good news :) After two days they seem to have stabilised nicely.... PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME CPU COMMAND 31052 argus 25 0 279M 278M 280 S 2.6 18.5 232:19 1 argus 31053 argus 25 0 94912 92M 272 R 2.3 6.1 222:56 1 argus no threads -- I'll try threaded versions next week. Russell