On 10 Jan, in article
     <d3d51abc.0401102045.65119b43@posting.google.com>
     pa.borer@bluewin.ch "Patrick Borer" wrote:

raj@rijhwani.org (Raj Rijhwani) wrote:

On Friday, in article <OBiiysRsdp$$EA8O@unseen.demon.co.uk>
     tpratchett@unseen.demon.co.uk "Terry Pratchett" wrote:

(...)

No new software has been put on the machine, no specs have been altered, 
and in every other respect it appears to be working fast and 
efficiently.  Can anyone give me a clue about what might be happening?

(...)

Is the (hard) disk access very high?  If something has overflowed available 
memory and is causing a lot of paging, this would slow you down immensely 
because access times are now dependent not on RAM access times but disk 
access times.  Usual culprits are growing databases, indexes, mail spools 
or print spools.

Well, note his "in every other respect it appears to be working fast
and efficiently"... doesn't sound like a general slow-down of the
system, which a lot of paging would do.

True.
-- 
Raj Rijhwani                    |  This is the voice of the Mysterons...
raj@rijhwani.org                |  ... We know that you can hear us Earthmen
http://www.rijhwani.org/raj/    |  "Lieutenant Green:  Launch all Angels!"