Server Lock Up

[Guest]

We have been having a problem with our main network server locking up. It
doesn't crash, I don' get any messages in event viewer but when we come in it
is just hung up can't get to anything so we usually have to just hit the
button and restart. I am getting no events in logs that point to any
issues. It usally happens during the night sometimes. Backup does run
during the night and I am doing some troubleshooting with CA tech support.
It is a Windows 2000 Std server. My question is: Is there a good way to
run a monitor that logs to a file what processes are running at all times so
we could go back after server is restarted what process was consuming all
system resources?

Thanks for you help!

 

[Yor Suiris]

Not really an answer to your query. But a comment on one of my machines that
would hang for no reason now and then.
It turned out to be Temperature. Things were just getting too hot. No log
entries no nothing to indicate what happened. We moved the machine to
another location (better air flow) and the problem stopped.
Don't know if that helps with your problem.

 

[Scott Harding]

I agree, usually lock ups and hangs can be related to temperature or dust on
the CPU/ motherboard.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for input but I don't think it is a heating issue. It is a pedastal
server and this room is plenty cool. Maybe a hardware error of some kind. I
will try to run some diags.

Thanks!

 

[Kevin Zou]

I got this same problem on a few of w2k servers. the servers are kept in
data center so heat shouldn't be a problem. The veritas netbackup was
running during the hang but there wasn't any event logs related to the
hang.

Server respond to ping and telnet port, but that's pretty much it.

I am interested in knowing how would microsoft support will trouble
shoot this kind of problem.

 

[Roger Lainson]

I agree it would really nice to have some guidance on how to tackle
this sort of problem.

In my case, I noticed that w2k died slowly, so alt-Tab worked but
ctrl-shift-esc didn't. However, if Task Manager was left open, it
would still update (for a while, until I clicked in a few places).
Interestingly, no process was hogging resources - looked absolutely
normal to me, with the System Idle Process taking 97-98% CPU. Nothing
at all in the event log (which could also be refreshed if it was
open).

I suspected hardware, but a few days ago I tried re-installing w2k as
a clean install ... and so far, so good! But the building's a bit
quiet this week, and I suspect the problem occurs when there's a bit
of load.

Roger Lainson.