I'm running Listserv 1.8e on a two-processor RedHat box, with F-Secure Anti-Virus, sendmail, and the web interface under apache.  Memory and virtual memory looks fine, and the cpu's are less than 50% utilized each, even under high load.  Disks are normal as well, not full, not slammed.  

We have approximately 700 lists, and periodically daytime loads spike to 2.42 or as high as 4.67.  The /home/listserv/spool directory fills with a backlog of .job files.  While lsv continues working, the web interface hangs out and then fails as the browser times out.  

Okay, so that's the layout and the symptom.  I can't figure out where the cause is.  Top shows a normal number of processes (85-90), none of which are zombied or use excessive CPU/memory resources.  There is no "smoking gun" here, that I can find.

At this point, I'm wondering if there's overhead in the relationship between the lsv and fsav processes that results in high load and stacked job queues when the box is really hot with inbound mail.  Has anyone experienced this type of load spike issue, and more to the point, has anyone solved it?  

Thanks for any help,

Brand Walker
UMC IATS USS