Alright, the unmaskirq thing made a world of difference here. Before when i would tar zxvf a large 50+ MB file, the system would become _extremely_ unresponsive. Now the machine doesn't hiccup. -jeramy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-powerpc-request@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org