Events viewer log cleard - server 100+% better?

[YorkeRodda]

We have a pair of NT 4.0 servers with sp-6 at our school. All our clients are Windows 2000 Prof. Today users had a very very painful time with our monter of an administration program. It was very very slow.

At my bosses suggestion I loged into the server as Administrator, cleard out the Events Viewer Log and the very slow server was much much better.

I feel a little stupid as I cannot see why a log file - only 7 days old can cause a jam? I suspect something else is also not working well.

Please point me in the right direction.

Thanks

Yorke

 

[pbxman]

Was it set to overwrite events older then 7 days, or overwrite events as needed? Those are not default options.

Also, is something set to verbose logging? That will log unneeded events constantly. Have you been monitoring performance on it as well?

This may only be a temporary fix - performance monitoring should be done to determins where the bottleneck is occurring. Seems to me ( just a guess) that this server is not RAID, or the RAID is not setup correctly on them..location of logfiles & swapfile should be on fastest drives, etc.
Pbxman
Systems Administrator

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[YorkeRodda]

Many thanks Pbxman!

I will check up to see what the settings are - it is probably the default settings as I have not changed them.

We have a mirror set - I think it is know as Raid 0 or 1.

I have only being working on an NT system from the start of the year so I am very new at it. I was of the opinion that a log file would never slow up a system. On a Linux box or a Novell system it would just save the items to a text file and only when it got to a few Megs could it slow things up.

Would you recommend I get a Network pro to look at things? We have the software and License for Windows 2000 server - would it be wise to upgrade our server from NT 4.0 seeing that all our clients are Win 2000 profesional?

Best wishes and your note comes like water in a dry and thirsty land - I have been struggling on my own for the whole year.

Yorke

 

[Jpoandl]

I've never heard of a server slowing down due to Eventviewer logging. This doesn't make too much sence to me. I've seen servers log errors repeatedly 100 times every second...and the server was still responding normally.

The first thing I would check is the Event viewer errors. Look to see if you see repeated errors. If you haven't changed the default settings in the event viewer, you shouldn't have a problem with very LARGE logs. LARGE logs could eat up hard disk space and possibly slow down the server.

I would check the amount of free space on the server. Running out of free space on the server can slow it down a bunch. Also, hit Ctrl-alt-del and pick TASK MANAGER (be logged into the machine as administrator first). Look at the performance tab. Make sure your CPU and Memory utilization isn't too high.

I would perform some general maintenance to the server. First, reboot the server. Next, use FIND to search for all tmp, temp, bak..files. If many are found, delete them. This will help free up some room. Also perform a search for *.dmp files. If some are found, look at the date. If the date is from a long time ago, delete this file. This file is generated when blue-screen errors occur. They can be very large and are not needed...unless you are investigating a blue screen problem with your system.

I hope some of this helps....talk to you later..
Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2000

 

[YorkeRodda]

Many thanks Joseph!! This makes more sense and I will try these things as I feel they make sense. Is it possible that just me logging onto the server as administrator can clear the jams in the memory or something?

Yorke

 

[pbxman]

JPoandl is correct - there is something wrong with that, and i was assuming no other errors of significance were being logged, and hard-drive free-space was not an issue.

However, since clearing the log files seemed to correct your situation, and IF in fact hard-drive space is not an issue, the bottleneck definitely seems to be occurring with small writes to the hard-drive..typical behavior for poor RAID controller/slow hard disk access & RPMs.

What speed are your disks? What type..Ultra Wide SCSI, etc.?
If you have plenty of free hard-disk space, this is a more serious contition, and definitely needs immediate performance evaluation.

Find out what the deal is with your free-space..i wouldn't recommend deleting ANY files from your server if you have plenty of space left on your disks. If you're low on space, you should forget about deleting files, and plan to upgrade your drives, and rebuild the server anyway.

Good luck - and let us know what you find out.
Pbxman
Systems Administrator

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[YorkeRodda]

Many thanks to both of you .. I have printed out the messages and am taking them to my boss now.

We do have lots of room on the HDDs .. so although I had planned to clean out the server from *.dmp *.tmp and temp*.* I will leave it for now and try to get the help that I need.

Yorke

 

[Maruis]

I agree with all the responses....
Depending on your config one should always keep in mind that if your OS is on the same partion or 1 partition as the rest of the system and your HD/partition is filled up, your system will crash!
If this is the case...
your system will first slow down.

Hope this helps