[AccessD] HELP, server completely unresponsive

John,

  Besides checking the event logs as Drew suggested, I would also leave task
manager up on the performance tab and watch the totals.  See if the handles,
threads, etc continually increase.  Also watch the physical memory
available.  

  You may have something that is leaking memory.  You can also check the
process tab and click on the memory column.  If something is leaking memory,
it will keep going up.

Jim. 

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 10:57 AM
To: Dba-Sqlserver; Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: [AccessD] HELP, server completely unresponsive

I have a situation way outside my expertise.  Yea, yea, I know a lot of you
would ask what is IN my 
expertise, we can discuss that another day.

Anyway, I run two Windows 2003 X64 servers.  Quad core, 16 gigs ram, RAID6
arrays.  Reasonably 
powerful.  Mostly I run SQL Server on one and VMs on the other.  In BOTH
CASES I have told the 
software, SQL Server for instance, to only use X gigs of RAM, to leave 2.5
gigs for the OS and other 
applications.

And yet, SQL Server starts a long running process and the server becomes
unresponsive.  In some 
instances for example, I can load a spreadsheet or whatever... but it takes
forever to load.  Just 
clicking the start button I have to wait 30 seconds for the start menu to
show.

Like that.

I have a query running which is updating a field in a medium size table - 8
million records or so. 
I tried to load another instance of SQL Server.  It loaded, but when I
clicked on the databases icon 
to drop down and show me the databases it just put up expanding and locked
up the entire system.

I am at a loss to discover what is going on.  It APPEARS to be SQL Server,
though there is nothing 
else I run that uses all the memory in this thing so how do I know it isn't
just Windows 2003 
flaking out somehow?  I have run memtest-86 for an entire weekend without a
single failure, so I 
don't think it is the physical memory.

I have no clue how to troubleshoot this problem.

As I write this, the server is completely locked up.  I cannot switch
between tasks, the little task 
manager icon shows about 50% CPU usage but AFAICT that is just what was
displayed when it locked up.

In the end I have to do a hard reboot to regain control, and when I do that
I corrupt whatever 
database was being worked on.  This is insane!

HELP.

-- 
John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com
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