I consider myself very lucky, I have a shared host and a board that ticks over nicely (around 20 to 30 online at peak times) but my server load on four CPUs rarely goes over 1. At present it's 0.44 : 0.25 : 0.21.

The only time it normally increases is when my overnight database backup downloads, then it rises to about 1.5.

Only occasionally has it gone any higher, once it hit about 9 but the hosts rebooted it and that fixed it, something had gone wrong.

So I do pretty well really.

AFAIK, the load average takes into account the number of CPU's you have - so a good value is not dependant on CPU count.

Ideally it want's to be below 1 - anything over that is a busy server.

Anything between 1 and 2 is busy, anything between 2 & 3 is very busy, anything over 3 or more means you should be looking at ways to reduce it. Anything over about 5 is an overloaded server and means response will suffer. Anything over 10 is bad - it means trouble.

on my last host i used to get around 0.50% and that was with well over 200
hacks installed, I have now moved to a new server with about 60 of the hacks
removed and its very rarely below 2.00% and that can be with only me and a
bot online.... Yes i have VBShout installed but it was installed on the old
server where i was getting 0.50%

I have spoke to my host and they say...

So whats ya thoughts on that comment then?

Sounds to me like the old "we are really incompetent" whitewash that a lot of hosts like to pass along these days. We got the same thing last night with out host and a supposed router issue that turned into a trunk issue right before our eyes. ;)

pmsl... sounds about right Boofo..

I didnt hink it was right, as soon as it goes over 2.00% i do notice a difference
in site performance, me thinks i will be looking again, although i end up having
certain issues (like stuff not working) after the move :(
Think im gonna do a new thread asking for hosts :)

What is "pmsl" or am I going to feel stupid for asking? :cross-eyed:

;)

lol no worries, it's pi$$ myself laffing :)

i looked into ways to reduce vbpager and vbshout's affect on the server load, cos i really dont want to uninstall them. it's gone down and now doesn't go over 3.00, and is usually less than that-so it's a lot better. i know from what i've read here that that's still a bit high, but hell, it's better than my original numbers :p my host hasn't contacted me *knock on wood*, and hopefully they won't. if worse comes to worse i'll get rid of vbshout first-i really like vb pager, and so do my members.

FWIW, I run the shoutbox, no pager, average around 50 online and am always around 1.0 on a VPS.

for those of you with 2 or under server loads, what kinda hosting do you guys have? virtual, dedicated, or shared?

i'm looking for a new shared host and so far i've heard some good things about site5.com but i'm still unsure. i need recommendations.

my current host is godaddy and my server load rarely drops below 3. the server actually went up as high as 60 on more than 2 occasions, i mean i had to turn the whole thing off and it's still 60.

i got quite a few hacks installed but i dont think thats what's causing it, i'm running a really small community, we have under 300 members and rarely get over 20 members online. i think it's just godaddy and their celeron processors. most likely, combination of both... but i still want a new host :]