From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 22 18:58:15 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B98A11065672 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:58:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from mail-out3.apple.com (mail-out3.apple.com [17.254.13.22]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A093C8FC19 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:58:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from relay14.apple.com (relay14.apple.com [17.128.113.52]) by mail-out3.apple.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A9F14D9EAFD; Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:58:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay14.apple.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by relay14.apple.com (Symantec Brightmail Gateway) with ESMTP id 71CF928085; Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:58:15 -0800 (PST) X-AuditID: 11807134-a7859bb000000ff0-88-4978c1c73a4b Received: from cswiger1.apple.com (cswiger1.apple.com [17.227.140.124]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by relay14.apple.com (Apple SCV relay) with ESMTP id 54B292809F; Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:58:15 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <89DAA561-BD18-45C8-B4C4-5F86DC2AA53E@mac.com> From: Chuck Swiger To: Laszlo Nagy In-Reply-To: <49787C30.9010207@shopzeus.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v930.3) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:58:15 -0800 References: <49787C30.9010207@shopzeus.com> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.930.3) X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: load average + with no visible load ? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:58:16 -0000 On Jan 22, 2009, at 6:01 AM, Laszlo Nagy wrote: > #uptime > 9:06AM up 6:14, 12 users, load averages: 25.39, 13.19, 9.55 > > I would think that CPU is under 100% when load=15.58 . But it is not: See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_average A high load average should have your CPUs running near 100%; if they are not, on some platforms that tends to indicate that many processes are (or would be) runnable but are being blocked in a short-term wait condition due to network or disk I/O, or are being affected by VM paging activity. This line of your top output indicates many processes are in a WAIT condition: > 514 processes: 3 running, 490 sleeping, 1 zombie, 20 waiting Regards, -- -Chuck