From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 25 17:13:10 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 513A51065672 for ; Mon, 25 May 2009 17:13:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl) Received: from wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl (wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl [IPv6:2001:4070:101:2::1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 849228FC2F for ; Mon, 25 May 2009 17:13:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl) Received: from wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n4PHCmAe040051; Mon, 25 May 2009 19:12:48 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl) Received: from localhost (wojtek@localhost) by wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl (8.14.3/8.14.3/Submit) with ESMTP id n4PHClfu040048; Mon, 25 May 2009 19:12:48 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl) Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 19:12:47 +0200 (CEST) From: Wojciech Puchar To: Peter Boosten In-Reply-To: <4A1A58FA.60303@boosten.org> Message-ID: References: <200905241315.n4ODFB96007801@mp.cs.niu.edu> <4A1A58FA.60303@boosten.org> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: Yuri , Scott Bennett , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, utisoft@gmail.com Subject: Re: How can this 'top' command output make sense? Load over 7 and total CPU use ~5% X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 17:13:10 -0000 > I think Wojciech means '...which is NOT measure of CPU _utilization_' exactly what i said. > > In that case he's correct: whenever the CPU has to wait a lot for I/O, > like network and disk, then the _load_ will go up, while the CPU > _utilization_ stays low. and that's inconsistent with explanation that load average is measure of CPU load. it's not.