lags and freezes with heavy applications

[Gustavo RS]

Hi.

When I run heavy applications or games like Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and
Ultima Online, every five minutes (or more), all the system freeze for 5
seconds then back, it seens that my computer is "thinking". This always
happens only with Windows 2000 Professional, and also happened in other 3
diferents machines with the same Windows 2k Professional. If I run the same
applications in Windows 98 or XP, these lags do not happen.

Anyone knows anything that could help me?

Thanks,
Gustavo

(sorry for my bad english)

 

[Ben McDonald [MSFT]]

Gustavo,

There are a lot of things you could look at. Do you have enough memory to
keep it from swapping to disk? Large enough swap file? Are you running any
programs that would do anything on an interval of 5 minutes? Good case
venting/fans? Have you tried watching task manager, or perfmon to determine
if the lag is a CPU spike, or a snooze? Defrag your disks lately? Running
SP4? Current drivers for video/sound card? Any BIOS updates availible?Try
turning off any power management. Swap around the order of your PCI cards.

There is a few guesses to get you started. Chasing down a phantom pause is
a process of detail analysis, good luck!

-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

 

[Gustavo RS]

Thank you Ben for the help.

I think the memory is enought, I have 320 MB RAM and I haven't reported the
memory reaching the limit in the Task Manager, even after I run these
programs. A week before I have defrag the disk. Drivers for video are the
latest avaliable, but my video card is a little old, is a Voodoo 3 16MB.
Sorry, CPU "spike or snooze", can you explain this in other words, my
english isn't very good? I'm going to download the SP4, I think I haven't
downloaded it yet. Do you have the link for it? Sorry for the newbie
question, how can I swap around the order of my PCI cards?

Thank you very much for the help.

Gustavo

 

[Ben McDonald [MSFT]]

You can get SP4 from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com Pick up any
security and critical updates while you are there!

By spike/snooze I mean high/low usage 100% CPU in task manager would be a
spike, 0% would be a snooze

Thats a pretty low end card for playing wolfenstien, You'd see a nice
framerate increase with a faster card with 32mb or more.

You have plenty of CPU RAM, that shouldnt be the issue.

I wouldnt go card swapping as my first step, that was a huge guess in the
spirit of giving you as many ideas as I could think of. What i meant by
that is physically moving cards around, put your sound card in a different
PCI slot.


-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

 

[Gustavo RS]

Hello.

I watched the task manager while I was playing wolfenstein and it was 100%
CPU usage, almost all the time. The memory being used was 270MB, resting
50MB of my 320MB. My CPU isn't so good, is a Pentium II 400 Mhz. As you
said, with my video card, the framerate is very low, but this don't bother
me, what I really don't like is the freezees, they occour every five minutes
or less (it isn't always the same interval), and they last for about 5 to 30
seconds (depending of the program that is running, with wolfenstein the
freeze is 15 seconds, with ultima online, 5 seconds, with wolfenstein enemy
territor, 25 seconds), and only in Windows 2000. One year ago when I was
using Windows 98 (with the same machine) these freezees never happened, even
playing the same Ultima Online, and now it happens in almost every game and
heavy applications. Also I reported this happening here in the company that
I work, but only in one machine that uses Windows 2000 Server (in the other
one machine, that also have Windows 2000 Server, it never happened - the two
machines are Pentium 4 2 GHz with 512MB RAM). Now I'll this to swap my PCI
cards and, if this don't resolve, download the SP4. After that I'll report
in a post the results.

Thank you very much Ben for the help.

Best wishes,
Gustavo

(sorry for my worse english)

You can get SP4 from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com Pick up any
security and critical updates while you are there!

By spike/snooze I mean high/low usage 100% CPU in task manager would be a
spike, 0% would be a snooze

Thats a pretty low end card for playing wolfenstien, You'd see a nice
framerate increase with a faster card with 32mb or more.

You have plenty of CPU RAM, that shouldnt be the issue.

I wouldnt go card swapping as my first step, that was a huge guess in the
spirit of giving you as many ideas as I could think of. What i meant by
that is physically moving cards around, put your sound card in a different
PCI slot.


-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

From: "Gustavo RS" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: lags and freezes with heavy applications
Thank you Ben for the help.

I think the memory is enought, I have 320 MB RAM and I haven't reported the
memory reaching the limit in the Task Manager, even after I run these
programs. A week before I have defrag the disk. Drivers for video are the
latest avaliable, but my video card is a little old, is a Voodoo 3 16MB.
Sorry, CPU "spike or snooze", can you explain this in other words, my
english isn't very good? I'm going to download the SP4, I think I haven't
downloaded it yet. Do you have the link for it? Sorry for the newbie
question, how can I swap around the order of my PCI cards?

Thank you very much for the help.

Gustavo


"Ben McDonald [MSFT]" <[email protected]> escreveu na mensagem

Gustavo,

There are a lot of things you could look at. Do you have enough memory to
keep it from swapping to disk? Large enough swap file? Are you running any
programs that would do anything on an interval of 5 minutes? Good case
venting/fans? Have you tried watching task manager, or perfmon to determine
if the lag is a CPU spike, or a snooze? Defrag your disks lately? Running
SP4? Current drivers for video/sound card? Any BIOS updates availible?Try
turning off any power management. Swap around the order of your PCI cards.

There is a few guesses to get you started. Chasing down a phantom pause is
a process of detail analysis, good luck!

-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

Territory
and

Ultima Online, every five minutes (or more), all the system freeze for 5
seconds then back, it seens that my computer is "thinking". This always
happens only with Windows 2000 Professional, and also happened in

other

3

 

[Gustavo RS]

Yesterday I have installed every update avaliable on Windows Update,
including critical updates and SP4. Also I runned dxdiag, no problems were
found. I disable and close the antivirus, removed every program from the
"start menu\programs\start", regestry
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" and
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run", win.ini
(load= run=), and I removed almost all the services, but the still freezees
(by the way, is there any other location where windows start programs?). I
have defrag my computer half month ago. I haven't swap around the PCI card
yet.

Any ideia?

Thank you.

Hello.

I watched the task manager while I was playing wolfenstein and it was 100%
CPU usage, almost all the time. The memory being used was 270MB, resting
50MB of my 320MB. My CPU isn't so good, is a Pentium II 400 Mhz. As you
said, with my video card, the framerate is very low, but this don't bother
me, what I really don't like is the freezees, they occour every five minutes
or less (it isn't always the same interval), and they last for about 5 to 30
seconds (depending of the program that is running, with wolfenstein the
freeze is 15 seconds, with ultima online, 5 seconds, with wolfenstein enemy
territor, 25 seconds), and only in Windows 2000. One year ago when I was
using Windows 98 (with the same machine) these freezees never happened, even
playing the same Ultima Online, and now it happens in almost every game and
heavy applications. Also I reported this happening here in the company that
I work, but only in one machine that uses Windows 2000 Server (in the other
one machine, that also have Windows 2000 Server, it never happened - the two
machines are Pentium 4 2 GHz with 512MB RAM). Now I'll this to swap my PCI
cards and, if this don't resolve, download the SP4. After that I'll report
in a post the results.

Thank you very much Ben for the help.

Best wishes,
Gustavo

(sorry for my worse english)

You can get SP4 from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com Pick up any
security and critical updates while you are there!

By spike/snooze I mean high/low usage 100% CPU in task manager would be a
spike, 0% would be a snooze

Thats a pretty low end card for playing wolfenstien, You'd see a nice
framerate increase with a faster card with 32mb or more.

You have plenty of CPU RAM, that shouldnt be the issue.

I wouldnt go card swapping as my first step, that was a huge guess in the
spirit of giving you as many ideas as I could think of. What i meant by
that is physically moving cards around, put your sound card in a different
PCI slot.


-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

From: "Gustavo RS" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: lags and freezes with heavy applications
Thank you Ben for the help.

I think the memory is enought, I have 320 MB RAM and I haven't reported the
memory reaching the limit in the Task Manager, even after I run these
programs. A week before I have defrag the disk. Drivers for video are the
latest avaliable, but my video card is a little old, is a Voodoo 3 16MB.
Sorry, CPU "spike or snooze", can you explain this in other words, my
english isn't very good? I'm going to download the SP4, I think I haven't
downloaded it yet. Do you have the link for it? Sorry for the newbie
question, how can I swap around the order of my PCI cards?

Thank you very much for the help.

Gustavo


"Ben McDonald [MSFT]" <[email protected]> escreveu na mensagem
Gustavo,

There are a lot of things you could look at. Do you have enough

memory

to pause
is

for

5 other

 

[Ben McDonald [MSFT]]

Wow, lots of good work there. That was the next path to investigate, and
you nailed it.

I'm running out of ideas on this one. We've updated the software, checked
and disabled nonessential background services, checked availible memory,
watched the CPU spike during the phenomenon.

I'm not sure what else could be causing it to happen at such a large
interval (5 minutes is huge for this kind of thing). Its possible that when
you are maxxing out the CPU in these applications, we are causing the
various system processes to fight for time on the processor, and that
eventually causes a 'traffic jam' of work (writing things to disk, loading
textures and sounds) that result in this periodic pause. The trick, if that
is whats going on would be guessing which component is the bottleneck (CPU,
Memory, Video, Sound, Disk) and try upgrading it. My guess would be CPU
first, Video second. I have a P4 1.4 and a geforce3 and wolfenstien is
almost too much game for that box.

One last ditch question before we talk about hardware updates.. Does it
happen immediatly? As in, if you power up your machine, go right into the
application, and get to blasting the bad guys, will you see a pause within
5 minutes, or does it not happen for a while (> 15 minutes). Does it get
better after a reboot for a little while? Are you overclocked? Im thinking
resource leak/Heat management. If it doesnt happen right away, that would
be an indicator of one of those, if a reboot clears it up, it could be
resources. If rebooting doesnt make it better, it could be heat or the
bottleneck. An easy test would be to take the case off, and get a fan to
blow on it. (this is a huge guess!)

Only other thing I can think of at this point would be to use the
Performance Monitor tool( preferably from another machine), and monitor The
process object, for '% processor time' against all instances, in a short
interval ( 2-3 seconds) and see if you can pick out a process besides the
application using your CPU during that time.

Heres a link to an article that has a good explination of how to use the
Perfmon tool:

330138 HOW TO: Collect Information About Your Computer to Troubleshoot
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=330138

811237 HOW TO: Capture Performance Data from a Remote Windows 2000 Computer
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=811237

-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

 

[Dan Seur]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the chance that your pagefile is
heavily fragmented. Do you have a defragger (like PerfectDisk & a couple
others) that can do this? And defrag all your system and index files
too? Also, it was the case on NT4 that pagefile size min=max helped
prevent fragmentation; not positive whether W2k behavior is the same. Of
course location of the pagefile can be important if there's heavy
swapping; set it up to avoid seek and bus contention. Thrashing can
account for seconds of lost time.

Yesterday I have installed every update avaliable on Windows Update,
including critical updates and SP4. Also I runned dxdiag, no problems were
found. I disable and close the antivirus, removed every program from the
"start menu\programs\start", regestry
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" and
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run", win.ini
(load= run=), and I removed almost all the services, but the still freezees
(by the way, is there any other location where windows start programs?). I
have defrag my computer half month ago. I haven't swap around the PCI card
yet.

Any ideia?

Thank you.

Hello.

I watched the task manager while I was playing wolfenstein and it was 100%
CPU usage, almost all the time. The memory being used was 270MB, resting
50MB of my 320MB. My CPU isn't so good, is a Pentium II 400 Mhz. As you
said, with my video card, the framerate is very low, but this don't bother
me, what I really don't like is the freezees, they occour every five
minutes

or less (it isn't always the same interval), and they last for about 5 to
30

seconds (depending of the program that is running, with wolfenstein the
freeze is 15 seconds, with ultima online, 5 seconds, with wolfenstein
enemy

territor, 25 seconds), and only in Windows 2000. One year ago when I was
using Windows 98 (with the same machine) these freezees never happened,
even

playing the same Ultima Online, and now it happens in almost every game
and

heavy applications. Also I reported this happening here in the company
that

I work, but only in one machine that uses Windows 2000 Server (in the
other

one machine, that also have Windows 2000 Server, it never happened - the
two

machines are Pentium 4 2 GHz with 512MB RAM). Now I'll this to swap my PCI
cards and, if this don't resolve, download the SP4. After that I'll report
in a post the results.

Thank you very much Ben for the help.

Best wishes,
Gustavo

(sorry for my worse english)

You can get SP4 from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com Pick up any
security and critical updates while you are there!

By spike/snooze I mean high/low usage 100% CPU in task manager would be

a

spike, 0% would be a snooze

Thats a pretty low end card for playing wolfenstien, You'd see a nice
framerate increase with a faster card with 32mb or more.

You have plenty of CPU RAM, that shouldnt be the issue.

I wouldnt go card swapping as my first step, that was a huge guess in

the

spirit of giving you as many ideas as I could think of. What i meant by
that is physically moving cards around, put your sound card in a

different

PCI slot.


-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.

Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

From: "Gustavo RS" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: lags and freezes with heavy applications
Thank you Ben for the help.

I think the memory is enought, I have 320 MB RAM and I haven't reported
the

memory reaching the limit in the Task Manager, even after I run these
programs. A week before I have defrag the disk. Drivers for video are

the

latest avaliable, but my video card is a little old, is a Voodoo 3

16MB.

Sorry, CPU "spike or snooze", can you explain this in other words, my
english isn't very good? I'm going to download the SP4, I think I

haven't

downloaded it yet. Do you have the link for it? Sorry for the newbie
question, how can I swap around the order of my PCI cards?

Thank you very much for the help.

Gustavo


"Ben McDonald [MSFT]" <[email protected]> escreveu na
mensagem


Gustavo,

There are a lot of things you could look at. Do you have enough

memory

to

keep it from swapping to disk? Large enough swap file? Are you

running

any

programs that would do anything on an interval of 5 minutes? Good

case

venting/fans? Have you tried watching task manager, or perfmon to

determine

if the lag is a CPU spike, or a snooze? Defrag your disks lately?
Running

SP4? Current drivers for video/sound card? Any BIOS updates
availible?Try

turning off any power management. Swap around the order of your PCI

cards.

There is a few guesses to get you started. Chasing down a phantom

pause

is

a process of detail analysis, good luck!

-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no

rights.

Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified
at

http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

From: "Gustavo RS" <[email protected]>
Subject: lags and freezes with heavy applications
When I run heavy applications or games like Wolfenstein Enemy
Territory

and

Ultima Online, every five minutes (or more), all the system freeze

for

5

seconds then back, it seens that my computer is "thinking". This
always

happens only with Windows 2000 Professional, and also happened in
other

3

diferents machines with the same Windows 2k Professional. If I run

the

same

applications in Windows 98 or XP, these lags do not happen.

 

[Gustavo RS]

Strange, don't you think? The interval isn't always the same 5 minutes,
sometimes is 3 minutes, sometimes is 7, 5, 10 minutes. I didn't perceive if
this happen immediatly, I'll reboot computer and enter in wolfenstein or
ultima online as the computer is ready to run applications, then start the
countdown of about 5 minutes. The exactly thing that happen when the freeze
occour in my machine is that all systens lock (keyboard, mouse), image
freezes, the sound stay repeating the last second played, the freeze last
for about 5 seconds in games such, return to the castle wolfenstein, ultima
online, and in the game wolfenstein enemy territor, this freeze occour
almost every 2 minutes and last for 15 seconds (its impossible play). After
the freeze stop, I hear the sound of writing/reading HD for less than 1
second. In the machine here in the company, the freeze occour eventually (5
minutes, 30 minutes, 15, ...), and it occour when we are running
our application made with Visual Basic 6 (is a little heavy application).

I'm thinking in upgrade the hardware, CPU, motherboard and video card, but
now I'm a little out of money, so I've to wait some months, here in my
country the computer's parts are expensive. The most strange is that the
freezes occour also in old games like ultima online, that don't need a
machine better than mine, and time ago, before I've installed Windows 2000,
in Windows 98 they never happened, not even in ultima online.

I'm not overclocked, and I like the ideia to try open the case and direct a
fan to blow the computer. My HD is an ATA 100 30GB, I think it is a Seagate
7200RPM, but without any cooler, maybe could be this the problem?

I'll try to use the "Perfmon tool" from my sister machine. Can I do this and
point to view my machine?

Thank you again for all the help.

Gustavo

 

[Gustavo RS]

Humm, how can I know if this is happening? I only have the windows
defragger, and I have defrag my HD a month ago.
How can I do these other things: "location of the pagefile can be important
if there's heavy

swapping; set it up to avoid seek and bus contention"?

Thank you.

Gustavo

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the chance that your pagefile is
heavily fragmented. Do you have a defragger (like PerfectDisk & a couple
others) that can do this? And defrag all your system and index files
too? Also, it was the case on NT4 that pagefile size min=max helped
prevent fragmentation; not positive whether W2k behavior is the same. Of
course location of the pagefile can be important if there's heavy
swapping; set it up to avoid seek and bus contention. Thrashing can
account for seconds of lost time.

Yesterday I have installed every update avaliable on Windows Update,
including critical updates and SP4. Also I runned dxdiag, no problems were
found. I disable and close the antivirus, removed every program from the
"start menu\programs\start", regestry
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" and
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run", win.ini
(load= run=), and I removed almost all the services, but the still freezees
(by the way, is there any other location where windows start programs?). I
have defrag my computer half month ago. I haven't swap around the PCI card
yet.

Any ideia?

Thank you.

Hello.

I watched the task manager while I was playing wolfenstein and it was 100%
CPU usage, almost all the time. The memory being used was 270MB, resting
50MB of my 320MB. My CPU isn't so good, is a Pentium II 400 Mhz. As you
said, with my video card, the framerate is very low, but this don't bother
me, what I really don't like is the freezees, they occour every five
minutes

or less (it isn't always the same interval), and they last for about 5

to

30

seconds (depending of the program that is running, with wolfenstein the
freeze is 15 seconds, with ultima online, 5 seconds, with wolfenstein
enemy

territor, 25 seconds), and only in Windows 2000. One year ago when I was
using Windows 98 (with the same machine) these freezees never happened,
even

playing the same Ultima Online, and now it happens in almost every game
and

heavy applications. Also I reported this happening here in the company
that

I work, but only in one machine that uses Windows 2000 Server (in the
other

one machine, that also have Windows 2000 Server, it never happened - the
two

machines are Pentium 4 2 GHz with 512MB RAM). Now I'll this to swap my PCI
cards and, if this don't resolve, download the SP4. After that I'll report
in a post the results.

Thank you very much Ben for the help.

Best wishes,
Gustavo

(sorry for my worse english)

"Ben McDonald [MSFT]" <[email protected]> escreveu na mensagem

You can get SP4 from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com Pick up any
security and critical updates while you are there!

By spike/snooze I mean high/low usage 100% CPU in task manager would be
a

spike, 0% would be a snooze

Thats a pretty low end card for playing wolfenstien, You'd see a nice
framerate increase with a faster card with 32mb or more.

You have plenty of CPU RAM, that shouldnt be the issue.

I wouldnt go card swapping as my first step, that was a huge guess in
the

spirit of giving you as many ideas as I could think of. What i meant by
that is physically moving cards around, put your sound card in a
different

PCI slot.


-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no

rights.

Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

From: "Gustavo RS" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: lags and freezes with heavy applications
Thank you Ben for the help.

I think the memory is enought, I have 320 MB RAM and I haven't reported

the

memory reaching the limit in the Task Manager, even after I run these
programs. A week before I have defrag the disk. Drivers for video are
the

latest avaliable, but my video card is a little old, is a Voodoo 3
16MB.

Sorry, CPU "spike or snooze", can you explain this in other words, my
english isn't very good? I'm going to download the SP4, I think I
haven't

downloaded it yet. Do you have the link for it? Sorry for the newbie
question, how can I swap around the order of my PCI cards?

Thank you very much for the help.

Gustavo


"Ben McDonald [MSFT]" <[email protected]> escreveu na

mensagem


Gustavo,

There are a lot of things you could look at. Do you have enough
memory

to

keep it from swapping to disk? Large enough swap file? Are you
running

any

programs that would do anything on an interval of 5 minutes? Good
case

venting/fans? Have you tried watching task manager, or perfmon to

determine

if the lag is a CPU spike, or a snooze? Defrag your disks lately?

Running

SP4? Current drivers for video/sound card? Any BIOS updates

availible?Try

turning off any power management. Swap around the order of your PCI

cards.

There is a few guesses to get you started. Chasing down a phantom
pause

is

a process of detail analysis, good luck!

-Ben

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no

rights.

Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified

at

http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

--------------------

From: "Gustavo RS" <[email protected]>
Subject: lags and freezes with heavy applications
When I run heavy applications or games like Wolfenstein Enemy

Territory

and

Ultima Online, every five minutes (or more), all the system freeze
for

5

seconds then back, it seens that my computer is "thinking". This

always

happens only with Windows 2000 Professional, and also happened in

other

3

diferents machines with the same Windows 2k Professional. If I run
the

same

applications in Windows 98 or XP, these lags do not happen.