[Samba] nmbd causing very high CPU utilization

[Windsor Dave (AdW/MOE2.1)]

Does anyone have any idea what can cause nmbd to begin gobbling CPU?
We are running Samba 2.2.4 on HP-UX 10.20, having upgraded from Samba
2.0.10 about a month ago.  Our clients are a mixture of NT 4.0 and Win2K.
Today, we have begun to see widespread client drive disconnections, and
nmbd is averaging 60%+ CPU usage with peaks up to 100%.  We have heard
reports of network problems at our site affecting clients that do not 
connect to my HP/Samba servers, so I'm wondering if the high CPU usage 
is a reflection of nmbd trying to cope with problems or a
symptom that they might be causing them instead.  There seems to be nothing
out of the ordinary in the nmbd log, but my client smbd logs are full of the
infamous "Connection reset by peer" messages.  I have my site IS group
investigating this (I'm in an engineering group, but we normally provide
production IS support ourselves except for site-wide network issues), but
have not heard from them yet.

This particular server supports production at my manufacturing site, so
I cannot easily shut it down.

Any ideas.  Any help is greatly appreciated!

Best Regards,

Dave Windsor
AdW/MOE2.12
Team Leader, Test Systems Engineering
Robert Bosch Corporation
Anderson, SC, USA
Voice: (864) 260-8459
Fax:   (864) 260-8142
email: mailto:Dave.Windsor at us.bosch.com