Slow NT 4.0 Server 3

[AndeA]

I just stepped into a small company with a NT 4.0 Server and Win 95/98 Work Stations that is slow. Upgrade of RAM to 768MB and increasing paging size had no effect. The server is running on a PII 350 MHz CPU with only 6 active users. The LAN is a 100BaseT with upgraded cabling, NetGear NICs, and an HP Procurve Switch 408.Any suggestions on how to approach correcting this?

Thanks
Ande

 

[Voyager1]

What else is running on this server? Exchange? SQL Database? DHCP? Domain Controller? Many of the MS Backoffice products are very resource intensive and should not reside all on one box. You may find the need to relocate some of these services to an additional server.

What type of disk subassembly is in use? IDE? SCSI? RAID? This will have a huge impact on performance, particularly on disk-intensive applications like databases.

Use Performance Monitor to look into the utilization level of: Processor (% processor time, %user time, %proveledged time), Memory (pages per sec, committed bytes, available bytes).

A little more info - perhaps we can help... - Bill

"You can get anything you want out of life, if you'll just help enough other people get what they want" - Zig Ziglar

 

[AndeA]

Thanks for the response.

The server is a straight stand alone NT 4.0 server. There is no Exchange, DHCP or MS Backoffice installed. The hard drive is a single SCSI partitioned into three drives. The software is Lotus Smart Suite, Q&A Database and Pervasive SQL 2000 for a package called DBA Software.

I'll take a look at the Performance Monitor. It's been a while since I've worked with NT and the previous admin didn't leave any of the manuals where I could find them.

Now, for a dumb question. Each of the drives (C,D & E) have a paging size default. Do I put a value into all three or just the drive to use as the swap file?

Thanks
Ande

 

[Voyager1]

Split your page file between the D: and E: drives. Put in a value roughly one half of 1.5x RAM for each. Change the C: drive to 0. You may also want to consider making the minumum page file size the same as the maximum. This way the file doesn't have to grow and shrink, using system resources.

Since you only have a single drive, you won't get much of an improvement by doing this, but every little thing helps. It's always a good idea to get the page file off of the boot partition (where NT resides).

Let us know what else you find out... - Bill

"You can get anything you want out of life, if you'll just help enough other people get what they want" - Zig Ziglar

 

[oldschool]

How recently has the server's system registry been "defragmented"? Several registry keys, especially the software key, can look like swiss cheese and be badly bloated after awhile, and can bring an NT server to its knees. Waynes has a good FAQ about this at Admin tip #193

http://is-it-true.org/nt/atips/atips193.shtml.

How recently have the drives been defragmented? If they are NTFS drives and no one has bothered to buy defragmenting software that supports NTFS, there is a good bet the drives are disasters. Since the pagefile relies on the native file system for disk space allocation, having a badly fragmented master file table on an NTFS volume can mean as much as a 70% or greater performance hit.

Regarding pagefiles, I also like having multiple pagefile systems shared between multiple drives, but have found the performance of the pagefile access on NTFS drives are significantly better than the FAT based pagefiles.

Regards,
oldschool

 

[AndeA]

I don't know how long the server has been up without any maintenance. But, I'll definitely do some the first chance I get.

Thanks for the information and tips. I'll let you know how it works out.

Ande

 

[AndeA]

Just to let you know. Thanks for the help. What used to take more than 30 minutes to process now takes less than 5 minutes.
Ande

 

[Zelandakh]

Ande,

what did you do and what tools / software did you use?