From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 22 20:59:42 2011 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 EDE4F1065672 for ; Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:59:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rjgonzale@estrads.com.ar) Received: from oproxy6-pub.bluehost.com (oproxy6.bluehost.com [IPv6:2605:dc00:100:2::a6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B3DC38FC12 for ; Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:59:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 22610 invoked by uid 0); 22 Sep 2011 20:59:42 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO box511.bluehost.com) (74.220.219.111) by cpoproxy3.bluehost.com with SMTP; 22 Sep 2011 20:59:42 -0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=estrads.com.ar; s=default; h=Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-Type:In-Reply-To:References:Subject:To:MIME-Version:From:Date:Message-ID; bh=xRe/FcaRkFBZy/cMpLAOzYn6S1Oq4kEp3B59I9yQkcg=; b=KrwVOWtyBLLCLRZPGyVYLv9nSy7hE5WkGASBwCeq+LOBar85uy7j2q4O08l/En4lsVKAGLiEq8ye/QrYEHQqc9m6OK8Uum7Kaqb4rcaIjWGRhqEEqBN68lOoNSXI2PN+; Received: from 20-72-231-201.fibertel.com.ar ([201.231.72.20] helo=rjgonzale-laptop.localdomain) by box511.bluehost.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1R6qMv-0005CI-T2 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:59:42 -0600 Message-ID: <4E7BA1B8.5070109@estrads.com.ar> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:59:36 -0300 From: Rodrigo Gonzalez User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:6.0.2) Gecko/20110906 Thunderbird/6.0.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Identified-User: {32647:box511.bluehost.com:gonosade:estrads.com.ar} {sentby:smtp auth 201.231.72.20 authed with rjgonzale@estrads.com.ar} Subject: Re: load average with multi-core CPU's 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 Sep 2011 20:59:43 -0000 On 09/22/2011 04:29 PM, Mark Felder wrote: > On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:22:43 -0500, Henry M wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> Can someone explain, or point me to correct documentation on what the >> load >> average on top/uptime is actually displaying? > > Load average is "average number of processes in the run queue" for the > 1, 5, and 15 minute intervals. If you have a quad core CPU a 4.00 load > average means you've been keeping the CPU busy at 100%. Not exactly as I understand it....IO (disk, network or whatever) affects it too... It is the number of task waiting in queue to be run....but IO is important...if 2 processes are waiting for IO and it is completely saturated they will be kept in queue so load will get higher I think there are other things that affect load average but are over my current knowledge... Regards Rodrigo Gonzalez