On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 09:30:17AM -0500, Matt Garman wrote: > > How can the loadavg shoot up (from ~1 to ~20) without a corresponding > uptick in number of tasks? loadavg is based on number of processes vying for cpu time on the runq; the number of over-all processes on the system is not really relevant unless they are all competing for cpu. What's the i/o wait on the box when you see load spikes? If the box is i/o bound (indicated by high i/o) the load average will spike due to processes blocked on i/o cycles. John -- Worrying works. About 90% of the things I worry about never happen. -- Woody Paige (1946-), sports columnist, on ESPN's "Around the Horn" -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20140328/ca6c6ca3/attachment-0005.sig>