I've this server which is basically idle, and yet has a high load average.
- Hardware : 4 processor PowerPC
- Over 4GB of free RAM
- Top says CPUs are 99.9% idle
- Virtually no disk I/O
- Debian Squeeze, default install except I'm using ext4
Here's the output of a few commands :
uname -a
Linux box 2.6.32-5-powerpc64 #1 SMP Tue Mar 8 02:01:42 UTC 2011 ppc64 GNU/Linux
top
top - 14:08:57 up 1:58, 1 user, load average: 2.68, 2.45, 2.29
Tasks: 105 total, 1 running, 104 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 0.0%us, 0.1%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.9%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 4987256k total, 4965484k used, 21772k free, 16540k buffers
Swap: 24414028k total, 0k used, 24414028k free, 4781172k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
2606 myself 20 0 3276 1340 1076 R 0 0.0 0:00.62 top
1 root 20 0 2560 844 740 S 0 0.0 0:00.65 init
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
3 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0
4 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
uptime
14:09:23 up 1:58, 1 user, load average: 2.54, 2.43, 2.28
iostat -d 2 -m
Device: tps MB_read/s MB_wrtn/s MB_read MB_wrtn
sdb 0.00 0.00 0.00 0 0
sda 1.50 0.00 0.02 0 0
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4870 4853 17 0 16 4669
-/+ buffers/cache: 167 4702
Swap: 23841 0 23841
ps axf
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
2 ? S 0:00 [kthreadd]
3 ? S 0:00 \_ [migration/0]
4 ? S 0:00 \_ [ksoftirqd/0]
5 ? S 0:00 \_ [watchdog/0]
6 ? S 0:00 \_ [migration/1]
7 ? S 0:00 \_ [ksoftirqd/1]
8 ? S 0:00 \_ [watchdog/1]
9 ? S 0:00 \_ [migration/2]
10 ? S 0:00 \_ [ksoftirqd/2]
11 ? S 0:00 \_ [watchdog/2]
12 ? S 0:00 \_ [migration/3]
13 ? S 0:00 \_ [ksoftirqd/3]
14 ? S 0:00 \_ [watchdog/3]
15 ? S 0:00 \_ [events/0]
16 ? S 0:00 \_ [events/1]
17 ? S 0:00 \_ [events/2]
18 ? S 0:00 \_ [events/3]
19 ? S 0:00 \_ [cpuset]
20 ? S 0:00 \_ [khelper]
21 ? S 0:00 \_ [netns]
22 ? S 0:00 \_ [async/mgr]
23 ? S 0:00 \_ [pm]
24 ? S 0:00 \_ [sync_supers]
25 ? S 0:00 \_ [bdi-default]
26 ? S 0:00 \_ [kintegrityd/0]
27 ? S 0:00 \_ [kintegrityd/1]
28 ? S 0:00 \_ [kintegrityd/2]
29 ? S 0:00 \_ [kintegrityd/3]
30 ? S 0:00 \_ [kblockd/0]
31 ? S 0:00 \_ [kblockd/1]
32 ? S 0:00 \_ [kblockd/2]
33 ? S 0:00 \_ [kblockd/3]
38 ? S 0:00 \_ [khungtaskd]
39 ? S 0:04 \_ [kswapd0]
40 ? SN 0:00 \_ [ksmd]
41 ? S 0:00 \_ [aio/0]
42 ? S 0:00 \_ [aio/1]
43 ? S 0:00 \_ [aio/2]
44 ? S 0:00 \_ [aio/3]
45 ? S 0:00 \_ [crypto/0]
46 ? S 0:00 \_ [crypto/1]
47 ? S 0:00 \_ [crypto/2]
48 ? S 0:00 \_ [crypto/3]
134 ? S 0:00 \_ [ksuspend_usbd]
135 ? S 0:00 \_ [kmmcd]
137 ? S 0:00 \_ [ata/0]
138 ? S 0:00 \_ [ata/1]
139 ? S 0:00 \_ [ata/2]
140 ? S 0:00 \_ [ata/3]
141 ? S 0:00 \_ [ata_aux]
142 ? S 0:00 \_ [scsi_eh_0]
143 ? S 0:00 \_ [scsi_eh_1]
144 ? S 0:00 \_ [scsi_eh_2]
145 ? S 0:00 \_ [scsi_eh_3]
150 ? S 0:00 \_ [khubd]
174 ? S 0:00 \_ [usbhid_resumer]
227 ? D 0:00 \_ [kwindfarm]
239 ? S 0:00 \_ [jbd2/sda3-8]
240 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
241 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
242 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
243 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
424 ? S 0:00 \_ [nouveau/0]
425 ? S 0:00 \_ [nouveau/1]
426 ? S 0:00 \_ [nouveau/2]
427 ? S 0:00 \_ [nouveau/3]
459 ? S 0:00 \_ [phy0]
474 ? S 0:00 \_ [flush-8:0]
493 ? S 0:00 \_ [ttm_swap]
588 ? S 0:00 \_ [bluetooth]
635 ? S 0:00 \_ [firewire_sbp2]
693 ? S 0:00 \_ [jbd2/sda5-8]
694 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
695 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
696 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
697 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
1694 ? S 0:02 \_ [jbd2/sdb1-8]
1695 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
1696 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
1697 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
1698 ? S 0:00 \_ [ext4-dio-unwrit]
1 ? Ss 0:00 init [2]
303 ? S<s 0:00 udevd --daemon
368 ? S< 0:00 \_ udevd --daemon
1385 ? S< 0:00 \_ udevd --daemon
929 ? Sl 0:00 /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -c4
998 ? Ss 0:00 /usr/sbin/atd
1042 ? Ss 0:00 /usr/sbin/cron
1255 ? Ss 0:00 /usr/sbin/exim4 -bd -q30m
1286 tty2 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
1287 tty3 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
1288 tty4 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4
1289 tty5 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5
1290 tty6 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6
1300 ? Ss 0:00 dhclient -v -pf /var/run/dhclient.eth0.pid -lf /var/lib/dhcp/dhclient.eth0.leases eth0
1384 tty1 Ss+ 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2113 ? Ss 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
2116 ? S 0:00 \_ /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
2118 ? Sl 0:00 \_ /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
2119 ? Sl 0:00 \_ /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
2577 ? Ss 0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
Best Answer
Try to upgrade/downgrade your kernel. Are several problems with the sheduler on different kernels: