Process & Resource Monitoring (Top/Htop/Ps/Systemd)

Stop htop from hiding your kernel threads when you need to debug interrupts

🧩 The Challenge

Dealing with a box that spikes to 100% CPU usage is already annoying, but it’s even worse when you look at htop and everything looks totally normal. Turns out, it was just hiding the kernel threads the whole time and I wasted an hour staring at user-space processes that weren’t doing anything.

💡 The Fix

Toggle the kernel thread display setting in the htop menu so you can actually see what the hardware is yelling at the CPU about. It saves you from guessing which process is stealing cycles in the background.

Open htop and press F2, go to Display options, and check the box that says Hide kernel threads to toggle it off, or just press the K key while inside the htop interface to flip it instantly.

⚙️ Why It Works

Kernels run a ton of background tasks that aren’t technically user processes, so most monitors exclude them by default to keep the view clean. Bringing them back into the fold reveals the true culprit when a driver or interrupt handler starts going rogue.

🚀 Pro-Tip: Once you see the kernel threads, hit F3 to filter for “irq” and you’ll find your bottleneck in seconds.

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 8/5/2026