Re: high load but idle CPU
Do a ps -ax and see how many processes you have stuck in D state ;). Then
go and get 2.2.9
Also, load average does not relate to how hard the CPU is working and CPU
use has no bearing on load average. The load average is the average number
of processes that were waiting to run over the time period. Also, you can
have a process eating 100% of cpu and if it is at very low priority (the
distributed-net clients come to mind) your system will still be very
responsive.
On Wed, 26 May 1999, Max wrote:
> I have a dual-CPU system running potato with kernel 2.2.3.
>
> Here's what top reports:
>
> 6:30pm up 36 days, 20:55, 10 users, load average: 5.22, 5.28, 5.17
> 152 processes: 147 sleeping, 2 running, 2 zombie, 1 stopped
> CPU states: 0.4% user, 1.5% system, 0.0% nice, 97.9% idle
> Mem: 516688K av, 480208K used, 36480K free, 96664K shrd, 167100K buff
> Swap: 513968K av, 0K used, 513968K free 134748K cached
>
> How can the load be above 5 while the CPU is 97.9% idle? This has
> been the case over the last week. The load stays very high even when
> there are hours of very low CPU activity. Any clues?
>
> Thanks,
> Max
>
> --
> The hopeful depend on a world without end
> Whatever the hopeless may say
> Neil Peart, 1985
>
George Bonser
Welcome to Wit's End
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