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Very frequently I happen to see CPU load and it's ~1.24, is it normal?

I'm using OpenELEC and Kodi running slideshows all day 24/7.

whitenoisedb
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That answer depends a little based on which model of Pi you have (1 or 2). On Unix systems, the load is an indicator of how many processes are trying to use the CPU.

To use the standard example, think of the load as a que of cars sitting at a toll booth. Your operator can handle n cars per time slot. At < 1.0, you are under your max capacity and cars can go through as soon as they reach the booth. If the load is > 1.0, then you're going to have a line of cars at the que. That means that the ones at the back will have to wait until the ones at the front are done.

If you have a single core processor (aka the Raspberry Pi 1) you generally want the load to be less than 1.0. With multicore processors (aka the Raspberry Pi 2), your max target load is multiplied by the number of cores (4x in this case). So anything under 4.0 is optimal.

The original raspberry pi is pretty slow, and a lot of what Kodi asks is fairly intense. You're not going to harm the Raspberry Pi by having a load over 1.0, but it won't be as snappy as you want. Over clocking the Pi might help, but I wouldn't worry about it too much if it isn't causing issues.

Jacobm001
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  • So it shouldn't be a problem when using it a reasonable amount of time, however in this case, it must be permanently turned on and I wonder about it. I've started using Stathat (which is a fast way to implement stats) running a crontab (cURL post) every 5 mins. – whitenoisedb Feb 09 '15 at 05:03
  • However, supposing I find a very high CPU load I wouldn't know what to do – whitenoisedb Feb 09 '15 at 05:05
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    @redraw: if it stays that high over a long period, I would look into what is running using htop. Feel free to ask another question when you get to the next step! – Jacobm001 Feb 09 '15 at 05:10