Maurice Balick <balm(at)smiley(dot)com> writes:
> We are running Postgres 7.0.2 on Linux RH 6.2 Dell servers.
> When traffic gets heavy we often get one of the backend locked up in an
> UPDATE, INSERT or COMMIT request. Eventually all the other backends end
> up locking too as they try to access a row locked by the original
> backend.
Try updating to 7.0.3. You may be getting caught by 7.0.2's failure to
release locks when a client disconnects partway through a transaction
block.
If you still see this in 7.0.3 then it'd be worth further investigation.
regards, tom lane