Comment 53 for bug 838811

While most of the entries in this bug report are about creating and testing with high load averages, as part of due diligence tests and sanity checks were also done under low load conditions. Myself and with the final patch version, I have never observed incorrect high reported load averages under idle or low load average conditions. For example from right now:

(precise_i386)doug@s15:~/udev1/2770/~ubuntu-core-dev/ubuntu/precise/udev/ubuntu$ uptime
 16:12:06 up 1 day, 12:43, 0 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05

However, please note that I only use Ubuntu server editions and have never used desktop versions.

My suggestion for further investigation on your system is to use the "top" command and observe what is using systems resources. For example, and from your attachment, look at resource use of "compiz", "/usr/lib/unity/unity-panel-service", "/usr/lib/indicator-appmenu/hud-service".

As a side note: Since the release of 12.04 my web site, with my web notes on this subject, has had a noteable increase in search query traffic with search parameters such as "high load average on Ubuntu 12.04". I think this might be because reported load averages are now fixed and perhaps people got used to them being broken and reported too low.