How is load average related to CPU utilization?

Posted by Kaustubh P on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Kaustubh P
Published on 2011-02-10T07:21:19Z Indexed on 2011/02/10 7:26 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 523

Filed under:

server

|

load

|

cpu-usage

I am facing a load average of > 3 since past 2 days. The CPU utilization is never above 40 % in all cases. Here are some screenshots of Server Density monitoring tool that I use.

enter image description here

The process snapshot at the highest peak, @ 0:00 is as follows: enter image description here

And the process snapshot at the peak created at 12:00 is: enter image description here

My question is, even though CPU utilization is not 100 %, why am I facing a high average?

PS: All snapshots are sorted by descending CPU utilization.

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about server

SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server 2011 Performance Comparison

as seen on SQL Authority - Search for 'SQL Authority'
Earlier, I have written about SQL SERVER – Server Side Paging in SQL Server 2011 – A Better Alternative. I got many emails asking for performance analysis of paging. Here is the quick analysis of it. The real challenge of paging is all the unnecessary IO reads from the database. Network traffic was… >>> More
Should I switch my server to Ubuntu Server from Windows Server 2003

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a server thats primarily used for SRCDS, I host a few Team Fortress 2 servers on it and I would much prefer a ssh-like (more so the no-gui part) for something like this, mostly because I can't navigate with my phone on VNC very well and also because there really is no need for a gui in this… >>> More
Windows web server and SQL Server on same dedicated server

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm currently trying to decide on the best approach to handle hosting a few moderate traffic websites for production e-commerce and online applications. We'd like to move to a dedicated server and are looking at this as the most likely machine: Quad Core Intel Core2Quad Q9550 Processor, 2.83 Ghz… >>> More
Windows 7 Desktop/Start Menu Redirection: Server O/S: Windows Server 2003 And Server 2008

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hi, I am new here so I am might be asking a question which has already been answered [however I can't see it in the suggested answers above] I manage a network which is split into a parent domain and a child domain. Recently I have been looking at when to migrate to Windows 7. The child domain… >>> More
Windows 7 Desktop/Start Menu Redirection: Server O/S: Windows Server 2003 And Server 2008

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, I am new here so I am might be asking a question which has already been answered [however I can't see it in the suggested answers above] I manage a network which is split into a parent domain and a child domain. Recently I have been looking at when to migrate to Windows 7. The child domain… >>> More

Related posts about load

Unable to start sublime text

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I had been using Sublime Text 2 with no issues. I installed IDLE and now I'm unable to start Sublime Text. I tried uninstalling IDLE, but Sublime Text is still not starting. Here's the error: Unable to load libgdk-x11-2.0.so Unable to load gdk_cairo_create from libgdk-x11-2.0.so Unable to load… >>> More
How do I add PHP support to Apache 2 without breaking my current installation?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I run Apache 2 with WSGI (for a Django-app) on a Ubuntu box. I want to use Nagios for server monitoring, and for this purpose it seems I have to add PHP support to Apache. When I installed Apache 2, I did this: apt-get install apache2 apache2.2-common apache2-mpm-worker apache2-threaded-dev libapache2-mod-wsgi… >>> More
SSI includes not working on Debian with Apache

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm trying to get SSI to work on Debian running Apache, however the .shtml files are not being parsed. From a PHP file with phpinfo() I can see that the following show up in the loaded modules section: mod_mime_xattr mod_mime mod_mime_magic In /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/mime.conf I have (among other… >>> More
Cannot load rJava because cannot load a shared library

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have been struggling to load the rJava package in R. I get the following messages > library(rJava) Error in inDL(x, as.logical(local), as.logical(now), ...) : unable to load shared library \ 'C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-210~1.1/library/rJava/libs/rJava.dll': LoadLibrary failure: The specified… >>> More
Cannot load rJava because cannot load a shared library

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have been struggling to load the rJava package in R. I get the following messages > library(rJava) Error in inDL(x, as.logical(local), as.logical(now), ...) : unable to load shared library \ 'C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-210~1.1/library/rJava/libs/rJava.dll': LoadLibrary failure: The specified… >>> More