Originally Posted by JeffHCross

High server loads will cause essentially anything else on the server to be inaccessible. Server load numbers are indicitive of the amount of processing currently being done by the processors on the system (or, it may be how many processes are currently waiting to be done, I can't remember for sure). I'm not sure how many chips Dotable's servers have, but the servers at my old work had four processors, so a load of 4 was when we started being concerned, as that meant all four processors were currently at 100% load.

At least that's my memory of how the numbers worked.

If server load is spiking as high as Bob's reporting, then the underlying issue may be that someone on the Earth server is running a script that results in very high processing load.
My site is accessible and only registers a load of 4.