[lug] weird high loads

[Kevin Fenzi]

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew Diederich <andrew at NETdelivery.com> writes:

Andrew> On two of my linux boxes I have a load of > 3.  This is really
Andrew> weird, especially because they're not doing much.  Top shows
Andrew> not a whole lot of cpu activity, not much memory activity.
Andrew> How do I figure out why my load average is so high?

well, first thing I would check is for processes stuck in disk wait
("D"):

ps -auxww | grep " D "

Processes in disk wait are things that are waiting on I/O. Nfs server
to respond, disk to respond, etc. Those can drive your apparent load
up. (They are counted as running processes, even tho they are just
sitting there waiting for I/O). 

If thats not the case, you might consider grabbing a fresh copy of top
and ps and running those. It could be that someone has compromised
your machines and is running something on them that they have modified
ps and top not to show... ;( 

Andrew> -Andrew

kevin
-- 
Kevin Fenzi
MTS, tummy.com, ltd.
http://www.tummy.com/  KRUD - Kevin's Red Hat Uber Distribution