Windows 2003 server freeze 2

[Diffy1]

The Windows 2003 server tends to intermitently freeze for over 10-20 seconds at a time at random times. This was firstly noticed by the users and can be replicated from Terminal Services and from the console - presumably if the problem is evident from console then its probably worse over the network. The problem is more apparent when browsing the D:\ folder of shares which is around 380Gb and one share is many folders deep.

1.The server spec is fine - it has 2 Gb and generally over 1 Gb free, CPU Usage is between above 10% and network util is around 1% however the server does house around 70 users for file shares the stats tell me that the server is not under stress.

2. There are no events log entries indicating a problem and the server is up to date with all drivers with SP1.

3. The D:\ is raid5 with no hot spare and has recently been defragged with Diskeeper.

4. Anti-Virus has been disabled at various stages so there are no scanning issues etc . The only thing I need to do now is run some form of Chkdsk for errors.

I dont know if this is co-incidence (and will need to check) but any problems seem to be removed with a server reboot at least for a few days/week.

Many Thanks in advanced.

 

[MiniOrganMorgan]

Sounds like it's some sort of hardware error, when the machine "locks up", tap either the Caps Lock or Num Lock. If the corresponding indicator lights don't flash on and off, that shows the hardware has locked up; if they do flash on and off, that would indicate a software problem.

Have you tried running perfmon, and in particular the disk counters as you mention the machine can lock when browsing the bigger volume.

 

[Diffy1]

Hi thanks for the post. Im looking at perfom to see what is the norm and what isnt but it does seem excessively high.

 

[Seaspray0]

A recent defrag and now this also indicates data has been written to a sector that is going bad. The disk access light will go from normal blinking to almost nothing with little blinks here and there during the freeze. When the freeze is over, drive access will blink normally again. Use the performance monitor and set up tracking some of your hdd paramaters. Do you see anything that coincides with the freezes?

Start, Help. You'll be surprised what's there. A+/MCP/MCSE/MCDBA

 

[Diffy1]

Think the problem lies with the D:\ - when occasionally when I'm browsing the drive shares (this time from Terminal Services) the Avg Queue length hits 100 and then I get the freeze which lasts until the spike drops. I shall check from the console and see what activity is on the disk lights. Will also run a CHKDSK /F and see what this reports.

Since the server was constantly freezing Monday I restarted the server and also disabled MSSQL - since then it has been relatively OK with only very minor freezes(wouldnt have thought that MSSQL would have any bearing on Disk waits though).

 

[MiniOrganMorgan]

Where is SQL writing it's transaction logs? If it's to the D: drive you may have found the culprit.

 

[Diffy1]

To be homest I cant see why it should be ruuning in the first place - Veritas Backup Eexec uses some form of SQL for its services but with it disabled it still works perfectly well. Dont think that there is anything in the D:\ and C:\ only has C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\80 and \MSSQL$BKUPEXEC (as per the System DSN).

Thanks!