System Idle Process

  • Thread starter Thread starter AJ Ward
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A

AJ Ward

Hi All....

I've looked through the previous posts and I didn't see this one.

I'm running W2K server on a dual P3-700 machine with 768 MB ram, a 120 GB
system drive with dual 30 GB data drives. The machine hosts a 2K
workstation, 2-W9X machines and 3 Macs.

The problem I have is that =sometimes= the system completely bogs down... I
try to move a window and it takes 30 to 40 seconds to react, click the start
button and it takes "forever" to do anything.

When this happens, the Task Manager shows "System Idle Process" running at
97 to 99 percent. What causes this and what can I do to stop it... short of
rebooting... which does correct the problem... for a while.

Thanks for any advice,

Amanda
 
System Idle process should always be ~99%, unless another
program is using CPU time. "System Idle" is exactly that.

Your problem is related to another process. If Task Manager
isn't showing which program it is, chances are it's related to
DHCP or another network component. Turn off DHCP if
you aren't using it on your network.

Rick
 
Um... but there are other programs "trying" to run, Rick. I have some Seti
command line programs running in DOS boxes and they normally use 10 - 12 %
of the CPU time. When sluggishness starts, every other process is at 0 - 1
% and system idle process is taking the lion's share.
I can understand if I had nothing running that system idle would occupy so
much processor time, but I always have a number of programs running and
"normally" they run just fine. So... can DHCP force my other programs to
stop running? Seems awfully odd, if so.

Amanda
 
Greetings --

Break out a dictionary and look up the word "idle," sometime. The
"System Idle Process" metric is the amount/percentage of time that
your CPU has *nothing* to do. A reading of 98-99% is generally
considered a good thing, and readings above 90% are normal. Think of
it like a car's engine idling in your driveway before you place the
car in gear.

You'll need to troubleshoot farther, I'm afraid. It sounds more
like one of your running applications may have a memory leak,
particularly if rebooting temporarily resolves the issue. Until you
determine which application (probably a 3rd party app running as a
service) is causing the problem, you might want to get into the habit
of regular and periodic reboots.

Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
Greetings --

Ah. Your Seti "DOS boxes" are a prime suspect for memory leaks.
Win2K does not handle multiple command line sessions very well. Turn
these off for a few days and see if the problem still occurs.

Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
I agree with the system idle reply, however the school I'm
working with is REALLY expierencing the problem described.
Three identical servers, all with nearly the same number
of processes, packets, etc. The one server that houses the
user roaming profiles, mapped data drive for each user,
and mapped "public" folder, runs maxed out nearly all the
time (70-99% constantly). Nearly all of the resources are
being consumed by the "SYSTEM" process. Almost nothing
else runs on this server. Network sniffing says ethernet
usage only ~10%. Is this too much too ask from a dual
PIII, 1GB Ram, raid 5 server? (I can't believe it is)
Thanks for any advice!
Terry
 
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