got load > 1 but no CPU state is showing?

[Chuck Swiger]

Stijn Hoop wrote:
> On a lightly loaded server top is misbehaving: it continuously shows all
> CPU states at 0.0% yet my load varies from 0.50 to about 3. Is there
> any explanation for this?

Maybe.  :-)  I was going to say that on fast machines, it's not unusual for 
processes which start up and then finish quickly to go away before top "sees" 
them, but you still see the effect in the aggregate system load.  However, that 
doesn't explain this line:

 > CPU states:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  0.0% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle

Clutching at straws, maybe top can't read /dev/kmem or something?
Try doing a "MAKEDEV all" in /dev...

-Chuck