F14 kernel process loop, possibly in ext4 filesystem code

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

EXT4 filesystem directory with 100,000+ small files, 4-core intel
processor, batch process that runs parallel on all four processors
... adding/deleting several hundred files.

No problem on F13 but fairly consistently happens since recent
"preupgrade" to F14. If I serialize the processing, problem
doesn't occur.

Initial symptom is that batch process doesn't complete and gkrellm
shows one of the processors at 100% cpu in the kernel. Eventually
whole system locks up and requires reboot (with manual reset switch).
Directory will then frequently show numerous newly added files
as zero bytes (i.e. metadata had been logged, but actual data
never written to disk).