Top returning 0.0% cpu usage

[Frank Shute]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 01:07:54PM -0800, mojo fms wrote:
>
> What would cause top to report back 0.0% cpu usage across the top row?  It
> shows the minmal adverage and max correctly and seems to show the correct
> amount for the processes.

How about showing us the lines of top that seem to be a problem?

I think you are reading the load averages which have a different
meaning than "current cpu usage". They are the load averages over 1, 5
& 15 mins respectively. ie: the average number of processes *running*
(processes spend most of their time "idle". RUN in the State column of
top shows when a process is actually using the cpu).

If your machine is virtually idle then the 1 minute load average will
be 0 or close to 0 and is normal.

If you've just turned on your machine or it's been sitting idle for 15
mins then the other load averages will also be 0.

E.g: On this machine doing not a lot:

last pid: 96158;  load averages:  0.00,  0.04,  0.05    up 1+23:50:42 17:41:46

(7.1 RELEASE)

> 
> Copyright (c) 1992-2009 The FreeBSD Project.
> Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
>         The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
> FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
> FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE #0: Thu Jan  1 14:37:25 UTC 2009
>     root at logan.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
> Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
> CPU: Intel Pentium III (996.77-MHz 686-class CPU)
>   Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x68a  Stepping = 10

[snip]

Regards,

-- 

 Frank 


 Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html