Things to check when configuring a linux kernel.

• Make sure that cpu intensive cron jobs are disabled.
• Look in /etc/cron.daily, .weekly, .monthly.. Main culprit was cron.daily where slocate.cron would scan the enire file system at 4am each day. Probably just leave the logfile rotation script for daily processing.
• Some 2.4 kernels do not work very well. Upgrade to one that does.
• Get the ntpd configuration correct. May want to include the ntp.log file so we can see when trouble occurs.

home_~phil