High load on server with 100% idle 1

[SpiritOfLennon]

Hi,
Wonder if anybody can help, I am running a HP Unix 11.00 9000 server. The server consists of an Oracle 8.1.7 database. Twice now the load on the server has gone ballistic and ground all users to a halt, yet there are not sufficient processes related to the implied load. i.e. the server is reporting up to 100% idle. Has anyone seen this before and know what it is? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[trunix]

Could it be disk i/o ? - quite possible with Oracle. Look at iostat or check out your sar stats to look for bottlenecks.