Can top show more than 100% in %MEM?

 
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Homework and Emergencies Emergency UNIX and Linux Support Can top show more than 100% in %MEM?
# 1  
Old 09-30-2011
Can top show more than 100% in %MEM?

Can the %MEM value for a process show more than 100% in top output?Is this ever possible?
# 2  
Old 09-30-2011
the %MEM is the percentage of RES used from your total memory. Your RES i suppose could be using a large amount of memory and also swap space.

Theoretically yes it could show more than 100% however if its using up so much memory it needs swap space you need to increase your physical memory!!
# 3  
Old 09-30-2011
But if the system is not swapping then i guess more than 100% value in %MEM is impossible. Am i right/
# 4  
Old 09-30-2011
I would have though if your not using swap then a single process can't be using more than 100% memory it would be impossible. But i could be wrong.
# 5  
Old 10-02-2011
no, not possible, except for bugs

Documentation suggests it's the task's share of available physical memory. So unless something is wrong with the program that's calculating this, or with the kernel that's doing the memory accounting, no it's not possible.
# 6  
Old 10-07-2011
I have 4 procs on an HP/UX box, generally CPU idle is how top is displayed

If the CPU idle goes below 10% you are in trouble, if it hit 0% expect to deal with system dump
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