slow lame

[mate]

hi,

i have a new gentoo 1.2 install on my avarage pII machine. everithing
seemed to be OK until now, when i tried to encode some wavs into mp3.

the problem is that lame runs extremely slow, like 0.25 play/cpu ratio with "--preset hifi". it is more than ten times slower than the expected speed.
i have used lame with my prior installs (suse, rh, debian) at the same machine, but this is the first time i encountered such a problem.

does anyone has any idea what can cause this?

mate