"silviapg@tiscali.it" <silviapg@tiscali.it> writes:
> in March there was an interesting discussion on the list with the
> subject "postgres eating CPU on HP9000".
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/2004-03/msg00380.php
Reviewing that, the problem is most likely that (a) they didn't have
max_fsm_pages set high enough to cover the database, and (b) they were
running 7.3.* which is prone to index bloat.
regards, tom lane