Strange. 2.4 kernels usually were notorious for bouncing processes from processor to processor, not keeping them stuck on one. You may want to try to check one of the kernel groups. Make sure to let them know exactly what kernel, and if there are 4 separate processors, or if it is hyperthreading (it is my understanding that multicore processors are treated slightly different, even though they'll show up as multiple logical processors in user space).

If you want to get really hardcore you can set the processor affinity for those processes, letting them know which processor to run on. While that is normally 2.6 functionality, I believe it was backported into some of the Redhat kernels.

I'd like to hear the final outcome of your investigations.

In reply to Re^3: IPC::Open2 multiple processes are all on the same CPU? by cephas
in thread IPC::Open2 multiple processes are all on the same CPU? by nickswanjan

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