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Utilization at 50-60%, server slows down

By jtoscano ·
My Netware 6 server will abend at the end of the day as users are shutting down their PC's. I know this may sound strange, but I have tracked this
problem over the last 2 weeks and it is consistent. I installed SP3 today
hoping that would be a cure, and it seemed to be until the very last user shut down their PC and the utilization spiked to 55% from 1% in a matter
of seconds. I have consulted the Novell knowledgebase and I have applied
any late breaking patches that may address this situation.

The server is a Dell Poweredge 2600 with RAID 5 and dual processors. I am using Arcserve 7 for backup which is working perfect. I have consulted
Dell and they suggested that I install some Flash BIOS upgrades for this model server. I installed those today prior to the service pack. I am
using a combo of pserver and NDPS printing, all of my jet direct printers are serviced by NDPS. I have 1 NSS volume sized at 12GB with compression
enabled. I don't know what further info I can supply, but I am extremely frustrated and suggestions would be wonderful!!

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Utilization at 50-60%, server slows down

by BudTheGrey In reply to Utilization at 50-60%, se ...

If I were prone to guessing, I'd look at either:

* your anti-virus software, especialy if it's from Symantec.

* the network. Check the card and drivers in the server. If it's 100Mb, force it to half-duplex. maybe swap the card out.

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Utilization at 50-60%, server slows down

by pgm554 In reply to Utilization at 50-60%, se ...

SP3 is busted. I would watch it very carefully(or remove it).
Sounds like a client side caching issue.
Put the statement:

Set Client File Caching Enabled = OFF

in the autoexec.ncf and reboot.

This was an issue in sp1 and they turned it back on again in sp2(and in 3).

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Utilization at 50-60%, server slows down

by freydc In reply to Utilization at 50-60%, se ...

Definitely look at the client-side caching as Answer 2 suggests. I have seen the same behavior on Compaq hardware, so it probably isn't your Dell server.

Other things to look at if turning off caching does not fix it:

1) Temporarily disable anti-virus software on server (if you don't have it running you should!)

2) Do you use an open file agent on the server for backups? If so, this too could be causing problems. Try unloading any backup software agents.

Lastly, if none of the abovefix the problem, go back to basics and disable (remark out of AUTOEXEC.NCF) all non-critical software that is loading. This would include management agents, UPS monitoring agents, etc. Be sure you know what you are remarking out before you do it so you don't shut down something that really was important such as DHCP or DNS (unless you intend to do so temporarily while troubleshooting).

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Utilization at 50-60%, server slows down

by pjstrifas In reply to Utilization at 50-60%, se ...

We experienced a similar issue with some servers - what we did:

1) Upgrade the NICI modules on our NetWare 6 servers to version 2.4.2 (we found high utilization on the XSUP module)

2) Upgrade our TCP stack to 6.05p
(offload of UDP was addressed here)

3) Upgrade our DS to latest version (eDir 8.6.2 sp3fp4)
(addresses sync)
4) upgrade clients to 4.83sp2
(there was a 'bug' with the client especially in multi-user environments like MetaFrame where TCP sockets were not released eating up server buffer memory)

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