wait states?

  • Thread starter Thread starter !Dale
  • Start date Start date
D

!Dale

I have a general question regarding 2000Server/WS and XP
Pro.

I am constantly running into situations where the systems
appear to be "busy" and the only thing that will respond
is the mouse movement. When I open the task manager to
see what is using the CPU it shows little or no activity?

How is it possible for a CPU to be idle but the system
will not respond to an application request?
There also appears to be very little disk activity during
these "busy" times.


How can I find out what the system is doing that is
causing it to run slow at these particular times?

Thanks..

Dale
 
Sometimes the system will wait for quite a while if it has requested a
disk access and the internal controller/drive hardware retry sequences
kick in. In a damaged/failing disk situation, especially where the
access target involves a system module, the system can 'freeze' for many
minutes, and task switching will become unbearably slow - also minutes.
And eventually the system will fail. HDD diagnostics from the
manufacturer can help resolve such problems.
 
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