Ext3 users - Jul 2005 - high context switching and high load averages slowing down system

Hi All,

I have a HP DL 580 with 4 3 GHz CPUs and 4 GB RAM.  I'm running Oracle
on it.  Throughout the day I am getting high load averages (6 - 18)
and at the same time I see context switching go over 300,000. 
Sometimes over 500,000.  This is slowing the system down to a crawl.

My OS is RHEL 3 AS Update 4 with the 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp kernel.

Any ideas on why this is happening and how to fix it?

Thanks in advance,
-- 
Magnus Andersen
Systems Administrator / Oracle DBA
Walker & Associates, Inc.

This is the EXT3 File System mailing list.  I don't mean to be rude;
it's just that you may get better answers to your questions on another
mailing list.
> Any ideas on why this is happening and how to fix it?
Off the top of my head, it sounds like your system is thrashing.  Is there some
out-of-control process hogging all the memory?

Some links I found on google.com include:

http://www.unix.org.ua/orelly/oracle/guide8i/ch05_01.htm

The 2.6 kernel has better multitasking capabilities.  You may want to try
building a custom kernel with SMP and 4 GB High Memory with Preemptive
Multitasking turned on.

But like I said, this is all off the top of my head.

Joseph D. Wagner