According to top on my desktop: PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 18387 root 20 0 2876 976 952 R 83.3 0.1 3291:33 sudo 31304 mark 20 0 405m 254m 30m S 8.9 16.8 298:14.33 firefox 5964 root 20 0 190m 80m 13m S 3.3 5.3 142:12.89 Xorg 31994 mark 20 0 62364 24m 10m R 1.3 1.6 1:03.30 gnome-terminal 6196 mark 20 0 46292 10m 8256 S 0.7 0.7 3:28.18 gnome-settings- 6303 mark 20 0 90664 50m 7160 S 0.7 3.3 103:36.48 multiload-apple 11225 mark 20 0 111m 26m 17m S 0.7 1.7 13:11.20 deluge 31092 mark 20 0 2416 1172 876 R 0.7 0.1 0:00.08 top 6243 mark 20 0 21392 5032 4328 S 0.3 0.3 5:03.73 gnome-screensav So that's 83% for sudo... I just sat watching it for a while (I only fired up top as the machine was running slow) so although the above is a snapshot it's indicative of a pattern at the moment. Any suggestions? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG