I am still comparing my two MySQL instances. Here is one key
difference that I saw out of MySQL Administrator:


MACHINE 1 (involved in the problem I am asking about, MySQL has whole
server, 8GB RAM)
Key buffer usage 4,455,424 s
maximal: 100
average: 11

MACHINE 2 (runs fine, MySQL has the whole server, 4GB RAM)
Key buffer usage 472,064 s
maximal: 0
average: 0

Out of the docs:
"The horizontal bar graph indicates how much of the allocated key
buffer is in use. If a fairly large percentage of the key buffer is
in use you may wish to increase the key_cache_size setting in the
Startup Variables section."

My horizontal bar on MACHINE 1 is 5/8 of the way across. I don't have
a key_cache_size in my un-modified /etc/my-large.cnf. Is that the
same as key_buffer (I have listed some of my config below). What is
the key_cache_size? Something related to cache availble to keep table
primary keys in memory?

# The MySQL server
[mysqld]
port = 3306
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
skip-locking
key_buffer = 256M
max_allowed_packet = 1M
table_cache = 256
sort_buffer_size = 1M
read_buffer_size = 1M
read_rnd_buffer_size = 4M
myisam_sort_buffer_size = 64M
thread_cache_size = 8
query_cache_size= 16M
# Try number of CPU's*2 for thread_concurrency
thread_concurrency = 8

[isamchk]
key_buffer = 128M
sort_buffer_size = 128M
read_buffer = 2M
write_buffer = 2M

[myisamchk]
key_buffer = 128M
sort_buffer_size = 128M
read_buffer = 2M
write_buffer = 2M