To understand why the CPU meter displays 100% it helps to understand a little bit about how Windows NT works and what exactly the CPU meter measures.
Windows NT switches rapidly between all applications that are running on the system, giving each a small slice of time in which to do some work. (This is known as "preemptive multitasking.") Only the applications that claim to have work to do are given timeslices. Applications that are just waiting for new events are put to sleep and awakened at a later time, when there's something for them to do.
The CPU usage meter measures the portion of time the processor is spending servicing applications that are awake. If all of the applications are currently asleep waiting for new events, the CPU meter will read zero. (This is frequently the case in a workstation environment.) If about half of the time is spent running applications, and the other half is spent with them all asleep waiting for new events, the CPU meter will read 50%.
Gene C. aka C.E. Gene Connor
Gene's Custom PC Service since
1989
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http://www.sunbelt-software.com/ntsysadmin_list_charter.htm-----Original Message-----
From: Bahm, Terry M. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 3:34 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: 100% processor utilizationIt's a Dell 2200(266Mhz single processor), WinNT 4.0 Server SP6.0a, PDC(few local users authenticating), 256mb ram, plenty of diskspace, pretty stripped running only essential services(no IIS or anything like that). About 15 users use it for file and print services.Recently when it's idle(no keyboard or mouse activity) the Processor/% Processor Time and System/Processor Queue Length go up to %100 and 4-5 respectively. This is while we're monitoring bandwidth in/out(low) and disk activity(low). Interestingly enough when keyboard or mouse is accessed the processor drops to less than 5%(also drops when accessed with PcAnywhere) and stays there until it's idle again then it climbs back to around 100%. We are using Perfmon to see this which is pretty limited. I would think that the idle thread is causing what we're seeing on the graph if it wasn't for the queue climbing and users complaining about access being slow when it's happening.Mcafee Netshield hasn't shown anything but is currently disabled for trouble-shooting.Questions -1. Anyone have an idea what's going on?2. What's the easiest way to see what's actually using the cpu(Taskmgr shows Idle process up - all others minimal)? Do we have to add the scores of threads to the graph to try and find what's doing it?3. What's a good low end package for monitoring and diagnosing this sort of thing?4. Am I missing something?Any help would be appreciated.Terryhttp://www.sunbelt-software.com/ntsysadmin_list_charter.htm
