Questions about activity monitor and speeding up computer

Hi, I’m having some issues with Mac running slowly and trying to troubleshoot with activity monitor, Could you please help?



I frequently find the VTDecoderXPCService, WindowServer, and kernel_task are taking up alot of resources, even though I don’t know what they are and am not intentionally using any of them. Pic: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrjxcryl0lojm1o/Screenshot 2018-07-25 10.43.51.png?dl=0


I’ve tried quitting them and force quitting them many time (and this may offer temporary relief) but I always find that they come back again at some point.


1. What are these things that are taking up my resources, are these being caused by my audio/video applications like OBS, Resolume Avenue, Camera Settings, Ableton Live, Astropad, etc? Or something else? What could be the cause or how can I figure out?


2. And most importantly stop the computer resources from being used so much?


Also, four general questions:


A) What exactly does it mean to be using up 439.9% of CPU? How is that even possible? Especially considering that the next applications are also taking up 100.8% and 75.7% and so on…. shouldn't it max at 100%? If not, why?


B) Idle is 3.45%. Does this mean that my computer is at 96.55% capacity? If so, what is a good % capacity to stay at that won’t slow the computer down?


C) Are there any other metrics that I should pay attention to when trying to speed up computer? I see many metrics like threads, CPU time, processes etc and also see more information on different tabs. I don’t know what most of them mean…


D) Are there any other tools that i should use in addition to activity monitor to help speed up computer?



Thanks!

Could you take a screen shot of activity monitor ( CPU sorted by usage ) and post it here.
We can then take it from there.

Cheers ... McBie

You don't say what machine you have. Assuming it's an i7 based system, you have 4 physical cores and 4 virtual cores. Processes can be running on 4 physical cores at 100% and some part of the virtual giving you the >400% usage.

Other apps can consolidate all those 8 cores into a single percentage (0 - 100%) where each core adds 12.5% to the overall.

As far as idle goes, from your screenshot it looks like the machine is at 97% capacity and that's broken down between system level tasks (that you don't control) and user level tasks (apps that you launched).

kernel_task is part of the OS and you shouldn't be messing with it. It is expected to take a lot of resources when your machine is busy, but that's normal.

So before we can give you useful information, provide the following:

- Mac model
- CPU
- Total memory
- Version of OS X/macOS
- Apps normally being used

Behavior being seen and when it happens and what triggers it.

Thanks!!

McBie said:

Could you take a screen shot of activity monitor ( CPU sorted by usage ) and post it here.
We can then take it from there.

Cheers ... McBie

Click to expand...

Yes its right here... or did you mean something else?


https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrjxcryl0lojm1o/Screenshot

Raz0rEdge said:

You don't say what machine you have. Assuming it's an i7 based system, you have 4 physical cores and 4 virtual cores. Processes can be running on 4 physical cores at 100% and some part of the virtual giving you the >400% usage.

Other apps can consolidate all those 8 cores into a single percentage (0 - 100%) where each core adds 12.5% to the overall.

As far as idle goes, from your screenshot it looks like the machine is at 97% capacity and that's broken down between system level tasks (that you don't control) and user level tasks (apps that you launched).

kernel_task is part of the OS and you shouldn't be messing with it. It is expected to take a lot of resources when your machine is busy, but that's normal.

So before we can give you useful information, provide the following:

- Mac model
- CPU
- Total memory
- Version of OS X/macOS
- Apps normally being used

Behavior being seen and when it happens and what triggers it.

Click to expand...

Oh thanks , That makes sense now . ooops didnt think to include that. Here's my specs:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1blpmz0ics32s8a/Screenshot



- Apps normally being used: many! usually Ableton Live, OBS, Resolume Avenue, then evernote, chrome, etc.



Behavior being seen and when it happens and what triggers it- what do you mean? The computer slows down and takes long to load applications or gets beachballs. Not sure what triggers it other than having alot of applications open, but trying to reduce CPU as much as i can while still using my apps

Are you accessing files from an external drive?

How big is your internal drive? Is it an SSD? That could be where the problems arise?