Server Performance sucks!

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Hope this is an appropriate forum to post this in!!

Could anyone please give me some help on how to methodically troubleshoot a badly performing test server. Its has an AMD 1.8Ghz CPU, 512 MB RAM and 10GB H/D partitioned as drive c: & d:
As i said it is only a test server so have probably overloaded it with services i.e. dhcp, dns, application print. Saying that i have disabled dhcp + application services. The problem is regarding the system crawling. Even if it has been left alone for a good while, simply hitting the start menu can takes it minutes to respond, its simply unacceptable.

Have monitored the CPU and memory and am quite confident that there are no bottlenecks there, however i am not to sure about how best to monitor the disk performance apart from the average disk queue length, which is at an acceptable level of just over 1!! Can anyone offer me any advice?

 

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any processes (see task manager) running at 99% cpu?

edit: another thought. the server could be paging a lot. have you reviewed your page file (location, free space on that location, size, etc.)?

 

Try using msconfig to do a diagnostic boot up, this should make a difference in performance.

Remove the unnecessary roles from the server and see if this helps.

If all else fails could you not simply rebuild the server, as you said it is only a test server?

 

Nope, no processes running at high %'s. Im really unsure how to tackle this 1. Disk activity can sound intense (regarding the noise its making) even when both client and server have been left idle. If im not mistaken this can be the result of excessive paging but how can this be when the server is lying idle. Unsure of what to do next; i would like to figure this out and understand why!!

 

thanks simon, il try msconfig!! Ur right i prob could rebuild the server but would like to know how to properly diagnose and troubleshoot such a problem so that i can do it if it arises for real!!

thanks

 

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...elp/e3f1be32-7283-477c-8431-d4daaa05956b.mspx
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/HealthCheck/index.htm

 

em, please excuse my stupidity here, but can someone explain to me why i get values of over 100 etc when monitoring %disk read time? obviously sumit i dont understand, like how a value can be over 100% ??

 

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310067&sd=tech

 

d-faktor, thankyou very much for that link. Can stop me embarrasing myself on that topic again in the future. Appreciated

 

As i mentioned earlier , i have a server that is producing very slow performance when logged in locally (i.e. clicking on a menu can takes minutes to process) and appears to have a lot of disk activity, even when idle. Pretty sure the memory and pagefile is sufficient.

I set up performance monitor to monitor the server over the period of 1 hours (sampled every 15 secs). During this time i did not work locally at the server or have any clients connected to the server or the domain. The results produced are as follows:

Avg. Memory pages/sec = 3.54
Avg. % Disk read time = 4.21
Avg. %Disk write time = 139
Avg. disk queue length = 1.43

Going by these results can anyone offer an explanation to the poor performance of the server. All results seem acceptable to me apart from Avg. %Disk write time!! Why so high on an idle server???

RAM is 512MB
paging is 768MB

Thanks

 

What speed hard disk do you have in the machine?

 

The speed of the hard disk is 5400rpm im pretty sure. I really dont understand what exactly is getting written to the disk during these idle periods

 

That could possibly be a part of the problem. The rest of the machine sounds ok (spec wise), but a 5400 hard disk could really be causing some bottle necks.

 

I did initially think that 5400rpm may cause a problem but im not convinced that it should produce these results and performance, especially when no work is being done locally or accross the network.

Your input is much appreciated

 

Whilst the 5400rpm Hard disk in it's self is ok for the lab situation you need to consider that the server prioritises background applications, and may be dealing with a lot of these when it appears to be idol.

Just a thought.

 

Wel that is a good point that i will look further into but still have a sucpision that something else is causing it 2!! Jus seems like far 2 much activity and dreadful performance at times. Feel like hitting it with a hammer at the best of times!!

Thanks