On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 13:16:38 -0500 Damian Gerow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Theo de Raadt wrote: > : > The load average on my machine is inexplicably high; when idle, it sits up > : > between 0.6 and 0.7. > : > : Oh my god, the horror. Nothing is wrong with your machine at all. > : However, I have a diff which will probably keep you happy. > > Not sure if you caught my last paragraph, but I did say that nothing was > wrong with the system at all, I'm just curious as to why the average is > high. > > The simple explanation is found in Mark Zimmerman's reply: " I bet you could get your load average to drop if you forced your cpu to run full speed even when doing nothing. I am guessing that this is not really what you want. " I guess you are assuming the load average is calculated against some a-priori max available cpu-cycles when, from Theo's posts, it looks like it is being calculated against current available cycles. When your cpu is in a power-save mode it has less cycles available, so the minimal load you place on it still consumes a higher fraction of what is available. Dhu
