
Steve can then demo this to the world and everyone will have another insanely great day!
Thanks for another great demo today Steve.
John
The long and short of it is that many websites today are very resource intensive. The workaround is to share the load among two to four different browsers. This workaround works every time. The browser-builders will have to make the final fixes.
Thanks,
John

Connection Failed when File Sharing and High CPU Usage

I have a small wired network where a G5 Tower (10.5.8) has an external drive connected via FW800 set as shared so it can be accessed from a C2D iMac (10.6.4). This has been working great since it was setup in Feb.
Today the iMac was unable to access the G5. It didn't show either the Public folder on the G5 or the shared FW drive. When clicked it showed "Connection Failed." Immediately the G5 spun up to 100% CPU usage. Activity monitor showed AppleFileServer as the culprit, and when quit, resumed to normal usage.
Same happens when trying to access the G5 from a Mac Mini (10.5.8)
Once the iMac gave a warning of something like: "Failed to connect because there are too many users." Which is rubbish because no one was connected or could connect, and this was verified in the Sharing Pref Pane.
I've tried restarts, disk repairs off a boot disk, and enabling / renabling File Sharing. The G5 can connect to the other macs, and they to each other, just not to the G5.
Anyways, any help is much appreciated. Thank you.

So somehow I got the computers to connect to the G5 with file sharing. I went through a bunch of steps, and not really sure what worked.
I believe it had something to do with the 'Public' user folder only being listed in the file sharing pane, instead of the User folder. Why that would also stop the shared external drive from being seen, I'm not sure.

Activity monitor says I have 1 -3% of System Memory free, yet CPU usage shows less than 10% total of all processes

Activity monitor says I have 1 -3% of System Memory free, yet CPU usage shows less than 10% total of all processes

I think you should review what you wrote. There is no question, hence, my reply. I can't tell by the AM listing what applications are using memory. You need to click on the Real Mem column once or twice to display in descending order.
Aside from what you see in AM, what exactly is your problem or perceived problem. You are very low on Free Mem at the moment the screen shot was taken. Those displays are not depicting your computer's instantaneous memory usage.
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory & determine how much RAM is used
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
Memory Usage Performance Guidelines- About the Virtual Memory System
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.
Adding RAM only makes it possible to run more programs concurrently. It doesn't speed up the computer nor make games run faster. What it can do is prevent the system from having to use disk-based VM when it runs out of RAM because you are trying to run too many applications concurrently or using applications that are extremely RAM dependent. It will improve the performance of applications that run mostly in RAM or when loading programs.

MBP with 10.6.8: CPU usage high, no responsible processes shown in Activity Monitor. What causes this?

After using my computer for some time, CPU usage climbs to about 90% (ca. 65% user / 26% system) and fans run at high speed, but there is no processes that seem to use CPU (other than Activity Monitor itself ~1%).
This has happened a few times recently. It happens when I've used my computer for some time, hours or a couple of days (I usually put my computer to sleep when not using it but rarely shut it down). I've tried to quit all running apps incl. Growl, Dropbox, and anything that could be responsible to this but with no results. Putting computer to sleep for a long time doesn't help, cpu usage will climb instantly after wake up. Restarting system is the only thing that helps.
Most of the time I use my laptop with external monitor, lid closed and connected to power supply. When experiencing this, opening the lid causes fans to slow down, but CPU usage remains high and battery drains quick.
Any ideas what might cause this?
My MBP is 15" model with Core 2 Duo 2,66 GHz (MacBookPro 5,3), OS X version is 10.6.8, all available updates are installed.

Perform a SMU reset.
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Remove the anti-virus, it's running a root level process all the time that's taking your CPU and it's not necessary as there are no Mac viruses, Apple has the trojan angle covered already.
Always on anti-virus on a Mac is always a source of problems, also is MacKeeper, uninstall that here if you have it.
http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malware/
If you need to clean the Windows filth off PC files, then use the free, run as you need, ClamXav.
http://www.clamxav.com/
It seems your machine is used in a corporate enviroment, thus likely a rule that anti-virus must be used, you can avoid high CPU usuage by using the ClamXav instead.

Is there a way to monitor CPU usage during the execution of a vi?

I am wondering if there is a way, using LabView, to monitor the CPU usage during the execution of a vi. I want to be able to programmatically adjust the program controls based on the CPU usage. This program is designed to run all day in the background.
Thanks!

JAI wrote:
> I am wondering if there is a way, using LabView, to monitor the CPU
> usage during the execution of a vi. I want to be able to
> programmatically adjust the program controls based on the CPU usage.
> This program is designed to run all day in the background.
>
> Thanks!
There are at least two Windows tools you can use to see CPU usage
(depending on what version of Windows you have). The Task Manager
(ctrl-alt-del) has a panel that shows CPU usage. There is another
program that has more options as to what to watch. Under W2K, it is in
the Administrative Tools in the Control Panel and is called Performance.
Play around with adding various new "Counters".
Another option is to measure CPU usage programmatically. George Zou
has a tool that makes the appropriate dll call. Check out
http://www.geocities.com/gzou999/index.html
Regards,
Dave Thomson
David Thomson 303-499-1973 (voice and fax)
Original Code Consulting [email protected]
www.originalcode.com
National Instruments Alliance Program Member
Certified LabVIEW Developer
Certified Instrument Driver Developer
Research Scientist 303-497-3470 (voice)
NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory 303-497-5373 (fax)
Boulder, Colorado [email protected]
There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary,
and those who don't.

When I run activity monitor with no programs running my dock shows fluctuating usage...between 4% up to 20%. Random figures that come and go with corresponding CPU usage. A little help?

My activity monitor show random and fluctuating CPU usage at the Dock site with absolutelyno programs running. %'s fluctuate between 3 - 20 and they pretty much come and go. What might be causing this?

There's a lot of background processes running that aren't documented as Apps as such. And some of them are the Time Machine backups, Spotlight searches, all kinds of small little bits of maintenance caches, there's a lot going on. So it's not completely out of the question that this is 'normal' for a Mac. If it were 50% or more I would be concerned but if it spikes up to 20% for a second or two you are probably not in any trouble of any kind.

Feature request: Monitor, manage IE - CPU usage

I was wondering if this is the right place to make a feature request. As it happens when surfing with IE, having many tabs open, pretty quickly CPU usage can reach 100% even on multi core system. Presumably some website manage to run out-of-control scripts
in the background.
The real problem is now that I cannot tell which tabs produces which CPU load. All that task manager shows is the IE process with the tabs and the overall CPU usage for the process.
Regarding monitoring it would help to identify the tabs (website) which cause the heavy load. This could be added to task manager.
Further, to manage the tabs it should be possible to either start each tab in its own process
or perhaps better, have the ability to put unused tabs in 'hibernation' causing all scripts to pause there.

Hi,
you can post 'feature' requests to the IETeam at
http://connect.microsoft.com/ie
Task Manager in current windows versions lists all IE Tab processes.... Sort the process list by cpu usage to identify hungry tabs.
Typically high cpu usage is caused by
Web browser addons, incorrect browser settings (use gpu instead of hardware rendering) and flash or poorly designed websites or missing updates to your windows or third-party software. You may like to try running your browser in noAddons mode to see if that
makes a difference in cpu usage.... and also ensuring that you have enabled Windows Updates and that your computer has the latest updates from MS, Adobe etc.
MS has no control over what addons a user has or installs on their machines.
Post consumer questions about IE or windows to
http://answers.microsoft.com (Help>Online Support menu). Include with your questions the full links to any websites that you are having issues with....
Always... the first step in troubleshooting web browser issues is to test in no addons mode.
Rob^_^

What are Microsoft- or other's-best practice or recommendation of Disk usage, CPU usage, memory usage monitoring to prevent system trouble ?

We use win2003,win2008,win2012 servers.
I heard somewhere that Microsoft recommendation threshold of disk usage monitoring is ( free disk space >= 15- 20 %) , if I remember correctly, but how about CPU usage and memory usage monitoring ?
What are Microsoft- or other's-best practice or recommendation of Disk usage, CPU usage, memory usage monitoring to prevent system trouble and improve availability ?

Hi,
You can refer the following Performance Tuning Guidelines,
Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2003
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/8/0/2800a518-7ac6-4aac-bd85-74d2c52e1ec6/tuning.doc
Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008 R2
http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2010/08/27/performance-tuning-guidelines-for-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx
WINDOWS SERVER 2012 - PERFORMANCE TUNING GUIDELINES
http://blogs.technet.com/b/itprocol/archive/2012/11/27/windows-server-2012-performance-tuning-guidelines.aspx
Hope this helps.
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CPU usage in top monitor

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