EDIT: meu load average tá alto, olha só:
Dê um boot e em idle coloque o valor!!
Veja se há algo sendo executado pegando recursos ae...
Fiz o que você pediu e fechei um aplicativo que deixo aberto constantemente: parcellite.
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:46 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.34, 0.43, 0.60
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:49 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.34, 0.43, 0.60
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:51 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.32, 0.43, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:52 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.32, 0.43, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:53 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.32, 0.43, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:55 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.29, 0.42, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:57 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.29, 0.42, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:46 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.34, 0.43, 0.60
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:49 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.34, 0.43, 0.60
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:51 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.32, 0.43, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:52 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.32, 0.43, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:53 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.32, 0.43, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:55 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.29, 0.42, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ uptime
20:57:57 up 8:23, 3 users, load average: 0.29, 0.42, 0.59
cesar@cesar-desktop:~$ top
top - 20:59:34 up 8:24, 3 users, load average: 0.29, 0.39, 0.56
Tasks: 138 total, 2 running, 136 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 7.7%us, 0.3%sy, 0.3%ni, 91.5%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.3%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 1032464k total, 858616k used, 173848k free, 50836k buffers
Swap: 1036188k total, 8k used, 1036180k free, 539252k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1417 root 3 0 78220 48m 9292 S 4.6 4.8 26:05.07 Xorg
12479 cesar 6 0 79104 51m 4040 R 3.3 5.1 15:36.89 compiz
23149 cesar 2 0 51868 14m 10m S 2.3 1.4 0:00.76 gnome-terminal
23194 cesar 7 0 2588 1080 804 R 0.3 0.1 0:00.07 top
1 root 1 0 2828 940 500 S 0.0 0.1 0:01.27 init
2 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
3 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.53 ksoftirqd/0
4 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.57 events/0
5 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper
10 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 async/mgr
11 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 pm
102 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 sync_supers
104 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 bdi-default
105 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kintegrityd/0
107 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.59 kblockd/0
109 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpid
110 root 1 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpi_notify
O que poderia ser?