Hi,
The server my site is have had CPU loads of max0.30 before but now it's been constantly between 2 and 3 (for a couple of weeks).

The hosting company installed Webalizer (which is not working, doesn't generate new stats) but other than that I do not know any bigger changes.

I've done top many times now and it shows a command 'setiathome' which uses about 95&CPU and 6%MEM.

What could be the problem and is a CPU load 3.00 a 'really' bad thing?

Setiathome is the client for the Seti@home project. It will use all available CPU powers, but since it has a low priority, it will give up the CPU to other proccesses.

You may have had a user install it. I am not sure how you could prevent this because they program is a binary and doesn't require compilation...there are CPU thottling methods but these are a pain as well.

Seti@Home Web Site
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/