From owner-freebsd-stable Sun Mar 11 19: 1:35 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mail.virtual-estates.net (video-collage.com [160.79.196.177]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D9A8437B718 for ; Sun, 11 Mar 2001 19:01:31 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mi@mail.virtual-estates.net) Received: (from mi@localhost) by mail.virtual-estates.net (8.9.3+3.2W/8.9.3) id VAA06440; Sun, 11 Mar 2001 21:52:45 -0500 (EST) From: Mikhail Teterin Message-Id: <200103120252.VAA06440@mail.virtual-estates.net> Subject: Re: load stays at 1 on an idle machine In-Reply-To: <200103111029.f2BATj518491@dungeon.home> from Stephen McKay at "Mar 11, 2001 08:29:45 pm" To: Stephen McKay Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 21:52:45 -0500 (EST) Cc: stable@freebsd.org, mvh@ix.netcom.com, bde@zeta.org.au, mi@aldan.algebra.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL60 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > >I have seen this behavior a number of times over the years, but never > >tracked it down. > > Me too. This happens to me several times a year, and has done for > years. Generally, very soon after noticing it, whatever I do to > examine it causes it to return to normal (ie load-average very near > zero). > > >I have noticed that when this happes, the load is basically a > >completely stable value of 1.0 or very close to it, almost like it is > >in a locally stable state. > > I have xload always running and it will be perfectly flat at 1.0 load. > Other commands will confirm this (top, uptime). Then the load average > mysteriously returns to normal with no real intervention. Well, I noticed it being flat at 2, with SETI@Home running. I stopped the seti and it went down to 1 and stayed there (flat at 1). This happened through a couple of reboots. I then disabled the seti startup and rebooted again. It is at flat 0 now, which is right. So, whatever it is, in my case it triggered by an always on low priority process -- just like SETI's number cruncher... -mi To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message