What's eating up my CPU cycles?

[topgunn]

I am running OS X Server 10.4.11. I have been having a problem with my CPU usage constantly running at 100%. If I restart, it is back to 100% within minutes. Activity Monitor with "All Processes" selected is not showing me anything using more than 5% and there are only a few of those. However, the summary at the bottom of the screen is showing % User of approx 30% and % System as appros 70%.

How can I find out what is hogging my CPU cycles?

 

[topgunn]

OK, when I stop the Mail service, everything goes back to normal. However, since this is a mail server, this is not a good long term solution. How would I pinpoint exactly what is causing the slowdown?

 

[Zedsdead185]

i had a problem just like this on my MBP. Check activity monitor and change the list to 'all processes'. If You constantly see a process called 'syslogd' jumping up and down the list, hogging ll the cpu, then you have the same problem as i had.

 

[topgunn]

Turns out the problem was a corrupted mail database. I used mailbfr to repair it, rebooted and now all is well.