Dedicated server keeps on overloading

[bokhove2]

At our school we run a dedicated server:

WHM 10.6.0 cPanel 10.8.0-R14
RedHat Enterprise 3 i686 - WHM X v3.1.0

1Gb dual processor etc.

Since the 20th august we are plagued with unbearable server loads (95 the highest). Naturally the server then crashes. I have been trying to find the cause of all this.

* Problems started with an extreme high server load, with a lot of PROCESSES directed to Mysql. This indicated that it something to do with MySQL.

* I have adjusted my.cnf, because it seemed to be an error with Mysql processes. Upgraded mysql, flushed the tables, made a script that flushes tables (not nice). Error didn't occur until at night the backups caused a Mysql overload.

* Studied this problem. Upgraded Moodle, our VLE. Problem seems to be solved, but now the high server load has returned.

Crashing the server!!!! Even with only a handful of users.

I have spent 40+ hours on this problem (I am a teacher, so this is really not my job) and have no clue what to do next. Our hosting provider is also looking into this problem, but also with no luck.

At the moment our server data is being copied to another server, so we can hopefully continue there, scrutinizing our own server in teh meantime.

Any clues?

Regards,

Christian

[AndyReed]

It is very hard to say what's causing the high load on your server. You'll have to look into the log files and see the error messages.