Re: [rhn-users] system load average and top

["Mr.Anderson" <mr anderson comsystems net>]

>> Umm...What do you mean "the CPU has no load"? It's at 20% used (79.9%
>> idle). 20% usage is a lot depending on your CPU Mhz. If CPU is at 20%
>> used, and the load average is at 15% at first glance seems ok. So a
>> quick guess without looking at the processes is it's normal.
>
> "load" as defined by top is not necessarily the same thing as cpu
> utilization.  I've been told that load is the average length of the
> ready-to-run queue for processes...  basically, you could theoretically
> have a bunch of stuff blocking on IO leading to a high load but low CPU
> utilization.
>
> Of course, I may have a completely garbled understanding of the
> explanation, but, neverthless... :)
>
> Bret

Wow, I'm glad you pointed this out. It makes sense and is completely true.

Thanks,
Mr.Anderson