A few of my processes consume 100% cpu. I'm trying to figure out which scripts are causing it

I tried running `strace ps -ef`:

```
open("/proc/PID/status", O_RDONLY) = 6
read(6, "Name:\textract\nState:\tR (running)"..., 1023) = 1023
close(6) = 0
open("/proc/PID/cmdline", O_RDONLY) = 6
read(6,

```

So it gets stuck trying to read `/proc/PID/cmdline`. I tried `cat`ting that, and it got stuck again. Something is obviously screwed in the kernel; what should I try next?

Note: rebooting doesn't work -- if I shutdown manually the problem starts again. I'm using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (x86\_64), Linux 2.6.27.19

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**Edit**: `ps -e` produces output, and I found there are too many `grep`s. The number of `grep`s varies: 250, 450, and now I see around 520 greps. I traced back and found it is the result of a cron script. I still have to understand those cron scripts. Yes, `top` displays results. We manually shutdown the server 2 days back. System has been running from last 2 days. I see some oracle stuff running all the time. I just did the memory test, no faults detected