[ale] Load?

[David Corbin]

On Thursday 19 May 2005 10:33 pm, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> David Corbin wrote:
> > top - 20:43:03 up 18 days,  7:57,  2 users,  load average: 4.00, 4.00,
> > 4.00 Tasks:  65 total,   1 running,  64 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
> > Cpu(s):   0.7% user,   0.0% system,   0.0% nice,  99.3% idle
> >
> > Here are the top few lines from a top.  The system is substantially idle,
> > yet the load reads a consistent '4'.
> >
> > How do I track the source of this behavior down?
>
> That's interesting...  Is there a unique situation on your box that is
> likely to trigger a bug in the kernel, which reports system load?  

Not that I'm aware of :)

> A 
> system load of 4.00 would be consistant with 4 processes trying to get
> 100% of the CPU time, and consequently, is typically enough to keep a 4
> CPU system pretty busy.

It's not a 4CPU system, and the CPUs are shown as substanitally idle.

>
> What kernel version are you running?

It's a Debian system running 2.4.23.

>
> 	- Mike