Print Spooler Memory

[MOG]

Hi,

We have a W2K Print Server with upto date patches etc. It
has about 300+ Print Queues. After every 2-3 days the
memory usage shoots up to a very high level for
spoolsv.exe and the whole server becomes very slow. I
have to re-start the spooler service.

What I noticed is, the "Mem Usage" for spoolsv.exe
gradually increases. I guess it should not do that. As
soon as the print job is finished, it should clear up the
memory...but its not doing that. It keeps on accumulating
on the Mem Usage and finally have to re-start the spooler
service.

I appreciate if someone can suggest me a solution for this
problem.

Thanks.

 

[Jason Hall [MSFT]]

--------------------
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
From: "MOG" <[email protected]>
Sender: "MOG" <[email protected]>
Subject: Print Spooler Memory
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 22:49:43 -0700
Hi,

We have a W2K Print Server with upto date patches etc. It
has about 300+ Print Queues. After every 2-3 days the
memory usage shoots up to a very high level for
spoolsv.exe and the whole server becomes very slow. I
have to re-start the spooler service.

What I noticed is, the "Mem Usage" for spoolsv.exe
gradually increases. I guess it should not do that. As
soon as the print job is finished, it should clear up the
memory...but its not doing that. It keeps on accumulating
on the Mem Usage and finally have to re-start the spooler
service.

I appreciate if someone can suggest me a solution for this
problem.

Thanks.
-----------------------

With 300+ print queues, it will not be easy to find out what is causing the
leak.
If you have a lot of different printer models installed, then you likely
have a LOT of different 3rd-party .dll drivers installed under spoolsv (any
of which is a potential culprit for the leak)

Your best bet is to contact Microsoft Support to help you debug a dump of
the Spooler service. Or, you can go through the painstaking procedure of
uninstalling your third-party drivers and replacing them with in-box
drivers (where possible) or downloading the latest from the vendor's
website.

I know that spooler leak issues have been found in drivers by Xerox, Zebra,
Screwdriver, and even video card drivers (namely, for the NVidia GeForce2
video card)

--
~~ JASON HALL ~~
~ Performance Support Specialist,
~ Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support
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