--- title: Linux Load Average Is High. CPU Usage Is Low. Here’s... description: Linux load average counts both runnable tasks and tasks in uninterruptible sleep (D state), so a high load with low CPU usage is not contradictory — it... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/linux-load-average-is-high-cpu-usage-is-low-here-s-what-you-re-missing--rqfkd6pr4 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Linux Load Average Is High. CPU Usage Is Low. Here’s What You’re Missing. | daily.dev og:description: Linux load average counts both runnable tasks and tasks in uninterruptible sleep (D state), so a high load with low CPU usage is not contradictory — it... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/linux-load-average-is-high-cpu-usage-is-low-here-s-what-you-re-missing--rqfkd6pr4 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/RqfKd6PR4.png og:image:alt: Linux Load Average Is High. CPU Usage Is Low. Here’s What You’re Missing. og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Linux Load Average Is High. CPU Usage Is Low. Here’s What You’re Missing. **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Linux load average counts both runnable tasks and tasks in uninterruptible sleep (D state), so a high load with low CPU usage is not contradictory — it typically signals blocked I/O or other resource waits rather than CPU saturation. The post explains how to distinguish CPU-bound from I/O-bound load using tools like ps, vmstat, iostat, pidstat, and Linux's Pressure Stall Information (PSI) via /proc/pressure. It provides a branching diagnostic workflow: check runnable vs. blocked task counts, inspect D-state processes and their wait channels, follow the dependency chain to local block devices, NFS mounts, or memory pressure, and capture kernel logs before taking invasive actions. It also argues that alerting on a single load threshold is too crude and recommends combining normalized load, PSI metrics, device latency, and service-level signals for meaningful alerts. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why Is Your Linux Server Slow? A Practical Guide to Performance Troubleshooting](https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-your-linux-server-slow-a-practical-guide-to-performance-troubleshooting-ygobf4pta) · Medium · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [Prepare to enable Linux pressure stall information on Red Hat OpenShift](https://daily.dev/posts/prepare-to-enable-linux-pressure-stall-information-on-red-hat-openshift-x3lbaaiaz) · Red Hat Developer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [New Linux Patches Enhance Single-Threaded Performance On Many-Core CPUs](https://daily.dev/posts/new-linux-patches-enhance-single-threaded-performance-on-many-core-cpus-bxtmtytz1) · Phoronix · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Netflix Uncovers Kernel-Level Bottlenecks While Scaling Containers on Modern CPUs](https://daily.dev/posts/netflix-uncovers-kernel-level-bottlenecks-while-scaling-containers-on-modern-cpus-bfs33g6uj) · InfoQ · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/linux-load-average-is-high-cpu-usage-is-low-here-s-what-you-re-missing--rqfkd6pr4) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Linux Load Average Is High. 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