Since the release of 10.5, I've seen that the execution of AppleScripts triggers heavy activity of syslogd , basically causing it to take over the CPU. I've found that by killing the syslogd process (which will automatically restart) and removing the asl.db file from the /var/log directory, I can at least temporarily solve the problem. Here's a two-line AppleScript to do just that: do shell script "sudo launchctl stop com.apple.syslogd" with administrator privileges do shell script "sudo rm /var/log/asl.db" with administrator privileges Run that, and CPU usage by syslogd should drop to normal levels again, at least for a while. [ robg adds: ... ...
Anytime
Since the release of 10.5, I've seen that the execution of AppleScripts triggers heavy activity of syslogd , basically causing it to take over the CPU. I've found that by killing the syslogd process (which will automatically restart) and removing the asl.db file from the /var/log directory, I can at least temporarily solve the problem. Here's a two-line AppleScript to do just that: do shell script "sudo launchctl stop com.apple.syslogd" with administrator privileges do shell script "sudo rm /var/log/asl.db" with administrator privileges Run that, and CPU usage by syslogd should drop to normal levels again, at least for a while. [ robg adds: ... ...