100% processor while moving files?

[Mike D Sutton]

I have an odd problem on a couple of the machines here; when moving (or copying) files the processor goes up to 100% usage and all
system functions including keyboard/mouse input (!) become very sluggish to the point of being near impossible to actually use the
machine for anything during this time. Creating files on the other hand is no problem and I don't see the ridiculous processor
spike so I'm guessing the files are being scanned as they're sent (CRC checksum?)
Has anyone else experienced this problem of knows how to prevent it?
Cheers,

Mike

P.s. Win2k sp4, 1.4 Ghz P4, 1Gb RDRam, 20Gb + 40Gb (4 partitions) IDE hard drives running NTFS.


- Microsoft Visual Basic MVP -
E-Mail: (e-mail address removed)
WWW: Http://www.mvps.org/EDais/

 

[Matthew Mucker [MSFT]]

Mike,

That does indeed sound odd.

My first guess is that you have antivirus software that is scanning the file
as it is being copied.

Your best starting point is to use Performance Monitor to capture CPU
utilization of all running processes as you're copying these files. Use the
resulting logs to determine which process is consuming the CPU.

After that it gets tricky, because you're likely to find it's the SYSTEM
process, and peering inside the system process to determine what *part* of
the system is consuming the CPU time is difficult.

So your best bet is to do good old fashioned troubleshooting. Turn off
antivirus and see if that helps. Ensure your drives are using DMA instead
of PIO.

Let us know what OS you're using, what service pack you're on, the
filesystem(s) on the partitions you're copying from/to, whether the drives
are SCSI or IDE, and if the drives are on the same bus.

-Matt

I have an odd problem on a couple of the machines here; when moving (or

copying) files the processor goes up to 100% usage and all

system functions including keyboard/mouse input (!) become very sluggish

to the point of being near impossible to actually use the

machine for anything during this time. Creating files on the other hand

is no problem and I don't see the ridiculous processor

 

[Mike D Sutton]

Hi Matt, thanks for the fast response.

That does indeed sound odd.

My first guess is that you have antivirus software that is scanning the file
as it is being copied.

I wish it were that easy, unfortunately there is anti-virus software running on the machines I'm experiencing the problem on.

Your best starting point is to use Performance Monitor to capture CPU
utilization of all running processes as you're copying these files. Use the
resulting logs to determine which process is consuming the CPU.

In task manager, sorting by the CPU column shows "System Idle Process", "System", "TASKMGR.EXE" and "explorer.exe" to constantly
flip between the top spot at around 50%-75% or so with the others taking most of the rest each time.

After that it gets tricky, because you're likely to find it's the SYSTEM
process, and peering inside the system process to determine what *part* of
the system is consuming the CPU time is difficult.

So your best bet is to do good old fashioned troubleshooting. Turn off
antivirus and see if that helps. Ensure your drives are using DMA instead
of PIO.

Both my primary and secondary IDE controllers are set to use DMA where possible, however the newer, larger drive (IBM) apparently
still decides to use PIO.
Drive one is a Western digital, details here: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=6
Drive two is an IBM one (IBM-DTLA-307045) however I was unable to find the specs online but it's only a couple of years old.
AFAIK the other system we're experiencing this on uses FAT32 partitions, I don't currently have access to that one though.

Let us know what OS you're using, what service pack you're on, the
filesystem(s) on the partitions you're copying from/to, whether the drives
are SCSI or IDE, and if the drives are on the same bus.

It was post-scripted in the original message, but here's the information again:
Windows 2000 sp 4, NTFS partitions, IDE drives

Both hard drives are on one IDE cable, a DVDRW and DVD drive on the second to keep like-devices grouped (Old habit, not sure if it's
still applicable these days.)
Thanks again for your assistance,

Mike


- Microsoft Visual Basic MVP -
E-Mail: (e-mail address removed)
WWW: Http://www.mvps.org/EDais/

 

[msnews.microsoft.com]

Not sure for 2000 but XP allows you to choose whether the system or
applications get most of the memory and cpu. Contol Panel/Device
Manager/System Properties/Advanced/Performance/Settings/Advanced
....Processor scheduling and Memory Scheduling. I think similar setting
is available in 2000. Don't know if it will help.