Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : Load average

[gary65536]

Hello,

I have a machine with dual Xeon CPUs. I have noticed that when the server is idle (not serving any requests) the load average is fixed on or near 1.00 yet each CPU state is on or near 100% idle.

1:38pm up 3:19, 1 user, load average: 1.00, 1.01, 1.01
77 processes: 76 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 0.0% user, 0.0% system, 0.0% nice, 100.0% idle
CPU1 states: 0.0% user, 0.1% system, 0.0% nice, 99.4% idle
CPU2 states: 0.0% user, 0.0% system, 0.0% nice, 100.0% idle
CPU3 states: 0.0% user, 0.0% system, 0.0% nice, 100.0% idle

Shouldn't the load average be around 0.00? Does anyone know why the load average never goes below 1?

Thanks

[goldenplanet]

Just a guess: It's a Dell with OpenManage installed - right?

I don't remember the technical explanation but IIRC it's the WatchDog part of OpenManage that's causing it. It's not a "real" load so it shouldn't cause any concern.

[zupanm]

load average is just not a cpu measurement.. if you are starting to swap it will go up also

Also the first one is the 1 minute average.. so if you're cpus where doing work before then then its just the average over that minute