Server overloaded?

wwwc21 · #1 03-04-2008, 08:58 AM

I'm on a reseller plan. The server I'm hosted on has dual 2.4ghz CPUs. I was having some weird shopping cart problems, so I called up the shopping cart people and they said it sounded like a server load issue.

I checked the load avg, and it's fluxuating between 4 and 9. Currently it's at 5.88. From what I've read this is really high, and the shopping cart people are sure this is the problem (since nothing in the code nor database has changed at all).

I contacted gator phone support, he said to contact ticketed support (sort of a pain to be thrown from one to the next, but whatever), then ticket support comes back and says "the server load may climb up to 7-8 during the peak hours but you do not need to worry about this load. The servers are dual xeons with 4 gigs or RAM and are strong enough to deal with this load."

Does this sound right?

My shopping cart people have flat out told me that they cannot help me till I get the server load issue taken care of (they said it needs to be atleast below 4). I hate getting stuck in the middle, and meanwhile I'm losing money since my online shop isn't working right.....

Sandro · #2 03-04-2008, 09:06 AM

For what I know a dual CPU should not be always over 2.00.

wwwc21 · #3 03-04-2008, 10:40 AM

All day I've been checking it and it's been averaging out at about 5.

I did some research and it seems like anything above 2x the number of CPUs is really bad.

So anything over 4 in this case...

Pazeh · #4 03-04-2008, 12:27 PM

this is really worrying, I used to get 5 - 10 server load n now it is 25!!

wwwc21 · #5 03-04-2008, 12:34 PM

If your server load is 25, that's outrageous....

I think I'm going to switch hosting companies. I really hate to leave, hostgator has been great for the price, but I cant have anymore downtime with shopping cart, and currently my server is overloaded.

Pitrow · #6 03-04-2008, 12:57 PM

have you let support know that the load is high? they can't do anything about it if they don't know.

Pazeh · #7 03-04-2008, 01:23 PM

till now I used to think that I'm lucky that my neighbors are not that source/cpu hungry! but today it seems they are.

I did take a screen shot and did email support for it!

Pazeh · #8 03-04-2008, 04:09 PM

in LESS THAN AN HOUR, I got a reply saying

Quote:

Hello,

That's about 80% of our peak load, we can usually hover around 90% and stay up and fast. We are currently at 30 load or so, but it looks to be loading fine.

If you have any further questions, concerns, or comments, please don't hesitate to let us know.

Zach E
Level I System Administrator
HostGator LLC

Come on!! the status was flashing red @ 20+ how can that be "normal" or within the average load!!

I just did check it again in its wooping 31.31 & at the top right you can see it did pass the 43!!

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/8...erload2rm0.gif

slapshotw · #9 03-04-2008, 05:47 PM

Two things everybody in this thread needs to understand:

1. Load numbers are *NOT* comparable from server to server. They are absolute numbers, not relative. They are not percentages-- they are counts. This means that faster servers can handle a load of 5 far better than slower ones. Hostgator's new servers can handle far over 5 without problems. Servers from 5 years ago would choke it this. That makes blanket statements like "A dual CPU should not be always over 2.00" inaccurate. Remember: one day in future-server-land, loads of 100+ will be nothing.

2. "Flashing red" means nothing as well. "Red" is not something the server does when it thinks the load is too much-- it's just a setting. The default is absurdly low in cPanel because it doesn't depend on the server it's being installed on. A server admin can make the "red flash" happen at a load of .5, or a load of 500. It's arbitrary.

Pazeh · #10 03-04-2008, 06:45 PM

thanks for the reply slapshotw!

I read enough about it on google to know what the load is, in short thats the # of the processes "queued" to be processed.

I did email support, as the server that I'm on, used to have a load of 10-15 @ max, and when it did pop up to 30-40 I got worried.

I did get an email from HG, telling me what you just said.

Serra · #11 03-04-2008, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wwwc21

My shopping cart people have flat out told me that they cannot help me till I get the server load issue taken care of (they said it needs to be atleast below 4). I hate getting stuck in the middle, and meanwhile I'm losing money since my online shop isn't working right.....

What a load of crap they are trying to feed you. Server load issues don't really effect the operation of websites beyond them being slow. Load issues can cause time outs, which is a problem, but likely telling you that you need to fix your load because it as to be below 4 is stupid. As others have pointed out, a load of 4 on my server wouldn't be anything. A load of 4 on my very first server would mean that not one site was working... and likely mail wasn't flowing either.