Server 2003 Seems Sluggish?

[Chris1701]

I'm working on switching to a new mail server (Server2003, MDaemon 8.1.3, Compaq DL580, 1GB, quad 900MHz Xeon cpus) from our old one (NT4, Exchange 5.5 on a Compaq 400MHZ PII Proliant) and I've got all the software installed (latest SP's for Server2003, latest software drivers from HP/Compaq for the system hardware Raid/lan/video) everything installed on the DL580 but for some reason I can't pin down the server seems very sluggish. It seems slow to logon and bring up the desktop, slow to run any applications (I realize that as a server background processes have priority but it's more than that), slow to copy data to and from any shared drives on other servers.

As far as I can see there are no errors or warnings in either the system or application logs and task manager shows cpu usage averages 5%-10% on cpu 1 (most of which seems to be the taskmgr program but I do see the mdaemon service use a couple percent now and then), 10% on cpu 2 and cpu's 3 and 4 are pretty much flat most of the time, network utilization is 0% since this is not really in service yet.

Can anyone make a suggestion or two about things to take a look at?

Thanks,

- Chris LeFebvre

 

[Seaspray0]

check your disk access. how much data is being que'd in the disk cach before it is written? How much data is being written? If you are paging to the pagefile alot, add more memory. If you have no apps running, and it's sitting there idling, your CPU usage should be around 1% most of the time. To check the network, put the server on a hub with one other test PC and check the transfer speed without all that traffic you normally get on a network.

A+/MCP/MCSE/MCDBA

 

[xmsre]

I've got all the software installed (latest SP's for Server2003, latest software drivers from HP/Compaq for the system hardware Raid/lan/video)"

If you installed Windows 2003 SP1, make sure you install KB 898060.

 

[itsp1965]

You mentioned you experience slow logons, slow to bring up the desktop, running applications, connecting to shares. Have you considered checking to ensure that your DNS settings are configured correctly, check to ensure that your NIC card settings are matched to the switch port (no autoconnect). Sounds more like a network issue than a physical h/w issue