[CentOS] Load Average ~0.40 when idle

[Dan Halbert]

listmail wrote:
> Good suggestion. Disconnecting the Ethernet cables from the NICs did not
> make a difference. However, shutting down the interfaces (e.g ifdown eth0,
> ifdown eth1) did cut the load average down to nothing (0.00).
>
> So it wasn't actual traffic, but something that the interfaces were doing,
> or something that was trying to talk to one or both of them.
>   
That's interesting. A few ideas (I'm just trying divide and conquer here 
-- I don't have a hypothesis):
1. See if it's one interface or the other. Does just shutting down one 
make a difference?
2. Use tcpdump on the interface to see what's going on there, even when 
the cables are disconnected. (I may be wrong about seeing anything when 
it's disconnected; you may not see any traffic if the driver knows 
nothing can go out.)
3. Do "chkconfig --list" to find out which services are on, and shut 
them down one by one to see if one is the offender.