Top Consistency

[Dan Nelson]

In the last episode (Jun 08), Doug Hardie said:
> I am running FreeBSD 4.6 and top does not show consistent data (at
> least in my understanding).  The cpu states line shows the percent of
> time in user state.  I would expect the percent processor used by all
> the active processes to add up to something close to that. (single
> processor machine).  However, it never seems to come close.  Often it
> will show 25% user and the sums of the active processes utilizations
> will be around 2%.  Other times it will show 2% user and the sum of
> the processes is over 10%.  Is top wacky or is my understanding
> wrong?

The %WCPU and %CPU columns are weighted averages over ~60 seconds,
while the "CPU states" row is an instantaneous snapshot, so they will
almost never total up.

-- 
	Dan Nelson
	dnelson at allantgroup.com