[windows2000] Re: Machines running slow.
- From: "Toby Bierly" <toby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <windows2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 13:40:26 -0700
Not a silly question. A lot of times we think we should know something so we
are embarrassed to ever ask about it. I've personally asked several pretty
decent network administrators to explain the following information, and not one
of them could clearly or completely do so.
If you look at the Performance tab under Task Manager, you will see some
quadrants of confusing statistics below the graphs for CPU and MEM usage. If I
understand everything correctly, then . . .
Under Commit Charge (K) you will see the Total, Limit, and Peak. The total
matches your MEM usage and is the total amount of RAM and Virtual memory
currently in use. The limit is the sum of your RAM plus max paging file size.
If MEM usage goes above this, the computer becomes unstable (at least in my
experience). The peak is the highest the MEM usage has been since reboot.
Under Physical Memory (K), the Total shouldn't change. It is the amount of RAM
the computer has (usually reads a little above, so if you have 128 MB RAM, it
might read 134000 or something like that).
If your Total Commit Charge is normally greater than your Total Physical
Memory, then you're forcing the computer to use your hard drive's paging file
for virtual memory, and a lot of paging may be occurring. If you start an
application and you hear the hard drive going overtime (more than just the
normal loading of the application), my understanding is that that means the OS
is moving memory out to the paging file to make room for loading the app into
memory.
Excessive paging can severely degrade performance, and can be detected by
physically listening for excessive hard drive activity and by comparing the MEM
usage to the physical memory. I've been told that in order to ensure no
performance degradation from lack of RAM, you never want your Peak Commit
Charge to consistently be greater than your Total Physical memory under normal
computer usage.
That being said, it sounds like a bunch of computers slowed down all at the
same time, so it doesn't really sound like a paging issue, unless a program
that is a memory hog was just loaded on all those computers.
As an aside, if anyone can explain more about what the System Cache number
under Physical Memory and how/if Kernel Memory is related to either Commit
Charge or Physical Memory, I'd be curious to learn.
Cheers,
Toby
----- Original Message -----
From: Daryl Ehrenheim
To: 'windows2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 11:54 AM
Subject: [windows2000] Re: Machines running slow.
I know that this is going to be a silly question, but how can I check to see
how much paging is going on? Should I use the CPU monitor on the task manager?
Two of the machines don't have Autocad and only run Voloview to view/print
drawings. What do you think should be the minimum amount of Ram for those
running AutoCAD?
Thanks for the reply.
Daryl
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Tim Mangan [mailto:tmangan@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 11:23 AM
To: windows2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [windows2000] Re: Machines running slow.
I would look at the memory usage. AutoCAD can eat up a lot of memory. If
memory is tight, there should be a fair amount of paging going on.
Tim Mangan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: windows2000-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:windows2000-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Daryl Ehrenheim
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 12:38 PM
To: windows2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [windows2000] Machines running slow.
This may not be an appropriate question for a Windows 2000 group, but here it
goes.
We have 4 machines in one of our departments in our Seattle store that are
experiencing computer slowdowns. At first I thought that it was network issue
replacing an older hub with a switch. Then they told me that all of their
applications including those local to their machine(like Word and Excel) are
slow. I then went up to the store and looked for viruses and spyware cr@p, but
nothing out of the ordinary. No rogue processes or other various issues. All
the machines are different with 1 being a Dell and 3 being custom built at
different times. The only thing that I can see that is common to all of the
machines is MSN Instant messaging, XP Pro, Office XP or 2003 and Autodesk
Software. They each have 256 - 512 MB of Ram and connect to a Windows 2000
server for other various corporate applications.
Any ideas would greatly be appreciated.
Daryl S. Ehrenheim
Network Administrator - Bargreen Ellingson
(253) 471-3775
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