Brian Maguire wrote:
>
> What could cause the database to lock up and queue up all the
> queries?
You'll want to check the lock details (pg_locks: see "Monitoring
Database Activity" in the reference manuals) and also what the system as
a whole is doing (vmstat/iostat).
I seem to recall some configuration of ext3 could cause bursts of
activity with certain write patterns, but don't recall PG being affected
by this.
There have been discussions of context-switching issues with Xeons IIRC
- don't know the details, so check the -performance/hackers archives for
details.
HTH
--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd