Red Spikes! Safari, Activity monitor, finder running. Halp.

This has never happened before. I used to get green spikes when I'd try to open programs that needed more memory than I had available but now I have red spikes every few seconds and only Safari is open (and activity monitor). OK really weird but Safari just disappeared from processes list. ***? I'm getting hanging, not able to boot without startup disk, slow, slow slow. I have 6.5GB available but system acts bogged down. Have verified and found no issues. Was worse with firefox though RAM usage was less. I don't know what's up as I'm obviously using Safari. Now the spikes have gaps between them. Anyone know what's going on? 2 Screenshots of process lists and those durn red spikes below.
I just got an external drive so I could backup just in case system hangs for good. Trying to find out what time machine is because i don't have it on my mac and afraid to put anything else on this thing. It says I have 6GB of diskspace left but acts like it's about to blow up.
Now something even wierder is happening. I turned off the external drive even though it isn't setup to backup or anything like that yet. The green/read line was way at the top with no red in sight and now it's back to red spikes like photo above.
Anyone know what to do? I want to switch back to firefox because it showed it was using less RAM but performance was worse.
Nikki

not able to boot without startup disk, slow, slow slow. I have 6.5GB available but system acts bogged down.
You need at a minimum 15% free disk space.
"not able to boot without startup disk?
I'm not sure what you mean by that but it's clear you need to free up disk space.
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk

Similar Messages

Kernal task using 1.03GB RAM in Activity Monitor?

Hello,
I have a 13inch MBP running Mavericks 10.9.4 with a 2.7 GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 500GB HD. I just recently had the machine Factory Reset. The only APP's I've added are PAGES, NUMBERS and KEYNOTE. When I check the ACTIVITY MONITOR it indicates that out of 16GB of RAM MEMORY, 5.51GB is being used. Usually ACTIVITY MONITOR indicates that as much as 9GB RAM is being used. This MBP is 3 years old and I clearly upgraded the RAM from 4GB (I think) to 16GB. Since this MBP used to run with only 4GB of RAM total; it seems to me that the current amount of memory being used, from 5.51GB up to 9GB out of 16GB total RAM is unusually high. In addition, the above numbers were displayed when only Safari and Activity Monitor are running. Is this normal for Mavericks OSX?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Dennis

I have a 16GB Macbook Pro, and my kernel_task has 1.12GB or RAM, 15.85GB used, split between app memory at 6.67GB, file cache at 7.36GB, and 1.83GB wired.
So what. My Mac is running fine. I do not care how RAM is used, as long as I am getting good performance.
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. My Mac is making sure I get full value from my money.
If you are having an actual performance issue, please describe what you are seeing, what apps you are running at the time, and if you have an anti-malware or Mac cleaner apps running on your system (historical trouble makers).
If your system is running fine, then either do not worry about it, or follow the pointers Linc has provided.

Activity Monitor not working

The activity monitor app stops working frequently. This message appears in the console log :
2/25/09 6:49:52 PM Activity Monitor[1391] * -[NSCFArray objectAtIndex:]: index (17) beyond bounds (17)
Any suggestions ...? Thanks ...

thanks for the suggestion ... however it did not work. I am able to recreate the problem every time I scroll in the process screen when the Activity monitor is running and it is always the same message on the console log :
2/25/09 9:50:03 PM Activity Monitor[174] * -[NSCFArray objectAtIndex:]: index (15) beyond bounds (15)
Any other ideas ? Thanks

Activity Monitor not working in Yosimite

Error Message: You can’t use this version of the application “Activity Monitor.app” with this version of OS X.
I am now running Yosimite. Activity Monitor picture not displayed on its icon either.
How do I get Activity Monitor to run and get the icon picture to display too.
ggdad

Heheh revjay, exactly :-D
@ Leinie: When you install any new software or updates, then it's always a good idea to repair permissions, so you will have a "clean" system afterwards.
Repairing permission also solves quite a lot of issuses with applications i.e. if they tend to hang, or crash. So this should always be one of the first things you do when something is not doing as it should on your mac.
Glad that it works now

Running 10.8.3 on an Intel iMac 27'. The Finder keeps grabbing over 100% of the CPU which seems to stop me from opening any folders. Only quitting the Finder from Activity monitor resets it to normal. Any ideas?

My Finder keeps grabbing over 100% of the CPU which seems to stop me from opening any folders.
Only quitting the Finder from Activity monitor resets it to normal.
Any ideas?

Nope, I don't have a "/Users/charon/Library/Mobile Documents" directory, let alone anything underneath it. Is that like an iCloud thing or something? I tend to avoid the Apple-supplied services when I can (I don't use iTunes either unless I can help it).
As an update, as of about two days later this problem seems to have solved itself. Possibly sleeping and waking did something to it (though that seems unlikely given how many times I rebooted), or else there was just some long-*** kernel process that finally worked itself out. But my system CPU is back down to normal and the cursor freezes are gone.
??? it is a mystery! ???

HT202731 Slow MacPro Activity Monitor Red entry Installer Not Responding

MacPro 10.10.2 (14C109)   runs slow. Run Activity Monitor   A red entry   Installer Not Responding. I choose "send Signal to Process KillSig or Quit Process will remove the red entry   but when i restart computer it agains run slow and red enter reappears
ac

You may have installed the "Genieo" or "InstallMac" ad-injection malware. Follow the instructions on this Apple Support page to remove it.
Back up all data before proceeding.
Malware is always changing to get around the defenses against it. In addition to the files listed in the support article, you may also have to remove the following in the same way:
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.Installer.completer.download.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.Installer.completer.ltvbit.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.Installer.completer.update.plist
~/Library/Application Support/IM.Installer/Completer.app
One of the steps in the article is to remove malicious Safari extensions. Do the equivalent in the Chrome and Firefox browsers, if you use either of those.
After removing the malware, remember to reset your home page in all the web browsers affected, if it was changed.
If you don't find any of the files or extensions listed, or if removing them doesn't stop the ad injection, then you may have one of the other kinds of adware covered by the support article. Follow the rest of the instructions in the article.
If you find Apple's instructions too hard to follow, ask for an alternative that doesn't require you to trust a black-box application without knowing what it does.
Make sure you don't repeat the mistake that led you to install the malware. Chances are you got it from an Internet cesspit such as "Softonic" or "CNET Download." Never visit either of those sites again. You might also have downloaded it from an ad in a page on some other site. The ad would probably have included a large green button labeled "Download" or "Download Now" in white letters. The button is designed to confuse people who intend to download something else on the same page. If you ever download a file that isn't obviously what you expected, delete it immediately.
In the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences, select the General tab. The radio button marked Anywhere should not be selected. If it is, click the lock icon to unlock the settings, then select one of the other buttons. After that, don't ignore a warning that you are about to run or install an application from an unknown developer.
Still in System Preferences, open the App Store or Software Update pane and check the box marked
          Install system data files and security updates (OS X 10.10 or later)
or
          Download updates automatically (OS X 10.9 or earlier)
if it's not already checked.

Application Sudo listed in Activity Monitor - Is this a default app that should be running?

First Question:        Do other MBP users have an application Sudo listed in Activity Monitor from start up of their mac or with typical use?
Second Question:   If you have Sudo process listed in your Activity Monitor, do you also use an Huawei USB wireless modem?
Third Question:       For those experienced in relevant coding domains and given the more technical details below - your thoughts?
(Technical)
Using MBP Retina, mid 2012, OSX 10.8.4
I understand sudo is a unix root level access command.
I have used Terminal and become familiar with some basic unix commands, including using the sudo command in very limited single action command circumstances. I have not used Terminal for many weeks, and the sudo command probably twice several months ago.
Sudo showing in Activity Monitor as an active process is to my understanding an entirely different situation to it being used in Terminal. It appears the sudo process is being activated by some other application or process not of my direct use or actions.
I remain a little concerned about this in view of the purchase of this particular MBP. It has a story to it. I was told this MBP was available as new on discount as it had been purchased by a man for his wife, the wife then left him, and subsequently he returned it unused to the store.   I was aware that there was a slim risk the laptop had been used for some other activities, and returned so any come back comes back to the new owner.
I noted later with use that the MBP lower keys were sticky as if something has been spilt on them, so I do wonder if the laptop was previously used, then wiped, in which case the story presented to the retailer is likely not true and a more concerning scenario becomes possible.
All the same, I felt a clean install should remove any risk. The MBP arrived in standard ready to set up and go mode, so OS loaded but no activation. So it seemed a clean install to me.   I did not wipe the HD and do a fresh OS install from scratch. A decision I now regret.
Some months after using this new MBP, my concerns were raised when I had one day of inexplicable internet usage on a wireless internet connection. Not only did the level of data upload and data load, about 4 GB out of 20 GB for the month not make sense with actual usage, but also the MBP system logs did not tally with the internet providers accounting of usage on that day. There have been two or three other anomalies in usage since. The internet service provider reimbursed me on my evidence of OSX system logs. Not sure if the service provider has people joy riding other users accounts or something suss this end was going on. Never resolved. The ISP was not exactly forthcoming, and I had to press hard to get some collaboration on resolve the anomaly of unexplained data usage.
On the less suspicious side, the existence of this sudo program tracked down as in part coming from the install software from a Huawei modem provided by my internet provider. However, while widely used and therefore likely not a security risk, I still feel need for some better explanation and resolution of the persistent sudo process.
I have inquired to Apple Support about this sudo app running, and it apparently was not seen as an issue of concern by the front line support staff. I took up some further concerns with them but checks indicate no issues of concern with the MBP from their assessment. I trusted that as fairly likely a definitive view, and so left the questions and anomalies as unexplained but harmless.
It is now several months later and I still find the existence of sudo as a running application or process in Activity Monitor troubling, and decided to try and resolve once again how typical and for what reason it is active on my MBP. Which brings us to this post.
I have again spent a few hours searching on Google and Apple Support Forums.   All search results I find relate to the use of sudo as a unix command in Terminal to resolve a problem. I can not find any indication of sudo as an app being open routinely in Activity Monitor with or without Terminal being opened or used.
The only way I can think of to resolve if this is unusal or not is to get on this forum and ask the first two questions at the top of this post.
More technical details follow.
For some more technically minded the details may be of interest, hence below here I have added details for further comment.   I am hoping some MBP users on this forum may also be coders, and hence have some idea of the internal mac coding environment. Enough to shed some light on this situation.
As mentioned, I think the sudo Activity Monitor may originate from the running of the Internet Providers USB Wireless Modem and software (Huawei E 169? modem). The USB modem has the install software on it. You install that software on your HD as an application.
On this USB Wireless Modem front I have done some checking.
Killing sudo in Activity Monitor does not stop an internet connection mid session.
When the USB modem is removed, the sudo process remains running and listed in Activity Monitor.
If I remove the Modem icon, unplug modem, close all apps, restart without the modem connected, the sudo process is still loaded and running in Activity Monitor.
Months ago on a previous check if I deleted (uninstalled) the modem software, removed associated start up files installed by the modem installation, took out the USB Modem and did a restart, there was no return of the sudo process in Activity Monitor. When the modem software was reinstalled or the start up files restored directly, the sudo process returns to Activity Monitor. One of the software bits installed in start up files calls sudo (or so it appears having a peak in BBedit at the files.)
This seems to fairly much establish the source of the sudo application. However it does not resolve why it needs to be open all the time, and if this is unique to this modem, my modem, modems in general, or if permanent running sudo processes are fairly 'normal' in general. Since sudo is a root level access process, I do feel a little concerned of the situation.   Let's say the sudo process is needed to initiate the modem under some justification. Does the sudo process in remaining running permanently from there on, with or without the USB modem connected leave an open access way and vulnerability that can or is used later?   i do not know enough of the coding level architecture to form a view.   Still, seeing a permanent sudo process operating does niggle by sense of suspicion.    Hence, I continue to raise this issue and ask the questions I do.
In Activity Monitor:
sudo as a process when running is not very active.
Real Mem 8 KB, Virtual Mem 9.4 MB, Sent Msgs 75, Rcved Mesgs 26, Ports 25, Intel (64 bit).
The sudo process:
Using Sample Process in Activity Monitor:   sudo appears to be a running of the actual sudo command from within the unix command files.
Path:            /usr/bin/sudo (Master Library, not the one in the User files)
Load Address:    (removed)
Identifier:      sudo
Version:         ??? (???)
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [1]
Call graph
2nd line is 2656 start (in libdyld.dylib) + 1 [(removed)]
Binary Images:
Includes reference to lots of .dylib files. eg libcache.dylib, libquarantine.dylib, libremovefile.dylib, libcompiler_rt.dylib, libcorecrypto.dylib
The parent process is launchd[1]
Process:         launchd [1]
Path:            /sbin/launchd
Load Address:    (removed)
Identifier:      launchd
Version:         ??? (???)
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: ??? [Unknown]
It seems all of the activity of launchd[1] is from the sudo process.
Again reference to .dylib files as captured in call graph and Binary images.
I hope the details are valued by someone with an interest to assist with resolving concerns.

Thanks,
I usually use the OS connection option. So as you suggest, connect without the ISP connection software. Doing so does not by-pass the sudo command being active in Activity Monitor however.
On reading my post I see my failure to link the concerns of the laptop purchase with the sudo and modem. My thought here is of an intersection of known vulnerability with this widely used modem/software (via permanent sudo process activated) and that vulnerability then being known and utilised by another party(s).
I am pursuing the issue in part with consideration to a broader possible issue of vulnerability.
Thanks again for your thoughts and suggestions. Valued.

For the average person what really is the point of the activity monitor app when all you really want to know is whether your mac is running at its best?

I have had my imac for nearly 18 months now,
It's okay, is the best I can say about it.
It cost me around £800+
So recently (and foolishly!) I downloaded OS Mavericks when I was actually looking for a freebie word processor programme (I got Bean because it's simple like me.)
Now the point of all this is that Mavericks has new features like a redesigned Safari (But I ain't noticed any difference yet) and Imaps (Huh!) and Ibooks and Imovie or something.
So when you are oldish like me, you really don't want people to keep changing and introducing new stuff (most of which is pointless anyway) all the time; because it takes us old ***** a while to get used to the last "improvement."
So you try and get rid of all these new apps that you don't want and didn't ask for anyway,
and then you find out you can't, because they're an integral part of the new OS.
Brilliant!
Then you find that Mail has to redo itself and this thing no longer works properly etc. and you start wishing you hadn't got up that morning...
So you try and get it all back the way it was..
And you can't.
Because you don't have an external hard drive to use the Time machine back up facility.
So you get in touch with Apple Support and it's now nearly bedtime, but at least you feel like you might be gettin' somewhere.
You talk to the supportguy and suddenly you can't remember what the problem is and what your name is, and you're thinking you might as well order in a pizza seein' as you've drunk the last of the gin..."
Anyway the guy manages to keep his temper and you get some degree of order restored but the machine still seems "jumpy" so someone says to you
"Check out the Activity Monitor! That'll tell you if something's not working right."
So you do, but it doesn't.
Just a bunch of numbers and CPU stuff and User Idiot Input etc.
All you really want is some little box to pop up and say,
"Hey! yyyou've really ssscrewed things upppp-p here, old mmmmman!!. This programme is no longer functioning properly, that thing appears to frozen, and you just wiped half your saved photos of Aunt Jessie's 94th birthday celebration (the one's where she had her eyes open)..
Press here for a full maintenance overview and repair menu.."
By this time you are on the floor, your leg's got cramp and you really really need a pee.
But there ain't no maintenance programme, just an activity monitor app you can't make any sense out of, so you yank the **** power cord out of the socket and go to bed..
So you try and

DVD-R media that is single layer has 4.3 GB formatted capacity.
DVD+R DL media has 7.8 GB formatted capacity.
DVD-R double sided has 4.3 GB on each side.
Message was edited by: a brody

MacPro Quad Core 32g Ram running slow Logic using only 9g in Activity Monitor

Well its taken a while, but this is my first foray into the world of forums! I'm so hacked off with this regular problem and havent been able to find anything anywhere to solve it i thought i'd see if anyone has any similiar issues and maybe even a solve to it.
So.... im an orchestrator and producer and after my mid 2008 Macbook Pro with 8g ram started freezing up i invested in this 3 years ago -
Mac Pro 2x 2.4ghz Quad Core intel Xeon and stuck in 32gb of lovely Crucial RAM and 3 seperate internal 1TB drives with one for operating system (10.6.8), one for Audio recording/saving and one for all my sample libraries.
32gb ram - should be enough i thought!
So i regularly run at least 30 VI's - Ni The giant, Spitfire Orchestral librabies (say 12 string instruments up to 0.69g per load) LASS strings, plus perc STYLUS, ABBEY road drums, Trillian basses (acoustic/electric), ominisphere etc etc. So pretty hefty sample instruments. But theyre sooo nice!!
In addition, the 32 bit server will come alive (NOT! So unstable i find) with my Waves plugs etc.
Looking at ACTIVITY MONITOR however i might be not touching 9 gig (and sometimes even less) of usage for Logic, and only say 800MB for 32 bit server and have NOTHING else open - and what do i find .....
- Mouse lag and cant really do anything with the mouse whilst playing the track - cant adjust volume - too slow, zooming problems
- Takes a good 2-3 seconds for track to stop playing
Dont get System OVERLOADS so much, its just that the system goes REALLLLLY slow.
What ive tried- - -
- Running Mountain Lion off another drive (havent had time to install it and wanted to be sure everything worked etc)
- Tried all audio prefs - large/small buffers/threads etc and yes i am on 1024.
in a nutshell how come with 32g RAM everything is so slow when barely using 10g of that???????
I dread getting to the end of a project cos i know im gonna be freezing so much, but with so much editing all the time for the orchestral parts i need everything unfrozen and working.
Sorry if this is long winded but wanted to describe what im experiencing.
Any feedback most welcome! Thankyou in advance.
Mac Pro 2x 2.4ghz Quad Core intel Xeon 32g RAM, 3TB storage
10.6.8
Logic Pro 9.1.8

Hi
A few thoughts:
julian6400 wrote:
In addition, the 32 bit server will come alive (NOT! So unstable i find) with my Waves plugs etc.
The 32bit server is a pita: Waves v9 are 64bit compatible (they run fine). 32 bit VI's can be run outside Logic using Vienna Ensemble Pro (see later)
julian6400 wrote:
So i regularly run at least 30 VI's - Ni The giant, Spitfire Orchestral librabies (say 12 string instruments up to 0.69g per load) LASS strings, plus perc STYLUS, ABBEY road drums, Trillian basses (acoustic/electric), ominisphere etc etc. So pretty hefty sample instruments. But theyre sooo nice!!
Some of these VI's are extremely CPU hungry: Abbey Rd drums for example, really do hammer the CPU. What does Logic's Performance meter show in the way of CPU load. What does Activity Monitor show regarding CPU load?
With 32G of RAM, this should not be the issue, but you might have general CPU problems (see above), and you may also have Sample disk streaming limitations if all the Loibraries you mention are on the same drive. How does Activity Monitor look regarding disk access? You might find it helpful to add a second drive and split the sample libraries across 2 for faster disk access.
I presume that you have plenty of free space on the System drive?
Logic can get sluggish if the Undo info gets way too big, and also if there are loads of regions in the Arrange: check Options:Project Information.
Many are finding some benefits (me included) by running the VI's in Vienna Ensemble Pro:
Better CPU load distribution than directly in Logic
"Persistant Samples": they can remain loaded whilst you switch Logic Projects
Logic is effectively running much less itself, so generally flies.
32bit Plugs hosted separately in VEP so no 32bit Bridge issues in Logic
Something to consider,though perhaps not yet, would be setting up a Slave computer using VEP.
CCT

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.

How to get Activity Monitor to show processes running on one specific drive

I clone my main drive to two cloned drives. From the clones I normally, without any problem, run both Repair Disk from the Apple Disk Utility, and a maintenance program from Disk Warrior. Now, however, neither of these utility programs are able to unmount my main drive. Rather, they return a message to quite running processes. I have tried to use Activity Monitor to locate what is running, but can find no way to determine which of the dozens of processes listed are connected to the main drive, rather than to the boot drive of the clone. Plus, I do not understand how something can be "running" on a drive that is not the boot drive. Please help. Thanks.

Let's start in reverse order...
I do not understand how something can be "running" on a drive that is not the boot drive
That's easy. You can't unmount the drive if any files on that drive are in use. That does not necessarily mean the application is stored on that drive, but any file on that drive could prevent it being unmounted - for example, if an application has a document open that is on the drive, you might not be able to unmount the drive.
Even subtler, if you're running Terminal.app and have cd'd into a directory on that drive, then you won't be able to unmount, either, since the directory is 'in use'.
As for finding out which applications are using the disk, try lsof in terminal:
sudo lsof +d /Volumes/diskname
This will show any process that has an open file handle on /Volumes/diskname (and its subdirectories).

Activity Monitor Won't Run

Anyone else having this problem? Activity monitor will simply not run. It starts, then crashes...every time.

Me, too! Since upgrading to SL & then immediately to 10.6.2 a couple days ago.
Well, it won't run - it didn't crash, it just hung on startup. I tried repairing permissions and, after finding this thread, removed the plist file suggested, but no luck. I just realized I should check the log (Console), and found it was putting out this, over and over again:
12/13/09 11:28:47 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.ActivityMonitor[4828]) posix_spawn("/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/activitymonitord", ...): No such file or directory
And exiting, then retrying every 10 seconds.
I opened the Activity Monitor package to confirm that activitymonitord is there, but upon rereading the message I realized it's telling me Activity Monitor needs to be in the utilities folder - and I had moved it into a subdirectory (to declutter my Utilities folder). It always worked there in previous systems, but apparently SL's Activity Monitor has a hard-coded address built in.
I moved AM back to where Apple wants it and it immediately opened. Don't know if this helps anyone else, but I thought I'd put this out there in case it does . . .
(Yes, I know you "should" leave programs where Apple puts them and keep your files in your user folder, but I just like to do things my way whenever I can get away with it.)
Anne

Running Activity Monitor To Shut Unnecessary Functions Off?

I just ran Activity Monitor to see how the CPU on my MacBook was doing and saw all these "root" functions and this Quicklook thing that list almost 600MB of RAM/Virtual Memory usage. iVirus usage 171MB. Are there ways to disable apps and directory actions that are totally unnecessary to save RAM and CPU actions? Any links to Activity Monitor tutorials?
Also since the SL 10.6.1 update, the fan comes on more frequently and the casing underneath is getting warmer. I assume this has to be related to something related to what is going on in Activity Monitor. Any clues there?
I have 4GB RAM.
Thanks for any help and ideas on what could improve the MacBook performance.
Steve

I would stay away from killing processes you know nothing about as that can lead to the OS failing to function. As for Activity Monitor and memory management see the following:
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
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.
About OS X system processes - MacFixIt;
OS X Process Management- Guide to Activity Monitor - MacFixIt.

Activity monitor always shows apps that i dont want running

I'm on 10.4.9.
When i open activity monitor, i see that there are programs (or whatever they are) running, that are clearly not important, as most of them are related to various programs or devices that i've installed.
I find myself quitting them when i want to play games or use processor intensive programs (they do take up a little %CPU)... but after a certain amount of time they seem to come back, especially when i restart my computer.
Is there any way to keep them from loading?
Here are a couple examples:
MicrosoftMouseHelper (obvioiusly related to my optical mouse)
HP IO Classic Proxy (related to my printer, which i keep unplugged except for printing)
Print Daemon (see above)
HP Event Handler (see above)
iTunes Helper (iTunes related, and i don't need any help ;))
note that when i turn any of these off, i don't lose any functionality in anything they're linked to (my mouse works the same, as does iTunes and my printer)
thanks.
Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hi Max,
Check your startup items, as long as any of those items are in that list they will keep coming back.
System preferences > accounts > startup items.
I think you will find iTuneshelper and microsoftmouse helper there, take them off that list and they won't bug you again unless started by you or an app that needs them.

Activity Monitor: how to quickly find "not responding" processes?

Is there a quick way, in Activity Monitor, to identify the apps/processes that are crashed/"not responding" other than scrolling down the list, looking for those highlighted in red?
If there's a particular column/attribute to sort on, I haven't figured it out.
Thanks!

Ah, in that case, watch your CPU usage.
When Activity Monitor starts, select either +All Processes+ or +Active Processes+ in the toolbar, and sort the list by the +% CPU+ column, so the highest numbers are on top, and select the CPU tab towards the bottom.
For this purpose, also select +View > Update Frequency > Less Often+ from the Menubar.
Various processes will "spike" up and down normally as they do things, then are idle, so you need to watch it for a while and get a feel for the processes that are using the most CPU, and the +% Idle+ at the bottom.
When the slowdown occurs, see if something changes significantly, especially if the +% idle+ goes to near zero. If that happens, see what process(es) are using the most CPU.
If the process(es) involved aren't familiar to you, post their names here (and/or check this out: http://triviaware.com/macprocess/all)
You may also want to select the +System Memory+ tab towards the bottom. Keep an eye on the total of Free and Inactive memory (if they're near zero, you may need more), and the +Page outs+ (if that's high, it's another indication you may need more memory).

Red Spikes! Safari, Activity monitor, finder running. Halp.

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