100-200 load average on an idle system: Help!

[User Iam]

On 1/8/07, Thorne Lawler <thorin at trouble.net.au> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> My Ubuntu Dapper (6.06.1) box is consistently showing a load average of
> 100+ while completely idle, not swapping, and not particularly using its
> disks:
>
> (from top)
> top - 11:47:24 up 19:19,  1 user,  load average: 127.30, 126.59, 124.14
> Tasks: 362 total,   2 running, 360 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
> Cpu(s):  1.0% us,  0.2% sy,  0.0% ni, 98.5% id,  0.3% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0%si
> Mem:    499648k total,   489568k used,    10080k free,    21220k buffers
> Swap:  1502068k total,       88k used,  1501980k free,   159440k cached
>
>    PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
>
> 15560 thorin    15   0  6204 2444 1760 R  1.9  0.5   0:00.03 top
>
>      1 root      16   0  1564  528  460 S  0.0  0.1   0:01.20 init
>
>      2 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00
> migration/0
>      3 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00
> ksoftirqd/0
>      4 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 watchdog/0
>
>      5 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.10 events/0
>
>      6 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 khelper
>
>      7 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthread
>
>      9 root      10  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd/0
>
>     10 root      20  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kacpid
>
>    127 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 pdflush
>
>    128 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 pdflush
>
> The output from dmesg doesn't show any hardware faults or time-outs:
> dmesg | tail
> [42949392.820000] md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
> [42949392.820000] md: bitmap version 4.39
> [42949393.200000] device-mapper: 4.4.0-ioctl (2005-01-12) initialised:
> dm-devel at redhat.com
> [42949396.240000] kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
> [42949396.240000] EXT3 FS on hda1, internal journal
> [42949396.240000] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
> [42949402.240000] eth1: no IPv6 routers present
> [42949413.210000] Netfilter messages via NETLINK v0.30.
> [42949413.250000] ip_conntrack version 2.4 (3967 buckets, 31736 max) -
> 232 bytes per conntrack
> [42949413.660000] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
>
> In fact, the system seems to be fine... except that uptime and top and
> /proc/loadavg all show a load average that would kill a 16-way monster.
>
> What can I do to diagnose this further? How do I find out what's causing
> it? What does it mean? Help!
>
> Please note:
> I just recently got my server hosted, and chose to stick with Ubuntu
> because that's what I know. This is relevant because it's very primitive
> hosting: Please don't suggest any strategy that involves having physical
> access to the machine, booting special media, or performing operations
> that can only be done on the console. I have a total of three kinds of
> access to this box:
> 1. I can get in over the network, e.g. by ssh.
> 2. I can have the system rebooted (for a sum of money per reboot).
> 3. I can get the system reinstalled from scratch.
> This last option is presently kinda less than ideal, since I don't have
> a current backup.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> --
> Thorne Huw Lawler         trouble.net.au
> "Croup and Vandermar, the Old Firm. Obstacles
> obliterated, nuisances eradicated, bothersome
> limbs removed and tutelary dentistry undertaken"



Can  you run

System monitor....

Just a gui...

Shows same as top

User Iam
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