[Windows] get load avg doesn't display meaningful results even after 5 seconds

[Nathan22211]

Summary

• OS: Windows 11 24H2, Build 26100.2605
• Architecture: x86-64
• Psutil version: 6.1.1
• Python version: 3.12.8
• Type: python virtual environment running with VScode
• CPU: r7 5700x

Description

getloadavg() only returns a zeroed-out tuple i.e. (0.0, 0.0, 0.0) when used on windows 11. I've already narrowed it down to this part load = psutil.getloadavg()[0]

The code example below is from one of my projects utilizing psutil. if I were to have this function where CPU percent is in this code: https://github.com/FyreX-opensource-design/open-system-monitor/blob/main/app.py, the Core load would display 0.0 % on the webpage

def CPUcoreLoad():
    cpuCores = psutil.cpu_count(logical=False)
    load = psutil.getloadavg()[0]
    return load / cpuCores * 100```

[giampaolo]

From doc:

On Windows this is emulated by using a Windows API that spawns a thread which keeps running in background and updates results every 5 seconds, mimicking the UNIX behavior. Thus, on Windows, the first time this is called and for the next 5 seconds it will return a meaningless (0.0, 0.0, 0.0) tuple.

You should be able to see meaningful results if you call getloadavg() again after 5 secs.

[mgineer85]

Can confirm having the same issue as OP - I only get values when setting interval to any value different than None. But as I do not want a blocking call I cannot use it that way.

[mgineer85]

cpu_percent works as intended - loadavg is always a tuple of 3 0.0 values