Re: [gentoo-user] Constant Load 1.00+ on new Toshiba laptop

[Paul Hartman]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Shawn Haggett <podge@××××××××.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday 18 February 2009 16:24:45 Paul Hartman wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Beau Henderson <beau@××××××××××××.com>
> wrote:
>> > G'day,
>> >
>> > I was wondering if anyone might have any idea's as to what is causing my
>> > new Toshiba A300 Satelite to idle at a load of 1.00 when not in use.
>> > Right after boot up it settles at 1.00 when I do nothing. I'm not seeing
>> > anything out of ordinary in dmesg ( asside from an non issue with legacy
>> > usb and sd and sr drivers in the kernel ).
>> >
>> > I had Ubuntu on this thing for a week or so as I needed something quick
>> > fast when my workstation chipfan died on me and this wasn't an issue when
>> > I had that installed so I think I can rule out hardware. Also, its not an
>> > issue when I boot up via live cd ( sysrescuecd ).
>> >
>> > I've tried different cpufreq governors ( default is ondemand ) and that
>> > doesn't appear to be an issue.
>> >
>> > Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
>> >
>> > Thanks.
>>
>> I've never known what those numbers represent (I know it is "load
>> average", but what it means, and what is the range, I have no idea)...
>> Anyway, it seems mine are always around 1+. It's not perfectly idle
>> but not running seti or anything intensive either.
>
> I remember trying to google the meaning of those numbers once. It was VERY
> hard to find out what they were. It's something like, average number of
> processes in the running or ready to run states for the last 1, 5 & 15
> minutes.

I just ignore them because they are meaningless to me. The active CPU
percentages seem to be based in Earthly reality. :)

Maybe someone with more knowledge can explain what a "1" means versus
a "2" or whatever.

Paul