how to "trace" high load?

my server is up for 11 days now and the load wasn't a problem for all this time (below 1.0 except on doing backups, or while i was compiling something)

now it jumped to 3.0~5.0 average

i'm scheduling a reboot this night to see if something get solved, but i'd like to know how can i trace what's making it get high

root@server01 [/]# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1027996 997816 30180 0 137228 561608
-/+ buffers/cache: 298980 729016
Swap: 2040212 99780 1940432
root@server01 [/]# w
17:47:14 up 11 days, 23:37, 1 user, load average: 4.47, 3.59, 3.76
I don't have an idea on how to interpret those points/K/W, but I guess that's the problem:
Current Time: Thursday, 15-Apr-2004 17:46:58 BRT
Restart Time: Thursday, 15-Apr-2004 14:53:46 BRT
Parent Server Generation: 17
Server uptime: 2 hours 53 minutes 12 seconds
Total accesses: 148109 - Total Traffic: 1.1 GB
CPU Usage: u14.26 s2.4 cu.31 cs.15 - .165% CPU load
14.3 requests/sec - 106.0 kB/second - 7.4 kB/request
35 requests currently being processed, 12 idle servers
KKWK_K__WWK__KK_W_KWKKKG_K_KKWWKWK_KKKWW_K_KRW...............W..
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there's probably some site sending too much requests?
if so, any ideas on how to find out which one?

thanks in advance

 

 

 

 

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