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#1 2012-05-10 16:21:22

greg5
Member
From: Columbus OH
Registered: 2011-09-28
Posts: 19

Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

uptime:

12:12:18 up  1:10,  1 user,  load average: 1.38, 1.10, 1.07

That seems unusually high to me, I seem to think it is normally around .05 or something near there on idle.

Possibly some useful info:

top:

 1364 greg      20   0  646m 130m  39m S   7.3  3.3  15:39.15 chrome                                                                           
  810 root      19  -1  145m  51m  28m S   4.6  1.3   7:38.17 X                                                                                
 1616 greg      20   0  504m  65m  25m S   1.0  1.7   2:48.65 chrome                                                                           
  833 greg      20   0  123m 2356 1744 S   0.7  0.1   0:33.43 synergys                                                                         
 1536 greg      20   0  952m 132m  20m S   0.7  3.3   0:42.03 chrome                                                                           
  844 greg      20   0 20496 2008 1188 S   0.3  0.0   0:04.98 tmux                                                                             
 2731 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.3  0.0   0:01.65 kworker/1:0                                                                      
 3688 greg      20   0 11464 1352  940 R   0.3  0.0   0:00.19 top                                                                              
    1 root      20   0  4188  664  564 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.36 init                                                                             
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd                                                                         
    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:02.84 ksoftirqd/0                                                                      
    6 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0                                                                      
    7 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.03 watchdog/0                                                                       
    8 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/1                                                                      
   10 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.86 ksoftirqd/1                                                                      
   12 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.03 watchdog/1                                                                       
   13 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/2                                                                      
   15 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.92 ksoftirqd/2                                                                      
   16 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.03 watchdog/2                                                                       
   17 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 cpuset                                                                           
   18 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper                                                                          
   19 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kdevtmpfs                                                                        
   20 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 netns                                                                            
   21 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 sync_supers                                                                      
   22 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 bdi-default 

free -m:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3957       1798       2158          0         50        420
-/+ buffers/cache:       1327       2629
Swap:         3813          0       3813

iostat:

Linux 3.3.5-1-ARCH (red5)       05/10/12        _x86_64_        (3 CPU)

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           8.71    0.35    1.85    0.03    0.00   89.06

Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sdb               0.25         1.03         0.00       7808         24
sda               7.25        57.41        52.53     433555     396645

Last edited by greg5 (2012-05-10 17:10:27)

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#2 2012-05-10 18:18:40

vehk
Member
Registered: 2012-03-18
Posts: 7

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

I have also been getting high load averages recently.
Since I upgraded the kernel yesterday (3.3.5-1), I tried downgrading to 3.3.4-2 which fixed the issue for me.

Even when showing a high load when idling, my system does not seem to be less responsive.
Could this be an error in the load average calculation?

Last edited by vehk (2012-05-10 18:21:08)

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#3 2012-05-10 21:28:14

Kaso_Da_Zmok
Member
Registered: 2007-11-01
Posts: 19

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

i have also noticed this since kernel 3.3.4 and 3.3.5 on three different systems the load average on idle is 0.6 - 0.8 for no apparent reason. downgrading to 3.3.3 fixes. wth

 top - 22:31:08 up  3:37,  5 users,  load average: 0.72, 0.95, 1.28
Tasks: 153 total,   1 running, 152 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu0  :  0.3 us,  0.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 99.3 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu1  :  0.3 us,  0.0 sy,  0.0 ni, 99.7 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu2  :  7.3 us,  2.2 sy,  0.0 ni, 90.1 id,  0.3 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu3  :  0.7 us,  0.0 sy,  0.0 ni, 99.3 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu4  :  0.3 us,  1.0 sy,  0.0 ni, 98.7 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu5  :  0.3 us,  0.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 99.3 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
Kb Mem:   8169368 total,  7342008 used,   827360 free,   432208 buffers
Kb Swap:  2097148 total,     7360 used,  2089788 free,  6014616 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                             
 3194 root      20   0  219m  64m 7336 S   6.3  0.8  24:37.89 Xorg                                                                
 9941 risko     20   0 1328m 365m  36m S   0.7  4.6  20:25.78 firefox                                                             
21281 risko     20   0 72472 7504 2892 S   0.7  0.1   0:00.39 xterm                                                               
 3146 root      20   0  139m 1980 1320 S   0.3  0.0   0:02.41 automount                                                           
 3404 transmis  20   0  162m 3244 2172 S   0.3  0.0   0:03.51 transmission-da                                                     
 8953 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.3  0.0   0:03.26 kworker/1:0                                                         
21109 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.3  0.0   0:00.86 kworker/2:0                                                         
21181 risko     20   0 72472 7480 2864 S   0.3  0.1   0:00.72 xterm                                                               
21205 risko     20   0 21516 1676 1136 S   0.3  0.0   0:01.18 top                                                                 
21288 risko     20   0 21660 1892 1140 R   0.3  0.0   0:00.70 top                                                                 

Last edited by Kaso_Da_Zmok (2012-05-10 21:31:33)

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#4 2012-05-10 23:07:45

ahammel
Member
Registered: 2012-05-01
Posts: 23

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

Highly unscientific test ahoy! I've got htop up and running on two different machines: one with my Arch install running the 3.3.5 kernel, and the other with a Fedora build running 3.3.4. Both have Firefox 12.0 up in one workspace and a konsole running htop through tmux in the other. The Fedora build (3.3.4) is showing load averages around 0, while the Arch box (3.3.5) reports a one-minute load average of between 0.5 and 0.6 if I don't touch anything. The reported cpu usage is similar on both machines (~1%/0/0/0). Disclaimer: the hardware is not remotely similar. Also the Arch build is running dwm while the Fedora is running xmonad, but xmonad uses more cpu than dwm, so I doubt that's the problem.

I would guess that the way load averages are calculated has changed for the 3.3.5 kernel. Couldn't say how. I can't find anything that looks like it might be to blame in the 3.3.5 change log, but kernel development is a bit above my pay grade.

Have you taken a look with htop or powertop to see if any processes are taking up a lot of CPU time?


Laptop: Arch+i3                    Personal file sever: Slackware                   Work PC: Fedora+wmii
Work file sever: FreeBSD       Work application server: Scientific Linux

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#5 2012-05-11 10:15:53

vehk
Member
Registered: 2012-03-18
Posts: 7

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

ahammel wrote:

Have you taken a look with htop or powertop to see if any processes are taking up a lot of CPU time?

Here's a snapshot of top after 10 minutes of idling. I don't see anything suspicious.

top - 11:52:16 up 32 min,  0 users,  load average: 0.88, 0.93, 0.93
Tasks: 103 total,   1 running, 102 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  7.0 us,  3.0 sy,  0.0 ni, 89.7 id,  0.3 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
Kb Mem:   2067836 total,  1019336 used,  1048500 free,    31696 buffers
Kb Swap:  2355196 total,        0 used,  2355196 free,   590200 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
  859 root      20   0 67840  48m  16m S   8.3  2.4   3:00.83 X
 1877 vehk      20   0 19768  10m 4924 S   2.0  0.5   0:42.34 awesome
 1920 vehk      20   0  5628 2372 1236 S   0.7  0.1   0:11.49 htop
 1884 vehk      20   0  147m  29m  22m S   0.3  1.5   0:02.61 keepassx
    1 root      20   0  2128  648  576 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.55 init
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd
    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:01.30 ksoftirqd/0
    6 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0
    7 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 watchdog/0

I couldn't find anything relevant in the kernel changelog either.

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#6 2012-05-11 11:31:57

TheJJ
Member
Registered: 2011-09-29
Posts: 11
Website

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

I've got the same problem and didnt find any solution yet. also my core temperature is now 55° C instead of 35-40° in idle.

my load: 

13:24:43 up 23:16,  0 users,  load average: 0.49, 0.70, 0.77
Linux jjpad 3.3.5-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon May 7 19:57:51 CEST 2012 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2520M CPU @ 2.50GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

top:

top - 13:25:40 up 23:17,  0 users,  load average: 0.44, 0.64, 0.74
Tasks: 153 total,   1 running, 152 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  1.0 us,  0.4 sy,  0.2 ni, 98.4 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
Kb Mem:   8062796 total,  2705376 used,  5357420 free,   171912 buffers
Kb Swap:        0 total,        0 used,        0 free,  1320892 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                                                                   
 1700 root      20   0  176m  24m 6984 S   3.0  0.3  13:45.02 X                                                                                                         
 7776 jj        20   0  526m  42m  24m S   1.7  0.5   0:45.35 chromium                                                                                                  
 7973 jj        20   0 98656  11m 4296 S   1.0  0.1   0:02.07 urxvt                                                                                                     
 2253 jj        20   0 15400 1768 1124 R   0.7  0.0   0:00.05 top                                                                                                       
 1034 root      20   0  6264  404  296 S   0.3  0.0   0:02.01 ifplugd                                                                                                   
 6367 jj        25   5  907m  95m  20m S   0.3  1.2   0:10.60 chromium                                                                                                  
    1 root      20   0  4188  720  612 S   0.0  0.0   0:02.04 init                                                                                                      
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.01 kthreadd                                                                                                  
    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:05.43 ksoftirqd/0                                                                                               
    6 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0                                                                                               
   21 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 cpuset                                                                                                    
   22 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper                                                                                                   
   23 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kdevtmpfs                                                                                                 
   24 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 netns                                                                                                     
   25 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.10 sync_supers                                                                                               
   26 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 bdi-default                                                                                               
   27 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd                                                                                                   
   28 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.02 khungtaskd                                                                                                
   29 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kswapd0                                                                                                   
   30 root      25   5     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksmd                                                                                                      
   31 root      39  19     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:03.27 khugepaged                                                                                                
   32 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 fsnotify_mark                                                                                             
   33 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 crypto                                                                                                    
   35 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthrotld                                                                                                  
   61 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ata_sff                                                                                                   
   62 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_0                                                                                                 
   63 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_1                                                                                                 
   64 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_2                                                                                                 
   67 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_3                                                                                                 
   68 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_4                                                                                                 
   69 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_5                                                                                                 
   84 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.05 khubd                                                                                                     
   85 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 cfg80211                                                                                                  
   87 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 iwlwifi                                                                                                   
   98 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:01.36 jbd2/sda5-8                                                                                               
   99 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ext4-dio-unwrit                                                                                           
  257 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ktpacpid                                                                                                  
  270 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kpsmoused               

etcetc.

the wattage of the system is now at 14-20 W in idle, it was down to 7 before.

my powertop reports nothing special,
about 50-100 wakeups/s



Anyone any ideas what to do except downgrading?

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#7 2012-05-11 14:50:15

Mr.Elendig
#archlinux@freenode channel op
From: The intertubes
Registered: 2004-11-07
Posts: 4,092

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

check iotop and xrestop too


Evil #archlinux@libera.chat channel op and general support dude.
. files on github, Screenshots, Random pics and the rest

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#8 2012-05-11 15:47:04

ahammel
Member
Registered: 2012-05-01
Posts: 23

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

@ TheJJ and Vekh:

X seems to be eating a lot more resources on your systems than mine. Is that a typical load for X in your desktop environments? I get about 3 wakeups/second from X in dwm.

Powertop also tells me I'm getting a fair number of rescheduling interrupts from the kernel (20–50/second). If either of you are seeing something similar, it might be an ACPI/APIC problem. The Ubuntu docs have a troubleshooting guide for this here.


Laptop: Arch+i3                    Personal file sever: Slackware                   Work PC: Fedora+wmii
Work file sever: FreeBSD       Work application server: Scientific Linux

I'm an addict.

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#9 2012-05-11 15:56:19

TheJJ
Member
Registered: 2011-09-29
Posts: 11
Website

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

a friend of mine also has the same issues on a sony laptop (don't know which exacktly)

i'm using i3 and a thinkpad x220t, and i dont't think i changed anything when this power regression occured, except updating arch packages.


 ~ $ sar
Linux 3.3.5-1-ARCH 	05/11/2012 	_x86_64_	(4 CPU)

03:01:02 PM     CPU     %user     %nice   %system %iowait %steal %idle
03:11:02 PM     all      0.35          0.00      0.20      0.00      0.00     99.45
03:21:02 PM     all      1.53          0.00      0.60      0.00      0.00     97.87
03:31:02 PM     all      1.50          0.00      0.66      0.00      0.00     97.84
03:41:02 PM     all      1.16          0.00      0.66      0.00      0.00     98.18
04:06:07 PM     all      2.48          0.00      1.96      0.02      0.00     95.55
05:01:01 PM     all      1.64          0.00      0.49      0.01      0.00     97.87
05:11:01 PM     all      1.96          0.00      0.55      0.02      0.00     97.47
05:21:01 PM     all      4.12          0.00      1.15      0.01      0.00     94.73
05:31:01 PM     all      0.86          0.00      0.30      0.00      0.00     98.84
05:41:01 PM     all      0.98          0.00      0.38      0.01      0.00     98.64
05:51:01 PM     all      0.81          0.00      0.35      0.00      0.00     98.84
Average:           all      1.60          0.00      0.61      0.01      0.00     97.78

really annoying, my battery run time is 1/4 of what is was before...

Last edited by TheJJ (2012-05-11 16:46:15)

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#10 2012-05-11 16:46:37

vehk
Member
Registered: 2012-03-18
Posts: 7

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

ahammel wrote:

X seems to be eating a lot more resources on your systems than mine. Is that a typical load for X in your desktop environments?

I already looked into this because it did seem a bit high. Turns out there was a bug in my awesome configuration that lead to high CPU usage. X is now down to ~2% CPU and 2-3 wakeups.
I still get relatively high load averages though, so I will look into ACPI/APIC.

Edit:
With both the new and old kernel I get 50-80 rescheduling interrupts per second. The guide talks about "many hundreds or possibly thousands" of interrupts, so
I can't image this being an issue with acpi/apic. Also, I can't find any 'misbehaving' application whatsoever. Considering that top/iostat etc. don't show anything
odd, what else is there to check?

Last edited by vehk (2012-05-11 21:33:15)

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#11 2012-05-11 21:55:38

Fr3ak0ut
Member
Registered: 2012-01-20
Posts: 1

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

Hi,
I have the same problem and i am using i3 on a Sony SB. My average core temperature increased a bit and my system wattage is now about 15 W in idle (before it was about 8 W). My average load in idle is much more than before, too. The only thing i did today was updating my packages.
My current load:

23:51:25 up  2:29,  0 users,  load average: 0.53, 0.71, 0.90
Linux andre-laptop 3.3.5-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon May 7 19:57:51 CEST 2012 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2620M CPU @ 2.70GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

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#12 2012-05-12 05:08:30

brebs
Member
Registered: 2007-04-03
Posts: 3,742

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

The 3.3.4-3.3.5 patch has several wireless patches - are you using wireless?

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#13 2012-05-12 09:41:32

vehk
Member
Registered: 2012-03-18
Posts: 7

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

No, I don't use wireless. My workstation has a wired connection to a router.

After examining lsmod I found that the bluetooth module and its dependencies are loaded although I don't need them.
The old kernel does not load these modules. Disabling them did not resolve the issue, however. Could it be a misbehaving module?
Here is my ls{mod,pci,usb} and uname.

I just booted with the fallback initramfs (autodetect off). The bluetooth module was not loaded, but the issue remains.

Last edited by vehk (2012-05-12 09:54:22)

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#14 2012-05-12 14:59:11

TheJJ
Member
Registered: 2011-09-29
Posts: 11
Website

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

i created a bug in the tracker:

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/29850

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#15 2012-05-14 12:08:12

bernarcher
Forum Fellow
From: Germany
Registered: 2009-02-17
Posts: 2,281

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

Moved to Kernel & Hardware.


To know or not to know ...
... the questions remain forever.

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#16 2012-05-14 14:36:57

Kilzool
Member
From: Ireland
Registered: 2010-08-04
Posts: 232

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

I also have noticed almost double and even triple average loads since kernel update (compared to the kernel prior).

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#17 2012-05-14 14:40:09

Army
Member
Registered: 2007-12-07
Posts: 1,784

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

I don't have this issue. Maybe it's because I use the ck-kernel?

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#18 2012-05-14 22:09:28

alexcriss
Member
Registered: 2010-05-24
Posts: 121

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

I think I am seeing this also on 3.4-rc7, while 3.3.4 seems to be fine.

My machine is a Lenovo T420s, SNB CPU and GPU, if it might help. I'll gladly provide other details if someody might have a clue on what's going on

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#19 2012-05-15 15:08:01

Butcher
Member
Registered: 2009-02-04
Posts: 158

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

3.3.5-1-ARCH and happens here as well. I've never had over 1.0 of load average when using the computer, but it's happening now.


17:07:46 up 16:05,  2 users,  load average: 1,67, 1,49, 1,54

Last edited by Butcher (2012-05-15 15:08:17)

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#20 2012-05-17 10:16:22

krum
Member
From: Grenoble - FR
Registered: 2008-04-10
Posts: 32

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

Same issue, last kernel 3.3.6 and a full intel box.

top - 12:14:38 up  1:46,  2 users,  load average: 0,66, 0,38, 0,47
Tasks: 116 total,   2 running, 114 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu0  :  0,7 us,  2,0 sy,  0,0 ni, 97,3 id,  0,0 wa,  0,0 hi,  0,0 si,  0,0 st
%Cpu1  :  0,7 us,  0,7 sy,  0,0 ni, 98,7 id,  0,0 wa,  0,0 hi,  0,0 si,  0,0 st
%Cpu2  :  1,0 us,  0,0 sy,  0,0 ni, 99,0 id,  0,0 wa,  0,0 hi,  0,0 si,  0,0 st
%Cpu3  :  0,3 us,  0,3 sy,  0,0 ni, 99,3 id,  0,0 wa,  0,0 hi,  0,0 si,  0,0 st
Kb Mem:   3949640 total,  2036824 used,  1912816 free,    84968 buffers
Kb Swap:        0 total,        0 used,        0 free,  1093948 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                                                                                    
  890 root      20   0  147m  18m 5328 S   2,3  0,5   4:01.07 Xorg                                                                                                                       
 1109 david     20   0 1345m 116m  34m S   1,3  3,0   2:48.28 gnome-shell                                                                                                                
 1218 david     20   0  478m  20m  11m S   1,0  0,5   0:00.63 gnome-terminal                                                                                                             
 1268 david     20   0 1088m  54m  23m S   0,3  1,4   0:01.97 rhythmbox                                                                                                                  
 3865 root      20   0 13696 1676 1072 R   0,3  0,0   0:00.02 top                                                                                                                        
    1 root      20   0  4188  680  584 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.43 init                                                                                                                       
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 kthreadd                                                                                                                   
    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.16 ksoftirqd/0                                                                                                                
    6 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 migration/0

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#21 2012-05-17 19:26:29

archwade
Member
Registered: 2010-01-26
Posts: 14

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

Which video drivers are you using?

Openchrome upstream changed the default acceleration method from XAA to EXA in openchrome-0.2.906.  I was having huge problems with UI framerate / sluggishness after upgrading.  If this applies, see the section on AccelMethod in wiki:OpenChrome Troubleshooting.

Last edited by archwade (2012-05-17 19:27:11)

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#22 2012-05-17 19:57:48

alexcriss
Member
Registered: 2010-05-24
Posts: 121

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

xf86-video-intel with SNB hardware here

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#23 2012-05-17 20:04:04

archwade
Member
Registered: 2010-01-26
Posts: 14

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

It may be good to check /var/log/Xorg.0.log  anyway, since that's what led me to find my issue.  I was seeing a ton of errors from X complaining about the EXA module in OpenChrome, so it could be a place to start.

If anyone else has a working and non-working versions available, it could also be worth diffing the Xorg.0.log files to see if anything jumps out there.

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#24 2012-05-18 15:12:03

rLy
Member
From: Hungary
Registered: 2011-06-01
Posts: 7

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

Hi, I noticed the high load a few days ago. That time it was around 1 but today more than 2

top - 17:03:18 up 10:50,  2 users,  load average: 2,19, 2,35, 2,50
Tasks: 140 total,   1 running, 138 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
%Cpu(s): 14,3 us,  3,9 sy,  1,2 ni, 76,4 id,  4,0 wa,  0,0 hi,  0,2 si,  0,0 st
Kb Mem:   4053156 total,  3574632 used,   478524 free,    65960 buffers
Kb Swap:  4192960 total,   181656 used,  4011304 free,  1775288 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                                                                                                                                        
 1348 rly       20   0 27332  15m  776 S   6,5  0,4   7:44.29 wineserver                                                                                                                                                                     
 1472 rly       20   0 2833m 246m  20m S   6,5  6,2  12:18.64 steam.exe                                                                                                                                                                      
    1 root      20   0 30428 1892 1356 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.40 systemd                                                                                                                                                                        
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 kthreadd                                                                                                                                                                       
    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:07.71 ksoftirqd/0                                                                                                                                                                    
    6 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 migration/0                                                                                                                                                                    
    7 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.06 watchdog/0                                                                                                                                                                     
    8 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 migration/1                                                                                                                                                                    
   10 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:08.57 ksoftirqd/1                                                                                                                                                                    
   12 root      rt   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.05 watchdog/1                                                                                                                                                                     
   13 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 cpuset                                                                                                                                                                         
   14 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 khelper                                                                                                                                                                        
   15 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 kdevtmpfs                                                                                                                                                                      
   16 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 netns                                                                                                                                                                          
   17 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.05 sync_supers                                                                                                                                                                    
   18 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 bdi-default                                                                                                                                                                    
   19 root       0 -20     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 kblockd                                                                                                                                                                        
   21 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.01 khungtaskd                                                                                                                                                                     
   22 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:10.64 kswapd0                                                                                                                                                                        
   23 root      25   5     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 ksmd                                                                                                                                                                           
   24 root      39  19     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:12.59 khugepaged                                                                                                                                                                     
   25 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0,0  0,0   0:00.00 fsnotify_mark

Yesterday updates:

[2012-05-17 18:33] starting full system upgrade
[2012-05-17 18:44] upgraded nvidia-utils (295.49-1 -> 295.53-1)
[2012-05-17 18:44] upgraded 0ad-data (a9-1 -> a10-1)
[2012-05-17 18:44] upgraded 0ad (a9-1 -> a10-1)
[2012-05-17 18:44] upgraded libcups (1.5.2-2 -> 1.5.3-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded cups (1.5.2-2 -> 1.5.3-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded glib2 (2.32.2-2 -> 2.32.3-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded lib32-nvidia-utils (295.49-1 -> 295.53-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded libnl (3.2.7-1 -> 3.2.9-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded nvidia (295.49-1 -> 295.53-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded opencl-nvidia (295.49-1 -> 295.53-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded soprano (2.7.5-1 -> 2.7.6-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded unrar (4.2.1-1 -> 4.2.2-1)
[2012-05-17 18:45] upgraded xorg-xinput (1.5.99.901-1 -> 1.6.0-1)

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#25 2012-05-21 13:17:24

alexcriss
Member
Registered: 2010-05-24
Posts: 121

Re: Troubleshooting a high load average on idle.

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