top output: 8 cpus busy in user-mode activities, 6 processes running

[Susie White]

Can you give me some insights about how we can have a case of more busy cpus than users on the run queue or waiting for the run queue.  Below is a point in time snap shot using 'top'.  We have 8 cpus, all with user-mode activity.  And yet we have 6 processes in an R or S state.  All the rest are in SW state.  Any speculation is welcome.  

We are running this version of linux:  2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue May 17 17:52:23 EDT 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Thanks!


 05:10:01  up 24 days,  5:58,  3 users,  load average: 3.50, 2.24, 1.33
1061 processes: 1060 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  cpu    user    nice  system    irq  softirq  iowait    idle
           total   21.6%    0.0%   43.2%   0.0%     0.8%    9.6%  724.0%
           cpu00    0.9%    0.0%    3.6%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   95.4%
           cpu01    2.7%    0.0%    7.2%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   90.0%
           cpu02    7.2%    0.0%    0.9%   0.0%     0.0%    5.4%   86.4%
           cpu03    3.6%    0.0%    4.5%   0.0%     0.0%    4.5%   87.3%
           cpu04    1.8%    0.0%    3.6%   0.0%     0.9%    0.0%   93.6%
           cpu05    1.8%    0.0%    8.1%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   90.0%
           cpu06    1.8%    0.0%    6.3%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   91.8%
           cpu07    1.8%    0.0%    9.0%   0.0%     0.0%    0.0%   89.0%
Mem:  15887700k av, 14688888k used, 1198812k free,       0k shrd,   75228k buff
                   10974816k actv, 2098712k in_d,  244572k in_c
Swap: 12582712k av,  128796k used, 12453916k free                 12403560k cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME CPU COMMAND
 9477 oracle    25   0  1944 1944   788 R     9.9  0.0   0:00   7 top
 1937 root      16   0  1204 1076   692 S     7.2  0.0 328:13   2 hpasmd
 9531 oracle    25   0 14208  13M 12596 S     4.5  0.0   0:00   3 oracle
25749 oracle    15   0 14200  13M  8584 S     2.7  0.0   0:06   6 oracle
    1 root      25   0   520  520   460 S     0.9  0.0 190:19   0 init
25741 oracle    15   0 25132  24M 21952 S     0.9  0.1   4:38   3 oracle
    2 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   0 migration/0
    3 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   1 migration/1
    4 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   2 migration/2
    5 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   3 migration/3
    6 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   4 migration/4
    7 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   5 migration/5
    8 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   6 migration/6
    9 root      RT   0     0    0     0 SW    0.0  0.0   0:00   7 migration/7