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I've been trying to find out what levels of CPU and memory usage in NT 4.0 Server are acceptable/unacceptable.
Many times the CPU usage will be close to 90% while the memory usage is really low (maybe 40% of 128 Mb RAM)... plus a good size paging file.
Any thoughts?
Microsoft does have some recommendations for this (although I don't have them at hand), try looking at braindumps sites for a concise table.
It would be a good idea to monitor the network activity on the server as well (total bytes/second, number of active connections etc).
Acceptable / unacceptable are grey areas. If users are complaining of an unresponsive server then you have a bottleneck and must resolve it (if possible).
Otherwise be on the look out for High page misses and processor use (indicating you need more RAM).
Check task manager to see which processes are using all that CPU time.
A lot depends on what task the server is fulfilling.
[This message has been edited by cordon (edited July 23, 2000).]
Thanks Corbin...
I should mention that I did do some testing today. It seems as though the CPU usage runs between 70-90%. Although none the programs seems to be affected, I want to make sure that this is not too much of a problem or if I should look to upgrade the CPU.
The server is a 450 MHz P3 with 160 MB Ram, ASUS P2-99 Motherboard, 3 Com NIC, and plenty of HDD space. There are 7 workstations (95 and 98).
Programs being run are Filemaker Pro 3.0 (with 2 open databases), WinProxy 3.0, Impact 8.0 (a design POS system using Paradox 7.0), WinFax 9.0, and some data files for Word and Excel.
How can I bring the CPU usage down?