Using SAR and no processor idle time

[csunix]

I've been looking at one of our servers using SAR and found that the processor idle time is always zero. It appears that it is constantly being used. Does anybody know what I can run to find out what is causing this to happen and is there anything I can do.

Thanks, CS

 

[bfitzmai]

Try /usr/ucb/ps -aux... This is an old SunOS ps command that still works real well. It will display the tasks and processor usage.

 

[csunix]

Thanks for the reply.

I've checked that and no one seems to be taking up a lot of the CPU percentage!!! The output from SAR is still giving 0 idle time and this was the case on Saturday when no one was logged in. The %wio is very high, usually between 70 to 90% Not really sure what to check now.

cs

 

[Mike042]

Hi csunix,

Have you tried either of the following to check cpu usage:
vmstat 1 6
iostat 1 6

See the man pages for the column meanings.

Also ps -ef | more will show the amount of CPU time that has been used by each process under the TIME column. Any non-root process with more than a few minutes of CPU time I would investigate.

I hope that helps.

Mike

 

[csunix]

Thanks for the replies now making progress.