(2013-11-15)
Problem
High load, nothing in the run queue (ie no processes in top showing non-trivial cpu usage).
Solution
Load is the number of processes either in the Run state (ie running now) or in the D state (ie uninterruptable for some reason).
List those processes:
# ps -Leo state,pid,args | grep '^[RD]'
D 2389 [simvision.exe]
D 2779 [ippe.exe]
D 10936 [192.168.1.231-m]
D 16091 df /hosts/stimpy/some/dir
R 32224 ps -Leo state,pid,args
Dealing with those uninterruptable processes is left as an exercise for the reader.