Connie, > However, does anyone see anything here that I don't see >either related to >Oracle or Unix or can recommend anything else to look into? With very >little running on any of the databases, this is what it looks like: From the vmstat output below, it seems that at least 3 to 4 processes are in the 'w' column, which is basically 'runnable but swapped' state. You could cross-verify this using the 'sar -q' command.... If this is the case, then you should reduce the memory requirements - both in the SGA as well as Sort_area_size etc that relates to individual processes as well as "pga_" parameters if you are using them (since you mention 9.2.x). oracle:/etc > vmstat 5 4 procs memory page disk faults cpu r b w swap free re mf pi po fr de sr s0 s1 s2 s3 in sy cs us sy id 0 0 3 4071688 356568 3 399 335 44 45 0 1 2 0 7 8 227 25 276 6 7 87 0 0 4 5319016 1707200 0 2 9 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 2 174 269 151 0 1 99 Hth, John Kanagaraj <>< DB Soft Inc Phone: 408-970-7002 (W) Listen to great, commercial-free christian music 24x7x365 at http://www.klove.com ** The opinions and facts contained in this message are entirely mine and do not reflect those of my employer or customers ** -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l