Is ekrn.exe necessary for normal AV work?

Hello,

is ekrn.exe necessary for normal work of ESS?
Asking cause its taking a lot memory.

 

Yes.Extremely necessary.

Ekrn.exe usually takes 50-60 MB but occasionally it can be 25-30MB.What OS are you using?What is your RAM amount?

 

ekrn is the kernel of your AV

 

ekrn.exe is messing up my laptop somethng terrible.

It is using on average 65% of my CPU, at times it is unusable and is totally grinding to a holt.

I am running Vista, 2gb of ram & my processor is dual t2390 1.87ghz.

Both the eset and windows are always upto date, I use the laptop daily and it has only been over the last 2 days that it has started to play up.

It has just taken me 10 mins to type this and I can touch type, it just keeps on freezing up

 

Does disabling real-time protection (just for a test) make the excessive cpu usage go away? Assuming that ekrn constantly consumes > 50% of CPU.

 

Hi Marcos,

Yes switching off the real-time protection helps out alot, cpu only going upto 60%, but it only goes upto this figure for about a second then it goes back down.
Where as before it was sticking at 60-70% on its own, 100% with other apps.

 

Actually,I faced this problem too.Probably with ESET.I remembered when I finished downloaded Prevx from Google Chrome(the green download bar displayed for long time even the downloads were finished.)My computer CPU usage suddenly unexpectedly went up to 100% and my computer froze and hanged.This is the first time I have this type of problem and I never had this type of problem before until I install ESET.

 

I have a similar problem if I run MBAM with the protection module enabled on my laptop. But not my desktop. I would guess some kind of conflict. Make sure you don't have some other product running with realtime protection enabled.

 

Just wondering what your definition of " A lot " is?

 

I have been using eset for nearly a year now with no issues, until yesterday.

I havn't dowloaded any software or changed any config settings.

I ambaffled as to why it has suddenly started using loads of cpu, typically between 60-70%.

Infact the only thing that has been updated is the eset as this checks every hour for updates.

 

Does it happen even if you don't run any applications or on-demand scan? Does temporarily disabling real-time protection make a difference?

 

I think I have found the culprit, blackberry update software!

I was looking through a list of recaintly installed software & saw that on the 01/03/2011 I installed blacberry update software. Totally forgot about that, so I uninstalled it & upto yet (about 3 hours) my cpu has not maxed out.

And watching the services that are running, ekrn.exe is not using any where as much cpu, infact it is not running as often.

Before it seem to be constantly running at about 60-70% causing the cpu to max out.