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Your highest uptime
- Thread starter iCeFuSiOn
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Here's mine:
up 12 days, 22:12, 2 users, load averages: 2.15 1.85 1.47
I feel like I want to restart, just for the hell of it, but I keep reminding myself there's no need right now!
Quick question...what do "load averages" mean exactly?
up 12 days, 22:12, 2 users, load averages: 2.15 1.85 1.47
I feel like I want to restart, just for the hell of it, but I keep reminding myself there's no need right now!
Quick question...what do "load averages" mean exactly?
A load average is basically a weighted score that measures, well, CPU load.
The three numbers are averages that spanned out over different time periods. The first average represents load over the past minute. The second one is over a period of five minutes. And the third is over fifteen minutes.
Okay, so what's load? It's basically a measure of how many processes have been queued by the CPU, and whether there's a "line" of processes waiting for CPU time. A load of 1.00 means that over a period of time, the CPU has had an average of one process to run, and no processes have been forced to wait.
Load averages of below 1.00 mean the CPU was basically running idle at some point over the past 1/5/15 minutes. A load of below .5, and the CPU has been doing more waiting than working.
And consistent loads over 1.00 mean that there were more processes than there were CPU time to run those processes. At what point a CPU becomes "overloaded" is somewhat open to debate. If you never get below 3.00, I'd say you probably have an underpowered computer for what you're making it do, though occasional spikes in the high 2s and low 3s aren't a big deal.
In your case, you had a load average of 2.15 1.85 1.47. That would indicate to me that within the past minute one or more processes were running that consumed all of the CPU's available time, and then some. For every one process the CPU was running, there was an average of 1.15 processes waiting to get worked on. That doesn't necessarily mean those processes weren't being worked on at all, but that those processes had to "take turns" so to speak.
But, the load wasn't nearly as high 5 minutes prior, and was even less 15 minutes prior.
By contrast, here's the uptime on one of the servers I administer:
In this case, about 10 minutes before I got this load average, a major database re-index had taken place. Since then it's been pretty quiet.
I once witnessed a Sun Fire V240 server end up getting caught up in a number of infinite-loop processes thanks to a careless programmer. The load went from less than 1.00 to above 10 over a few hours, at which point it started running abysmally slow and we could no longer troubleshoot it while it was running, and it had to be shut down.
The three numbers are averages that spanned out over different time periods. The first average represents load over the past minute. The second one is over a period of five minutes. And the third is over fifteen minutes.
Okay, so what's load? It's basically a measure of how many processes have been queued by the CPU, and whether there's a "line" of processes waiting for CPU time. A load of 1.00 means that over a period of time, the CPU has had an average of one process to run, and no processes have been forced to wait.
Load averages of below 1.00 mean the CPU was basically running idle at some point over the past 1/5/15 minutes. A load of below .5, and the CPU has been doing more waiting than working.
And consistent loads over 1.00 mean that there were more processes than there were CPU time to run those processes. At what point a CPU becomes "overloaded" is somewhat open to debate. If you never get below 3.00, I'd say you probably have an underpowered computer for what you're making it do, though occasional spikes in the high 2s and low 3s aren't a big deal.
In your case, you had a load average of 2.15 1.85 1.47. That would indicate to me that within the past minute one or more processes were running that consumed all of the CPU's available time, and then some. For every one process the CPU was running, there was an average of 1.15 processes waiting to get worked on. That doesn't necessarily mean those processes weren't being worked on at all, but that those processes had to "take turns" so to speak.
But, the load wasn't nearly as high 5 minutes prior, and was even less 15 minutes prior.
By contrast, here's the uptime on one of the servers I administer:
Code:
$uptime
12:43pm up 433 days 19:58, 4 users, load average: 1.52, 2.10, 2.23In this case, about 10 minutes before I got this load average, a major database re-index had taken place. Since then it's been pretty quiet.
I once witnessed a Sun Fire V240 server end up getting caught up in a number of infinite-loop processes thanks to a careless programmer. The load went from less than 1.00 to above 10 over a few hours, at which point it started running abysmally slow and we could no longer troubleshoot it while it was running, and it had to be shut down.
Though not my computer personally. As I recall my fathers business had a either an 8086 or 80286 mainframe running a XENIX variant that had an uptime of 2 to 3 years, until a black out outlasted the APC backup power supply.
This system also had eight dummy terminals 4 of which were connected via ISDN to a remote location. They all had a whopping 2400 baud connection speed to the mainframe which blazed through the text only screens.
After that time I took over administration of the computer and would perform maintenance every 6 months to a year requiring a reboot. This old girl was finally put to rest in 1999 for fears of Y2k.
But it did run from 1982-1999 with very few reboots.
Of course a computer that ran only one program that was only text based can be very stable.
.This system also had eight dummy terminals 4 of which were connected via ISDN to a remote location. They all had a whopping 2400 baud connection speed to the mainframe which blazed through the text only screens.
After that time I took over administration of the computer and would perform maintenance every 6 months to a year requiring a reboot. This old girl was finally put to rest in 1999 for fears of Y2k.
But it did run from 1982-1999 with very few reboots.
Of course a computer that ran only one program that was only text based can be very stable.
142 days and some change on my 1ghz iBook G4 running Tiger. I restarted it when the newest version of Safari came out. It was still going good, though.
All of my machines pretty much stay up until a new update that requires a restart comes out. That's usually every month or so.
All of my machines pretty much stay up until a new update that requires a restart comes out. That's usually every month or so.
114 days (so far) with Ubuntu 7.x used as a web server.
I had a mac cube on serving web pages for what seemed like 6 months before it rebooted due to a power failure. I'll pay more attention to up time now that I'm thinking about it.
Does anyone know a utility that tracks uptime over reboots? I assume the info could be written to disk and averaged out over the time that the utility is installed.
I had a mac cube on serving web pages for what seemed like 6 months before it rebooted due to a power failure. I'll pay more attention to up time now that I'm thinking about it.
Does anyone know a utility that tracks uptime over reboots? I assume the info could be written to disk and averaged out over the time that the utility is installed.
That's the worst feeling. The company I am a System Admin for had to have UPS maintenance done, so we had to shutdown our entire datacentre. We had some Sun boxes that had had uptimes in the 3 year range (no, they had not been patched in 3 years either and yes I feel great shame in letting patching get that far behind). Our linux boxes had uptimes of 6 months to 2 years depending on the box (some patched some purposely not patched as they were internal machines) Funnily enough, the only boxes that didn't come back up after the shutdown were a couple of Sun boxes...
Oh and my MBP uptime...
23:50 up 5:09, 2 users, load averages: 0.22 0.34 0.29
Cheers
Touche
It is nice to just wake up the computer but it is also nice to let it flush all the processes out and start new everyday. My iMac usually boots in 20 secs from the time I press the power button to the time it auto opens Mail.
Since I just got a Time Capsule, I'm only at 6 days. But on my previous AirPort, I was at over a month. But then I had to start over cuz the damn thing stopped working and I had to factory reset it The Time Capsule works much better for a router in terms of reliability.
The Time Capsule works much better for a router in terms of reliability.
I shut my computers down when I can... or when I remember to conserve electricity... I also turn off lights and other non-essential stuff when not in use.
That being said.. Sometimes I do leave them on running skype so i can talk to my husband when one of use is on the road...
So my uptime during those times is about a week or so..
That being said.. Sometimes I do leave them on running skype so i can talk to my husband when one of use is on the road...
So my uptime during those times is about a week or so..
My longest was 210 days running Jaguar. I was having no trouble with it, but we had a thunderstorm, so I unplugged it but then fell asleep without plugging it back in, and the battery died. Under Tiger, the longest is 60-odd days, which I get consistently. It would be longer except updates start piling up and I give in and install them.
Uptime for Gateway 960
Gateway 960, Dual Xeon 2.4 Ghz, 1.5GB RAM running (gasp!!) Windows Server 2003...uptime reads....(drumroll):
2010 days 13 hours 14 minutes 1 second as of 05/08/08.
net statistics server: statistics since 11/6/2002 12:04
The server was discovered this week at a small business unit where no tech resides (we think we inherited the box through an acquisition and were never notified). Are the numbers right? They've never been wrong before. You decide.
We're also debating on whether we should reboot the box. It's used daily as a file server. Crazy, huh?
Gateway 960, Dual Xeon 2.4 Ghz, 1.5GB RAM running (gasp!!) Windows Server 2003...uptime reads....(drumroll):
2010 days 13 hours 14 minutes 1 second as of 05/08/08.
net statistics server: statistics since 11/6/2002 12:04
The server was discovered this week at a small business unit where no tech resides (we think we inherited the box through an acquisition and were never notified). Are the numbers right? They've never been wrong before. You decide.
We're also debating on whether we should reboot the box. It's used daily as a file server. Crazy, huh?
289 days on Windows Server 2003
Huh; I was admining a Windows server at one point that I thought was running 2003, and although it was stable it automatically rebooted itself due to critical software patches maybe once every month or two. Has something changed, or did I have it misconfigured?
My work computer also does nightly network backups, so it doesn't get shut down (or even put to sleep). At one point I kept 10.3 up for 180 days just to see, and that was with relatively heavy workday use the whole time. I was skipping updates for a while just to see, and it never did crash, I just finally installed the stuff I'd been putting off for six months.
Current work box (10.4) is at 20 days, and the server (also 10.4) is at 77 days.
My highest was probably around 12-14 days, with an average of about 8-10. I use my Macbook about 10 hours of the day (meaning it's on, not asleep, and most likely in use) and transport it an average of probably 15 times a day (stuff like putting it in and out of my backpack, carrying it around, et cetera). I don't know how good it is for the laptop, but it doesn't slow down or anything. It's usually an update or something that makes me restart, or I just say meh, and restart for the hell of it. Not really sure.
Longest I have gone was about a month maybe. I will never do that again. Whether it was something I downloaded or what, I will never know, but, I highly recommend you give your computer reboot or even shut down at least once a week or so. It was like there was something in my file system just waiting for me to turn off and start up again, only for the OS to lock up on the Gray Screen at the beginning. I will be restarting it weekly now.
Hmm sounds more like a problem with your setup than a problem with anything else. Mac OS X has always been rock solid for me no matter how long I leave my computer on.
Uhhm, so somehow it was started nearly 6 months before the OS was released?? Wow, M$ is developing some amazing sofware - it can even travel through time.