Server load ( but CPU and memory light usage )

[danielaugustus]

I got this on my server :

17:58:45 up 13:27, 1 user, load average: 2.41, 1.89, 2.29
241 processes: 237 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 25.8% user 7.1% system 0.0% nice 0.0% iowait 66.9% idle
Mem: 1022796k av, 812056k used, 210740k free, 0k shrd, 46512k buff
541680k actv, 23080k in_d, 22832k in_c
Swap: 2048276k av, 155284k used, 1892992k free 488048k cached


How can load be so high although the CPU usage and memory usage is little ?

anyone can explain....

[Mindlash]

Personally, that doesn't seem like a high load... I would love to have that load average... :-/

[tAzMaNiAc]

Originally posted by Mindlash
Personally, that doesn't seem like a high load... I would love to have that load average... :-/

Doesn't seem like a high load? You're kidding right?

Brenden

[casey]

Are these spikes, or is the load always that high? I was watching my loads the other day and noticed that every time mailscanner runs (every time an e-mail comes in or goes out) the load shoots up to 2 for a second and then falls back down.