freebsd stable - Nov 2009 - Problem with running 6.X libraries on 7.2 with Apache

Hello,

I have am having a problem which I am fairly sure I have traced to 
running 6.X based code on 7.2 with apache such as Wusage and Scomtherm. 
All runs fine on the server without these running and when I start the 
program the system spirals downwards only on http from what I can tell. 
It seems to be connected to PHP within apache in part.

If I allow the system to run programs needing this code it causes 
problems with Apache taking 100% of the cpu. When I stop the program 
from accessing the old libraries the issue does not come back.

FreeBSD 7.2-STABLE FreeBSD 7.2-STABLE #0: Wed Jul  1 09:36:28 EDT 2009 amd64

Apache setup: apache-2.2.13

TOP when the system has the problem visible:

last pid:  1824;  load averages: 207.55, 91.64, 
38.50                                 up 7+11:03:23  08:55:20
755 processes: 236 running, 516 sleeping, 3 lock
CPU: 11.2% user,  0.0% nice, 86.7% system,  2.0% interrupt,  0.1% idle
Mem: 5617M Active, 8371M Inact, 1179M Wired, 244M Cache, 399M Buf, 433M Free
Swap: 8192M Total, 648K Used, 8191M Free

   PID USERNAME       THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE   C   TIME   WCPU 
COMMAND
  1730 www              1  61    0   197M 41004K RUN     2   0:06  4.59% 
httpd
  1475 www              1  -4    0   195M 39220K ufs     7   0:06  4.49% 
httpd
  1732 www              1  -4    0   193M 38124K RUN     0   0:06  4.39% 
httpd
  1651 www              1  -4    0   221M 59520K RUN     0   0:07  4.20% 
httpd
  1653 www              1  -4    0   220M 59244K RUN     0   0:07  3.96% 
httpd
  1609 www              1  -4    0   227M 64656K RUN     6   0:07  3.96% 
httpd
  1431 www              1  -4    0   220M 59804K RUN     6   0:13  3.86% 
httpd
  1568 www              1  -4    0   195M 39288K RUN     6   0:09  3.86% 
httpd
  1572 www              1  -4    0   222M 61052K RUN     0   0:09  3.86% 
httpd
  1585 www              1  -4    0   227M 64844K RUN     5   0:07  3.86% 
httpd
  1681 www              1  64    0   220M 59368K RUN     3   0:07  3.86% 
httpd
  1738 www              1  64    0   197M 40772K RUN     7   0:05  3.86% 
httpd
  1648 www              1  67    0   210M 50628K RUN     6   0:08  3.76% 
httpd
  1600 www              1  60    0   221M 59632K RUN     7   0:08  3.76% 
httpd
  1622 www              1  -4    0   220M 59216K RUN     5   0:08  3.76% 
httpd
  1619 www              1  -4    0   220M 58768K RUN     2   0:07  3.76% 
httpd

I wondered if anyone else has had a similar problem or might be able to 
suggest a way to fix this?

I am going to try an upgrade to the latest 7.2 shortly.

Thanks,

Paul