[CentOS] Load Average ~0.40 when idle

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 11:00 AM, listmail <listmail at entertech.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:20:53 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote
>> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 4:52 PM, listmail <listmail at entertech.com> wrote:
> <snip
>> > OK, I downloaded the CentOS 5.2 Live CD and booted from it. To eliminate
>> > load from the GUI, I forced the system into runlevel 3 and ran top.
>> > I see the same problem; the load average sits at about 0.40 continuously.
>> > This is with the ethernet drivers running, and it does not matter if the
>> > network cables are plugged in or not.
>> >
>>
>> Ok sorry for the wild goose chase earlier...
>>
>> 1. Check with the manufacturer or motherboard to see if this is a
>> known issue. Sometimes these items show up and are fixed with a BIOS
>> update.
>> 2. Check to see if you can pinpoint where the problem is coming
>> from... set up sar and iostat to see if there are excessive irq's on
>> one line or another. Run the system as a minimal OS when doing
>> this... nothing but init 1 if possible.
>> 3. Try Fedora 9 livecd and see if it still occurs. If it doesn't
>> then the problem was fixed in the main kernel between EL-5 and now. That
>> can help make it easier to track down for a bug in Red Hat's bugzilla.
>>
> I cannot find relevant support notes on either the Supermicro or Intel sites,
> but I'll send an email to Supermicro support to see if they know anything.
>
> I used vmstat to compare interrupt and context switch rates on a system
> with the issue and a system without the issue (older kernel). Both systems
> show an irq rate of about 1000/sec and cs rate of about 25/sec.
>
> The system that does not exhibit the problem is running 2.6.18-53.1.14.el5,
> so it seems to be something that has changed since that time frame
> (early CentOS 5.1, I think).
>

Does the non-affected system show the problem when you run livecd on
it? If not, i would try installing that kernel on your affected system
and see if the problem goes away for the time being.



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"