Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From:	Jason Dodson <jasond@××××××××.com>
To:	gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject:	Re: [gentoo-user] top - 99.9% wa? What's 'wa'?
Date:	Fri, 23 Sep 2005 13:05:15
Message-Id:	`4333FC23.3000509@bblfleet.com`
In Reply to:	Re: [gentoo-user] top - 99.9% wa? What's 'wa'? by Bob Sanders

1	DMA is essentially the AVOIDANCE of using the CPU for I/O. The CPU makes a few
2	calls to the chipset (in the case of ATA DMA), and the rest happens around the
3	processor, not threw it.
4
5	Jason
6
7	>
8	> It's described in the vmstat man page. You're supposed to be clairvoyant about
9	> these things and know that virtual memory stats is where cpu time is described. :)
10	>
11	> It's "Time spent waiting for IO." The cpu can't do anything until IO is
12	> completed - typically this is some kind of DMA transfer.
13	>
14	--
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