SBS 2003 lockdown every few minutes (SBS 2003, w3mom.exe, sql)

[Borislav Dopudja, Boki]

Hi people,

I am currently experiencing hell, as one of the SBS servers I
manage behaves very badly.

Every few minutes there is a lock down of the server in a manner
that people working with local accounting application that uses flat
file database (common file sharing) can't work.

The problem occurs periodically, and after a lot of investigation I
have located the problem being the server itself, and not the network
or anything else.

More investigation shown that every few minutes there are three
process that take up processor time.

1. System service and sql server service goes up to 50% and stay that
way for a 10-20 seconds.
2. w3mom.exe process causes 100% usage of the CPU

The two problems seems to be connected, as the perfmon shown that
they are "working" in conjunction. System service and SQL causes 100%
take up of one CPU, and w3mom.exe causes 100% of both CPUs.

I simply don't know where to look anymore, as the SP2 is installed,
and everything else works perfectly.

Please help!,
--
Borislav Dopudja

[Borislav Dopudja, Boki]

> 2. w3mom.exe process causes 100% usage of the CPU

Sry, it is w3wp.exe I've confused the two.

Thank you,
--
Borislav

[Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]]

Here's how I would start with this:

- make sure that your AV exclusions are configured correctly for SQL and
Exchange (those w3wp's are IIS application pools, which is the reason I
mention Exchange). I tend to blame AV for a lot of otherwise unexplained
problems, and sorry to say I'm often right.

- open Task Manager, go to the Processes tab, and add PID to the view if
necessary. Get the PID for the SQL instance that's acting up. Open a cmd
prompt and type "tasklist /svc." Find the PID in question, and it'll tell
you which SQL app it is. At least that will narrow down your
troubleshooting somewhat.

- get Process Explorer and run it on the server. Look under System to see
specifically what is using the CPU cycles. Again that'll help narrow things
down, and you might get some additional information about the SQL thing
there as well.

Process Explorer is free, and there's no installation - you can just run the
executable. I run it directly from the USB key that contains all my server
tools.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cb56073f-62a3-4ed8-9dd6-40c84cb9e2f5.aspx

"Borislav Dopudja, Boki" <borislav...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:706f33e0-1510-4b4e...@z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

[Borislav Dopudja, Boki]

Thank you a lot!,

will post findings later.

--
Borislav Dopudja

On Jun 12, 11:13 pm, "Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]"

<gwdib...@NOSPAM.frontiernet.net> wrote:
> Here's how I would start with this:
>
> - make sure that your AV exclusions are configured correctly for SQL and
> Exchange (those w3wp's are IIS application pools, which is the reason I
> mention Exchange). I tend to blame AV for a lot of otherwise unexplained
> problems, and sorry to say I'm often right.
>
> - open Task Manager, go to the Processes tab, and add PID to the view if
> necessary. Get the PID for the SQL instance that's acting up. Open a cmd
> prompt and type "tasklist /svc." Find the PID in question, and it'll tell
> you which SQL app it is. At least that will narrow down your
> troubleshooting somewhat.
>
> - get Process Explorer and run it on the server. Look under System to see
> specifically what is using the CPU cycles. Again that'll help narrow things
> down, and you might get some additional information about the SQL thing
> there as well.
>
> Process Explorer is free, and there's no installation - you can just run the
> executable. I run it directly from the USB key that contains all my server

> tools.http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cb56073f-62a3-4ed8-9d...
>
> "Borislav Dopudja, Boki" <borislav.dopu...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:706f33e0-1510-4b4e...@z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

[Borislav Dopudja, Boki]

OK, a few days passed and I did a lot of testing and trying and all
sorts of stuff, and all is back to normal now.

Amongst many other things, I think that adding AV exclusions helped
the most, as there are some directories that really are best without
AV scans.

*Please, follow this link at Experts Exchange site, as there is a
complete thread, so you can learn how to fix the problem it if you
will have something with the same symptoms. This thingy drove me
crazy, so I am really happy it works now.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Servers/Q_23478561.html

(Scroll beneath ads.)

Best regards,
--
Borislav Dopudja

On Jun 13, 10:32 am, "Borislav Dopudja, Boki"

[Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]]

Glad you got it sorted out, and thanks for the update.

"Borislav Dopudja, Boki" <borislav...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:430f91de-fb81-4f24...@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...