[wplug] Understanding Load

[Kevin Squire]

I have been diving into the performance of one of our servers lately.
Trying to figure out if the hit in performance is due to one of the
changes made at network level, server level, or is it just that the
server is getting used more.

On thing I am trying to understand is "Load" ... the systems (1min) load
during the day can go as high as 80 ... but tends to bounce around 3-10

We have a Intel® Xeon® Processor 3050 
http://ark.intel.com/products/27204/Intel-Xeon-Processor-3050-%282M-Cache-2_13-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB%29

It is Dual Core -- and from what I read here
  http://blog.scoutapp.com/articles/2009/07/31/understanding-load-averages

A load of < 2 is OK since it is a dual core.  What I am wondering:

1) Is that right, < 2 is OK for this chip?
2) Does the number of threads matter any? 
3) If 2 is right... then where else can I look to see WHY my load tends
to spend sooo much time in the double digits?



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