CPU high due to swap
Swap activity is one of the clearest signs that memory pressure is driving CPU usage up. The system is forced to use disk as overflow memory.
Evidence to look for
Swap in/out counters are non-zero
Disk IO rises during CPU spikes
Memory usage near 100%
What it usually means
Moving memory pages between RAM and disk is expensive. Every swap operation adds latency and CPU overhead.
What to do next
- 1Reduce memory usage below the swap threshold
- 2Kill or restart memory-hungry processes
- 3Add RAM if the workload genuinely needs it
See what's causing your CPU
cpum.ai turns CPU, process, disk, and memory signals into plain-English explanations with evidence.
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