Hi List, Maybe I'm too tired and I'm doing something wrong here.....I need some more eyes on it Oracle 7.3.4.2 HPUX 10.20 SQL> select (sysdate - (to_date(a.value,'J') + (b.value/86400)))*24*60*60*100 time_since_startup_cs 2 from v$instance a, v$instance b 3 where a.key = 'STARTUP TIME - JULIAN' and 4 b.key = 'STARTUP TIME - SECONDS'; 24502700 SQL> select name, value from v$sysstat where name like 'CPU%'; CPU used when call started 30712324 CPU used by this session 30731923 CPU used when call started is greater than time_since_startup_cs...how is that possible? I'm sure I missed something. thanks in advance Diego.