How to debug high system load?

[Suvayu Ali]

Hello everyone,

On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 01:00:34PM +0200, Suvayu Ali wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have a ThinkPad (Core i7, 2.67GHz) with F17 and I'm seeing high system
> loads persistently. Right from boot up I see loads of 1, and often it
> goes up to 2 or more.
> 
> Things I have looked at:
> 1. I'm using Xfce, so the desktop environment is also light.
> 2. I looked at the output of `systemctl list-units' and don't see any
>    unnecessary services enabled.
> 3. top only says currently Xorg is the most active process with 1% CPU
>    activity. From the activity summary of atop since boot, I see it's
>    Xorg with 3% CPU usage. And while idling all my 4 logical cores are
>    throttled down and are at about 1%.
> 
> So my question is since CPU usage is already so low, what could be
> driving up the system load? This is bugging me since I also see a
> general sluggishness compared to a much faster system early this year.
> 

To answer myself; after I upgraded to kernel 3.4.6-2.fc17.x86_64
yesterday, I haven't seen any issues with load. My average load when
browsing, reading email, or other regular desktop activities is ~ 0.22.

Cheers,

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.