Lisa,

     I have encountered a similar problem to what you describe, although it
was several years ago - on a 980/200.

     As I recall, there were actually 2 HP systems, both 980's, with more
or less the same configuration. For some reason, one system seemed to
have 'the problem' while the other did not. There are more details than I
can accurately remember now, however I believe that the problem was
eventually resolved by a patch that was never incorporated into subsequent
power-patches (I'm sure it was some sort of network based patch - for the
HP3000).
     As you may have already anticipated - the problem came back when we
upgraded MPE - yes, the required patch was no longer on our machine;
effectively removed by our upgraded operating system.

     The reason that the patch we needed was never incorporated into
general release was, I believe, because the problem was eventually
attributed to a freakish incompatibility between hardware and software -
hence the reason that one box was prone to the problem while the other was
unaffected.

     I might be mixing up two separate and distinct incidents, but I THINK
one of the characteristics of the problem was multiple processes entering
an IMPEDED state - which could be observed with Glance. While this doesn't
help the system any, it did occassionally allow some sort of warning to be
given to people using the system to get out cleanly - the only solution,
once the problem started, being to re-boot.

Robert.

PS. The company that experienced the above problem was an HP site in the UK.