To find a runaway process, use the ps command. On linux machines type ps -augx. The man pages (man ps) show all possible flags.

To kill a process once you've found its process ID (PID), type "kill PID". If that doesn't work, you can use "kill -9 PID".You should never issue the kill -9 -1 command unless you are outside of the X window system. Doing so with X running will freeze the console and require a reboot by the staff.