Re: Bug? Load avg 2.0 when idle.

[Christian Borntraeger]

Joerg Sommrey wrote:
> there is a load average of 2.0+ even if the box is almost idle. (i.e.
> "top" shows just one running process: top itself.) Starting two
> cpu-intensive processes raises the load average to 4.0+.  How can I
> determine the source for the high load, or is this a bug?
> I'm running 2.6.9 on a dual-athlon box.

Besides other possibilities, a bug in the kernel could be the cause. 
Please check if any process (one or two) is in uninterruptible sleep. 
(using ps axl the state is D)
Furthermore, Magic SysRequest+T (alt-print-t) and the dmesg output could 
give some hints.
If there is nothing suspicious you might try some profiling tool, e.g. 
OProfile. 

There was another bug report about a wrap around load average. I dont know 
if both reports are related. 

cheers

Christian

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