Load goes up and down :(

[Drowned]

My site runs fine most of the time, but like 3 or 4 times a day, my load average goes through the roof, locking everything out until I restart the server or the server catches up (5 mins later) and things go back to normal. I've searched for more than a week now without finding the source of this problem :(

Anyways here's my server info, thanks :D :o

[Drowned]

This is a sample when the cpu goes through the roof:

11:51:24 up 1 day, 6:58, 2 users, load average: 9.79, 4.21, 1.90

At the top of the list is "mysql" and "httpd (defunct)" using most of the cpu load... then it starts going down until it goes back to normal. Also "vim" seem to be using a lot of resurces... don't know what that is :(

[Odysseus]

I'd say, that's simply not enough RAM.
Can you upgrade to MySQL 4 since that is not a completely dedicated machine? (I hope I got that right ^^)

You should decrease your mysql timeouts.

Does the server load increase on certain times or in unregular intervalls? If it occures on specific times, there may be CRON jobs of other users on this server which grab a lot of performance.

At the top of the list is "mysql" and "httpd (defunct)" using most of the cpu load...
That's VERY unusual. MySQL and Apache (httpd) are known to be very stable!

[Drowned]

Yes I can upgrade... I have root access... and yes, it's at irregular intervals :S

[Odysseus]

Do both:
Upgrade to MySQL 4.0.16 and ask your hoster if there are any "evil" CRON jobs at these times.

[eva2000]

My site runs fine most of the time, but like 3 or 4 times a day, my load average goes through the roof, locking everything out until I restart the server or the server catches up (5 mins later) and things go back to normal. I've searched for more than a week now without finding the source of this problem :(

Anyways here's my server info, thanks :D :o
can you post in this thread the info at http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70117 :)