cpu's not sharing load evenly

The hardware:
2 MP2000+
A7V266-D MPX

The 2.4.19-gentoo-r9 SMP kernel:
AthlonMP(gcc31)
MTRR
Symmetric multi-processing
Preemptible Kernel
Enhanced Real Time Clock Support

My /etc/make.conf includes:
MAKEOPTS="-j3"

My Problem:
When compiling code it seems that the sum total of all the work being done by both cpu's is almost always equal to no more than one cpu. For example, CPU0 45% idle - CPU1 55% idle, or CPU0 95% idle - CPU1 5% idle. I expected the load on the cpu's to be more symmetric. It bothers me when I see CPU0 at 100% and CPU1 twiddling it's thumbs. Not until the load average gets over 2 or 3, do I see both cpu's go to 0% idle.

My questions:
Is this performance behavior normal? Is there anything I can do to make the cpu's share the load more evenly?

Thank you.

--Don