I finally have the conclusion to my problem. (that some apps like find take up almost all the CPU.) The responses were correct - DMA was not enabled on my system. I just finished compiling and installing a new kernel. Now, with DMA enabled, and activated on /dev/hda there is no longer a problem.
For anyone else interested, my motherboard is an ASUS A8V lspci reports that the IDE interface is: IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) When compiling a new kernel, the relevant bit is in: Device Drivers > ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support > VIA82CXX chipset support Say "yes", recompile etc... After rebooting into the new kernel run: % hdparm -d1 /dev/hda Then check it out with % hdparm /dev/hda % hdparm -Tt /dev/hda Cheers, Craig