ekrn.exe

[cashng]

this .exe file is taking up a lot of my cpu resources, and even up to 100% sometimes....any idea to kill this application?

 

[richc46]

this .exe file is taking up a lot of my cpu resources, and even up to 100% sometimes....any idea to kill this application?

Welcome

Normally that process is part of your antivirus. Turn if off and see if process remains.

Somtimes it can be a virus, disguised as that particular process.. Run antivirus and malwarebytes.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

If it is part of your antivirus, uninstall and use Microsoft Security Essentials.

 

[cashng]

for what i've known, this process is came from esst nod 32. i tried killing this process, it keep telling me, unable to.. anyone any idea on how to do this?

 

[Dinesh]

ekrn.exe is the main process of ESET anti virus. It may spike up the CPU when its scanning.


Even if you are not running any scan, eset still keeps scanning your computer files silently in the background for active malware.

 

[cashng]

so is there any way to stop it from scanning?

 

[Dinesh]

so is there any way to stop it from scanning?

I guess we need not stop it. I have been running eset and it does scan in the background. I never had any problem with it. The cpu spikes are temporary.

 

[richc46]

Yes, uninstall and use MSE, Microsoft Security Essentials. It is free, made just for windows and gets high praise from members of this Forum. It has a small footprint, also

 

[kncowans]

Hello

I received an email from Eset Technical Support concerning this issue.

The issue with ekrn.exe taking up processor time is a known issue and is being worked on, hopefully for the next build of Nod32.

In the meantime I was advised to disable the System Startup Scan under the Scheduler of Nod32.

Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Hope this helps.

Bye for now

Kevin

 

[Tepid]

The issue with ekrn.exe taking up processor time is a known issue and is being worked on for the last several years. They still have not fixed it?

NOD32 is a good antivirus when it works, it does it's job very well,, the problem has come from quality over recent years and the crippling of certain features of the OS when the license lapses.

These are the main reasons I no longer recommend NOD32. Save some money and get MSE.

 

[richc46]

Yes, uninstall and use MSE, Microsoft Security Essentials. It is free, made just for windows and gets high praise from members of this Forum. It has a small footprint, also

I agree Tepid, I even
said that a while back.

 

[tw33k]

I disagree with changing from NOD32 to MSE. NOD32 is a far superior product. The CPU spikes cause no performance degradation. Turning off start up scans may help. Eset will fix this. Switching to MSE would be downgrading.

 

[Tepid]

Sorry Tweek, but I categorically disagree. NOD32 has had this problem for a very long time (several years) and they have not yet fixed it.

Yes, it does degrade system functionality.

how do I know this?

Because when a place I worked for, we stopped selling Norton due to many reason, main one was they wantesd to charge us about 80$ to help them fix their definition files to clean a system that Norton would not clean. We looked for alterntives and at the time, NOD32 was the best offer we got, and it was very stable and didn't have these problems. Then they did a full upgrade and changed the GUI and this very problem began. This was at least 2 or 3 years ago. We worked with ESET quite a bit on this and on their Server Solutions with other issues. The support was ok, they did try to help as much as possible, but started blaming Windows for the issue. We did continue to sell it as it was not an issue on every system. But still, more often than we liked. We began looking for alternatives and Live OneCare came along, we immediately started testing it heavily and switched to it exclusively after that. At the time, Live OneCare did a pretty darn good job of keeping systems clean, not so good at cleaning an infected system. We kept tabs on this in many ways, through fairly decent testing of our own. I had a system once with over 5000 infections, literally, and no, they were not cookies. I saved them to a CD ROM and used it for testing, Not sure if I still have it though.
Incidentally, nothing could clean this system completely, So we did have to reload it, But, it also had AVG installed on it, and running the full scan, found very few of them, and refused to clean any of it. A main reason AVG is garbage.

Suffice to say, Eset is a good product when it works, but, it is flakey and has been, they refuse to fix the issue.

MSE may not be the absolute best product on the market, but it is quite adequate for those who surf safely.

 

[tw33k]

Sorry Tweek, but I categorically disagree. NOD32 has had this problem for a very long time (several years) and they have not yet fixed it.

Yes, it does degrade system functionality.

how do I know this?

Because when a place I worked for, we stopped selling Norton due to many reason, main one was they wantesd to charge us about 80$ to help them fix their definition files to clean a system that Norton would not clean. We looked for alterntives and at the time, NOD32 was the best offer we got, and it was very stable and didn't have these problems. Then they did a full upgrade and changed the GUI and this very problem began. This was at least 2 or 3 years ago. We worked with ESET quite a bit on this and on their Server Solutions with other issues. The support was ok, they did try to help as much as possible, but started blaming Windows for the issue. We did continue to sell it as it was not an issue on every system. But still, more often than we liked. We began looking for alternatives and Live OneCare came along, we immediately started testing it heavily and switched to it exclusively after that. At the time, Live OneCare did a pretty darn good job of keeping systems clean, not so good at cleaning an infected system. We kept tabs on this in many ways, through fairly decent testing of our own. I had a system once with over 5000 infections, literally, and no, they were not cookies. I saved them to a CD ROM and used it for testing, Not sure if I still have it though.
Incidentally, nothing could clean this system completely, So we did have to reload it, But, it also had AVG installed on it, and running the full scan, found very few of them, and refused to clean any of it. A main reason AVG is garbage.

Suffice to say, Eset is a good product when it works, but, it is flakey and has been, they refuse to fix the issue.

MSE may not be the absolute best product on the market, but it is quite adequate for those who surf safely.

I've used NOD32 for nearly 10 years and have never suffered any loss of performance. The CPU spikes that the OP was referring are infrequent and with the amount of RAM he has, would not affect performance what-so-ever. Switching to MSE, which is an inferior product is, IMO, a bad bad particularly considering that Eset are aware of the issue and a fix is immanent.

 

[Tepid]

Eset are aware of the issue and a fix is immanent

and have been doing so for some years now.

You can put yourself in the "I'm a lucky one" column.