idle process suddenly taking up lots of CPU - any ideas how I can figure out what's happening?

[Nicholas Jackson]

Hello,

My system has suddenly become very unresponsive and when I run top, 
XFree86 reports that it is typically taking between 20-40% of the CPU, 
even when the machine is completely idle.

'ps aux' reports even more! (see below)

Does anyone have any ideas what tools I can use to get to the bottom of 
this? I'm sorry to ask what may be obvious but I'm a relative newbie..

My machine is suddenly almost completely useless...

Thank you!

Nick

________

freedom# ps aux
USER         PID %CPU %MEM   VSZ  RSS  TT  STAT STARTED      TIME COMMAND
root          11 76.0  0.0     0   12  ??  RL    5:18PM  54:25.81  (idle)
root         722 17.3  4.4 164084 45860  v0  R     5:19PM  20:18.17 
/usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 :0 -nolisten tcp
root           1  0.0  0.0   744  404  ??  ILs   5:18PM   0:00.01 
/sbin/init --
root          15  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:01.83 
(irq4: nvidia0)
root          16  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:00.07 
(irq5: pcm0)
root          17  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(irq6: fdc0)
root          20  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:01.78 
(irq9: xl0 uhci0+)
root          22  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:00.54 
(irq11: atapci1 cxm0)
root          25  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(irq14: ata0)
root          26  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(irq15: ata1)
root          27  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:19.33 
(swi8: clock)
root          29  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:00.26 
(swi1: net)
root           2  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.63  (g_event)
root           3  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:01.64  (g_up)
root           4  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:01.62  (g_down)
root          30  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.81  (random)
root          31  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  WL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(swi7: task queue)
root           5  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(taskqueue)
root          36  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.01  (usb0)
root          37  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.00  (usbtask)
root          38  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.00  (usb1)
root           6  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.01 
(pagedaemon)
root           7  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(vmdaemon)
root           8  0.8  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:15.03 
(pagezero)
root           9  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.08 
(bufdaemon)
root          39  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:00.05  (vnlru)
root          40  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  DL    5:18PM   0:01.59  (syncer)
root          41  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  IL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(nfsiod 0)
root          42  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  IL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(nfsiod 1)
root          43  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  IL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(nfsiod 2)
root          44  0.0  0.0     0   12  ??  IL    5:18PM   0:00.00 
(nfsiod 3)
root         137  0.0  0.1  1204  660  ??  Is    5:18PM   0:00.00 
adjkerntz -i
root         290  0.0  0.1  1336  888  ??  Ss    5:18PM   0:00.16 
/usr/sbin/syslogd -s
root         400  0.0  0.1  1260  812  ??  Ss    5:18PM   0:00.09 
/usr/sbin/usbd
root         420  0.0  0.1  1312  928  ??  Ss    5:18PM   0:00.08 
/usr/sbin/lpd
root         454  0.0  0.2  3492 2496  ??  Ss    5:18PM   0:00.17 
/usr/sbin/sshd