Excessive processor usage

Dave Johnson dave-gnhlug-list at davej.org
Mon Aug 6 08:31:04 EDT 2007


sean writes:
> I have been what appears to be excessive activity on one of my two 
> processors and am trying to track down why.
> 
> I have not noticed anything using TOP, so that I would ask here how 
> might I best be able to track down what is causing the apparent 
> excessive processor activity.

Recent kernels stopped showing multi-thread programs in their own
/proc directory and move them into subdirectories under the main
process.


$ ps u -Le |grep mythfrontend
pmg      21859 21859  0.0    2  4.9 165292 100284 ?     S    Jul22   2:01 mythfrontend
pmg      21859 21862  0.0    2  4.9 165292 100284 ?     S    Jul22   0:00 mythfrontend

that would have been:
/proc/21859
/proc/21862

but is now:
/proc/21859/task/21859
/proc/21859/task/21862

In order for top to show cpu usage of the child pthread you need to
type 'H' on top (only recent versions of top has that feature).
Otherwise only cpu usage from the first pthread is shown in top.

Same goes for 'ps' you need to give it one of the many options to show
threads individually.

-- 
Dave



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