Re: [PLUG] high load average

[gabriel rosenkoetter <gr@eclipsed.net>]

On Mon, Mar 05, 2001 at 09:53:09PM -0500, Michael Leone wrote:
> > is it 200% loaded???
> 
> How can that 2.00 possibly mean 200%? The load can only be measured up to 100%;
> over 100% would indicate that the load is higher than the CPU can handle (100% being 
> defined as "maximum amount of processing that the CPU is capable of"). 

Sure it can, and that's exactly what it means.

Load average measures requests for the processor, not processes
actually getting swapped onto it.

Clearly, a process can never be more than 100% utilized, but your
software might be *asking* for more than it can give, which is why
load averages ever go above 1. (And anything above 1 is too much,
even on mass-used servers. If your load average keeps your processor
at full utilization, that machine is trying to do too much.)

> Or am I totally misunderstanding ?

Not totally, but partially.

> I don't think it means 200%, but do agree that it seems high.

Sounds like this is a spinning process, based on what Martin just
said.

I suggested rm'ing it out of /proc. (Hey, can't make things any
worse...)

       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net


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