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Win 2k server; 2 REALLY slow XP clients

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by patriccio_2003

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I admin a small network- Win 2k Server Fileserver; Linux proxy/firewall and Linux email servers; clients are all XP, except mine, which is Wn 2k Pro. My network engineer and I have been stumped by an irregular but recurring problem with 2 incredibly slow XP clients. I'll try to lay it out as specifically as possible:
1) We run a distributed database (Logos) that those two boxes deal with more than any others, and there have been issues over time with that app, and we're suspicious of it due to the program's occasional weirdness. Right this moment, however, they aren't even logged on to it and the error/system/& application logs don't indicate any issue with this.
2) The process with PID '0', a System Idle Process, is sucking up 96%+ ofthe CPU, but that's on everyone's box, including mine, but only those two boxes are dragging. I can't end the process because it's some kind of core process, but it completely escapes me what that process is doing. I've tried from the server to end the process as well as being admin on the clients. It's been running for over 24 hours, and I suspect it's the problem here.

My question is, 1) what is PID 0 in Windows Server, and 2) how can I refresh the system either from the clients' boxes or the server to get them back to speed?

5 replies

by reference

I've had several clients call with extremely slow WinXP systems running on a Win2k Server network, In each case I have found that a missing or miss-configured DNS service on the sever is to blame. Do you have DNS running on your server? Are your WinXP clients pointing to the server for PRIMARY DNS server? Microsoft wants Win2k and above networks to run DNS services locally, having a DNS server, and all clients look to the DNS server for resolution. Anything that cannot be resolved locally gets handed off to the root hint servers. It actually works pretty good when configured properly.
I think you?re looking at the PID '0' backwards, it's not "sucking up" 96%, it's showing that you have 96% free. In other words, you only have 4% of the CPUresources being used, and 96% free..or 96% of your system is idle.

by patriccio_2003

I hesitated on answering this or rating it for quite a while, as there were lots of other considerations going on, but at this point I'll grade this answer correct and give the points. Sure appreciate folks paying attention and taking the time to answer! - Patrick Smith

by cg it

If you call up your task manager on your PDC and look at the CPU usage at the bottom, that is where you'll find actual usage. The System idle time PID 0 CPU 94/98 isn't CPU usage as actual CPU process time. Switch to the performance screen and you'll get a graphical picture of what is actually going on with your server. As # 1 stated, an improperly configured PDC or pointer records for Domain name resolution will slow client systems down to a crawl.

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