[DukeOfAwesome]

Hi Everyone,


I have installed SBS 2008 Premium, but the system runs very slowly. By slowly I mean accessing say C or D Drive and waiting 5 seconds for each folder to open after you've double clicked it.


What is funny is that if you access a mapped drive to the server the access speeds are quite quick.


I checked whether write cache was enabled on the disk (which is a RAID Array) and it wasn't, so I enabled it via both Windows Device Manager and also the RAID Card (3Ware 9690SA-8I) web interface. I rebooted thinking this would fix the issue.


To my surprise after the reboot, the changes that I made reverted back to the disabled write cache setting.


I have also downloaded and run dskcache from Microsoft, which also netted the same results.


The machine Specs are as follows:
- Dual Xeon
- 12GB RAM


Is there any way I can enable Write Cache on the SBS Server? If you don't think it's the Write Cache could you point in the direction you think it is?



I have never seen this problem before, hopefully someone can has experienced this before and can help me out...


Thanks in advance...


Duke

[Nonapeptide]

I'd only turn write cache on if it was battery backed. Is SQL Server also installed on this system or is that on the additional Server installation?

Have you checked the event logs for any errors? Looked in the performance monitor (or simple Task Manager) to see if there's anything hammering the processor. If you use Task Manager, make sure to click the button to see processes from all users.

[DukeOfAwesome]

Originally Posted by Nonapeptide

I'd only turn write cache on if it was battery backed. Is SQL Server also installed on this system or is that on the additional Server installation?

Have you checked the event logs for any errors? Looked in the performance monitor (or simple Task Manager) to see if there's anything hammering the processor. If you use Task Manager, make sure to click the button to see processes from all users.

Hi Nonapeptide,

Thank you for your reply.

Yes I have checked the Task Manager and the CPU is running between 1 and 4% and sitting on 8GB RAM usage from a total available of 12GB. So ample RAM is free.

I have run Perfmon on disk activity and nothing out of the ordinary.

Yes SQL Server is loaded on the server but it is not impacting on the server from a RAM of CPU perspective.

There are no events of note in the Event Log.

This has been going on for about 2 weeks, and I just can't seem to get to the bottom of it...

Any other ideas?

Thanks

Duke

[Nonapeptide]

Is there anything... absolutely anything that happened two weeks ago of note? Windows updates? It could be file system corruption. Take a full backup, reboot and then run chkdsk /f. Your server will be down for probably several hours while it checks the file system.

Make sure to backup first.

Did I mention to backup first?

And before you do a backup... backup your server.

[DukeOfAwesome]

Just for everyone's benefit, the fix for this was 2 fold:

For the RAID Card:

https://www.3ware.com/3warekb/article.aspx?id=15581

The second was to ensure you are using the right version of Kaspersky with the OS...

Hope this helps someone with the same problem...

Thanks

Duke

[Nonapeptide]

Wow, fascinating. Thanks for posting back!

[teiger]

Well, that first one seems way too deep into hardware for me
And the second, well if you want to test anything, always neutralise AV!

[DukeOfAwesome]

Originally Posted by teiger

Well, that first one seems way too deep into hardware for me
And the second, well if you want to test anything, always neutralise AV!

Hi Teiger,

Not as simple as disabling the Anti-Virus. A total uninstall was required to reveal the true impact of the Anti-Virus.

I tried disabling the AV and it made no change to the performance, so I then naturally thought the AV had nothing to do with the issue when in fact it was a considerable contributor to the problem...

Duke