Don > Alright I ran this command: > > exec > dbms_stats.gather_system_stats(interval=>90,stattab=>'SYSSTATS',stat > id=>'DEC12'); > > It returned in a minute, so I assume that it runs in the background > now. Mark gave you a good tip... Anyway, if you specify gathering_mode=>'INTERVAL' a job is scheduled to stop it. Have a look to dba_scheduler_jobs. > I've noticed two rows in my SYSSTATS table, but the column > names are a bit unintuitive. Is there a HOWTO on interpreting that > data? Here the two queries I use to extract the data: SELECT n1 AS sreadtim, n2 AS mreadtim, n3 AS cpuspeed, n11 AS mbrc FROM ... WHERE c4 = 'CPU_SERIO' ORDER BY statid SELECT n1 AS maxthr, n2 AS slavethr FROM ... WHERE c4 = 'PARIO' ORDER BY statid HTH Chris -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l