[Tfug] Unusually high loadavg in new kernel?`

[Bowie J. Poag]

We spotted something kind of unusual at work today -- One of our boxes 
(a CentOS/RHEL box thats kept very up to date) has begun showing that it 
has a loadaverage of about 50. This, mind you, is with nothing running. 
Nothing gated, nothing thrashing. Literally, nothing. Totally idle.

Has anybody seen this sort of phenomenon before? It's not hurting 
anything, but it still strikes me as very curious -- I'm scratching my 
chin thinking it might be due to the recent change in the process 
scheduler in the Linux kernel.

Anyone have any ideas?

Cheers,
Bowie