NT 4.0 "Hung" up Maxed CPU USAGE

[rokerij]

We are using a Win NT 4.0 Server OS. The machine is giving us some problems. It seems that the CPU Usage in the Task Manager is maxed out with the occasional drop to 80% which is still very high. There are no applications running and we have shut down every service to try and determine the culprit of the usage. When you use the processes tab on the task manager it shows that Task Manager is using 40% - 90% of the available CPU changing each second. There are no other items that seem to stand out. We have no clue what could be causing the maxed out CPU Usage, but it's stopping the users on the network from getting anything done. Most people are having difficulties signing onto the network, and the ones who are lucky enough to get on, find that it is extremely slow. I've shut down the server for about 10 minutes and have done numerous reboots, but each time the same occurance. The startup of the OS takes forever and the CPU usage is maxed out immediately. Has this ever happened to anyone and if so, can you help me please?

I thank you in advance for all and any of your help.

 

[support66]

Smells like a bad block, or Virus. What your event says? Send me the event ID

 

[Grenage]

Have you installed any new programs/services of late ?

 

[comtec17]

Almost sounds like Anti Virus Program

 

[rokerij]

My first thought was a virus also, and it might have been. The Norton 7.6 Corp edition we are running said that it was scanning the machine, and I could not get it to stop. Even with numerous reboots and power downs, the same thing kept happening. After speaking with Symantec they said to use the internet virus check which we did and on a shared T1 it took close to 3.5 hours! At the end of the scan the machine seemed to regain it's composure and the CPU Usage dropped down to normal operating levels. A quick reboot and the problem seems to have disappeared. The scan brought back 0 virus' found. As for the event viewer, nothing seemed to stand out, except this:

"The windows internet name service hung on starting"
Event ID 7022

Symantec also mentioned that there was some bugs in 7.6 that the newer version 8 takes care, so my thought is the software was the culprit, and we need to update. Any other ideas?

Thank you all for your help. I hope some day to be able to return the favor! shane@uwschdy.org

 

[dementg]

I don't know about corporate edition, but the consumer version of antivirus had an issue recently where the NAVAPW32.exe process (auto protect service) would consume 100% of one processor for 2 hours. If its a similar issue, then having dual cpus on the server would keep that problem (or anything like it in the future) from bringing down the machine. Updating the software with a patch fixed the problem, but again my experience was with the consumer version.