Talk:Load (computing): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:36, 20 August 2011

Revision as of 20:32, 21 August 2012

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:This is NOT correct. (which is why I deleted that section previously, but it re-appeared).

::Yes, completely totally wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. That is not what load average means at all. [[Special:Contributions/96.42.113.114|96.42.113.114]] ([[User talk:96.42.113.114|talk]]) 20:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

:As the author correctly stated earlier, load is how many processes is waiting to run (+ 1 actually running) on the system. e.g if there are 9 waiting and 1 running the load will be 10.

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:::In other words, it's possible to have a Load Average below 1.0 and have 100% CPU usage (single process using all CPU with no other processes waiting) but it's not possible to have a Load Average above 1.0 with less than 100% CPU usage (doesn't make sense to have lots of processes blocked with idle CPU). At least, that's how I read this. <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/66.92.218.124|66.92.218.124]] ([[User talk:66.92.218.124|talk]]) 20:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

::::Wrong. So very wrong. Processes waiting on IO, thus are using ZERO CPU time, add to the load average. Thus it is entirely possible to have a high load average with less than 100% CPU usage. This is an indication that you are IO bound, NOT CPU bound. This is why just blindly upgrading your CPU because load average is high, is the wrong thing to do. This is why load average is meaningless on its own, and mostly meaningless even with other context. It tell you nothing you can't more easily figure out just looking at CPU usage in top and the blinking lights of your hard drive. [[Special:Contributions/96.42.113.114|96.42.113.114]] ([[User talk:96.42.113.114|talk]]) 20:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

::http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9001 seems to give a much clearer idea of the concept of load and load average. i quote an important point:

::http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9001 seems to give a much clearer idea of the concept of load and load average. i quote an important point:

"It is important to remember that a CPU is a discrete state machine. It really can be at only 100%, executing an instruction, or at 0%, waiting for something to do. There is no such thing as using 45% of a CPU. The CPU percentage is a function of time."

[[User:Hackeye|Hackeye]] ([[User talk:Hackeye|talk]]) 05:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC) hackeye