AWStats slowing down a server....
 

possible? is it something wrong with the script or something on my part?

of course it is. . . just eating more resources. Should not be the sole cause, but can certainly contribute.

because it tracks way too much it depends on the traffic on the site

yep it's a resource hog for any site that gets huge traffic, also make sure you not running several stats programs like analog and webalizer at the same time.

I had a problem with it slowing one of my servers down a while back... whenever it would compile stats the server speed would slow to a crawl. I upgraded the memory and that fixed the problem, then later i removed awstats because of other security problems that i'd learned of.

Set it to purge your log files. It should effect your server unless you are compiling a report (ie loading the stats page). If you set it to purge the logs, it cuts the work way way down