Obscure CPU-load

[Tim851]

Hello,

for a few weeks now my system has been experiencing attacks of obscure CPU-loads. It will run smoothly only for a couple of days, usually about two. Then all of a sudden the CPU-load read out through MenuMeters will rise to values between 80 and 100 percent. And stay that way. Even upon the closing of all applications - even the finder (though you have to restart another one to accomplish this) - the load stays that high.
The Activity Monitor shows the same load, as does Terminal->Top, although neither can display any application or process that would account for an unusually high activity. If I roughly add up the displayed percentages in "All Processes" I end up nowhere near 80% percent.
But the load is real. It effects system performance and makes the fan spin up every other minute.

My computer is the 17" PowerBook with 1.33 Ghz, the system is 10.3.5 with every update available. The only application present every time the attacks appear seems to be Safari.

If anybody had an idea/solution I'd be really thankful!

Regards,
Tim

[Viro]

In activity monitor, which process seems to be taking the most CPU time? That would be your rogue process and if you kill it that should solve your problems.

[Tim851]

If I remember correctly, the most cpu-demanding task appeared to be "smbd", but it was only credited for 6 or 7 percent of the load. Nevertheless I shall try and kill this one the next time the sitation comes up.

[chevy]

Is your disk full ? The swap may grow with on-time.

[Tim851]

It happened with the disk almost full as well as 25% free space, so I don't think there's the problem.