> 
> > My current kernel has DIAGNOSTIC off.  I haven't notieced this, but that 
> > may not necessarily mean anything.
> > 
> > Can you build a profiling kernel (config -p) and find out where the 
> > bottleneck is?
> > 
> Okay its building as I write this. How do I extract the profiling info?

kgmon -- to turn on and off profiling (and to get a dump)
prof -- to make the dump readable.