what's an "average" server load?

[arcadian_girl]

i have both the ajax shoutbox, and the vbpager system installed on two boards that i run, and i'm worried my host is going to have a problem with it (because some people had issues with the shoutbox for that reason).

my boards are not that busy, we get about 50-80 visitors a day, but lots of them just browse and then leave. checked server averages today on one of my boards and this is what it said:

15.67 10.24 7.57 | 1 Users Online (1 members and 0 guests)

is that bad?

[Oblivion Knight]

Yes, that's bad.

With 50-80 visitors a day, I'd expect the server loads to remain at least below 2.00 depending on the specs of the server.

[Boofo]

Originally Posted by arcadian_girl

i have both the ajax shoutbox, and the vbpager system installed on two boards that i run, and i'm worried my host is going to have a problem with it (because some people had issues with the shoutbox for that reason).

my boards are not that busy, we get about 50-80 visitors a day, but lots of them just browse and then leave. checked server averages today on one of my boards and this is what it said:

15.67 10.24 7.57 | 1 Users Online (1 members and 0 guests)

is that bad?

I think I read somewhere on here that those 2 hacks are notorious for slowing down a server. Try disabling them and see what you get then. I think you will be surprised.

And, as Andy said, those servers loads are extremely high for the amount of visitors you get daily.

[arcadian_girl]

gahhh.. yeah, that's what i thought :/ i mean i don't mind myself, i just don't want my host to contact me..which they probably will if this continues. i'll probably disable the shoutbox first i guess, since that's the one that's said to really cause a lot of problems.

thanks guys.

[Chris M]

Another thing you could look into is installing any optimisation hacks that are available - They may help to decrease the server load of any other scripts that are causing it to increase

Chris

[FLMom]

Thanks for this thread arcadian_girl! I was having the same problem and just uninstalled the shoutbox, but for some reason my server numbers are still high. ( I think) Server Load Averages 2.94 3.27 3.45 | 6 Users Online (4 members and 2 guests)

I guess I have to check out some of those optimisation hacks that are out there.

[Boofo]

Originally Posted by FLMom

Thanks for this thread arcadian_girl! I was having the same problem and just uninstalled the shoutbox, but for some reason my server numbers are still high. ( I think) Server Load Averages 2.94 3.27 3.45 | 6 Users Online (4 members and 2 guests)

I guess I have to check out some of those optimisation hacks that are out there.

Are you running vbpager? That's another resource hog.

[Oblivion Knight]

Originally Posted by FLMom

Thanks for this thread arcadian_girl! I was having the same problem and just uninstalled the shoutbox, but for some reason my server numbers are still high. ( I think) Server Load Averages 2.94 3.27 3.45 | 6 Users Online (4 members and 2 guests)

I guess I have to check out some of those optimisation hacks that are out there.

Give it an hour or so for the server to stabilise.

Depending who is hosting you, you may also want to try requesting a server reboot.

[Erwin]

This is rough, but as a general rule, (and again, this is my simplistic understanding), for every 1 CPU, server load of 1 means that CPU is used 100%, so if you have dual CPUs, server loads under 2 is good. 4 CPUs, server loads up to 4 is good. Someone can probably correct me and explain better, but that's my rule of thumb.

[Mark.B]

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.