oracle goes to max processes sometimes

I have an app where Oracle sometimes (three times in about eight months) hits maximum number of processes and stays there. Access from the web is still possible, but is slow until the oracle server is re-booted.

The Oracle server has a dedicated box, with apache/php on a separate box. Both boxes are MSW2k.

We've checked the logs for intrusion, and, while it looks like the customer is testing the security, we haven't seen signs of actual intrusions or DOSses.

Haven't found any other patterns in the logs, but we have set the logs up to give more detailed reports.

(All I've found so far indicates MSW is suspicious. A suggestion in one thread involved a dedicated swap disk, with swap min=max, to avoid fragmentation. Another said that even with MSW2k, a re-boot every three months is not excessive.)

If anyone has seen this sort of behavior in Oracle on MSW2k, I'd sure appreciate a STFA or something pointing me in a good direction.

Joel Rees