High System Load with Low CPU Utilization on Linux?

In this post I will show you how to break down Linux system load by the load contributor or reason. You can drill down into the “linux system load in thousands” and “high system load, but low CPU utilization” problem patterns too.
Introduction - terminology Troubleshooting high system load on Linux Drilling down deeper - WCHAN Drilling down deeper - kernel stack How to troubleshoot past problems Summary Further reading Introduction - Terminology The system load metric aims to represent the system “resource demand” as just a single number.