In 2000 Both cpu's running at over 50% at idle

[jdeber2]

Hi!

I have dual pentium pro 200 processors in an IBM pc-365 comp with 96mb of Ram. I have upgraded my op system from NT4.0 to 2000 Professional. My question:
When using 4.0 about 5% to 10% of the cpu's were being used at any given time. Now that I upgraded to 2000 pro. both cpu's run at 50-70% all the time. In the task manager in shows the system idle process as using up most of this. The computer seems very unstable, and runs much slower than it did with 4.0. This can't be normal........Please advise

Thank you
JD

[Ghost_Hacker]

It's possible that your having problems with the HAL ( Hardware Abstraction Layer) here's a link to a KB article that might help.


Q237556 (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q237/5/56.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=Q237556&rnk=1&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=DRX)

Also I have found that running 2000 on a system with less than 128MB of memory causes a decrease in system performance.


Good Luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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"It's just a whisper in my Ghost"

[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 02-09-2001).]

[PostCode]

Your problem lies in the ACPI. You can switch from a ACPI MPS HAL to a MPS HAL through the Device Manager. Click on Computer in the Device Manager and see what HAL it is using...here, right click, select Properties, select the Driver Tab, select Update Driver, select "Display a list of known drivers..." and select MPS Multiprocessor PC....then reboot to a new HAL. This should solve your processor problems. One last thing. I had a fight with a older dualie and this same problem. You will lose USB support and you may have to reconfigure a few devices. In addition, I had trouble with my video card. turns out, it wanted a IRQ assigned to it, so i went into the BIOS and assigned an IRQ to the VGA. Other than that, it worked like a charm. Hope this helps.

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BiosCentral (http://www.bioscentral.com)

[jdeber2]

Thanks To both replies. Great Infoormation!!!! I will try this after work and report back.. You guys Rock!!!

Thanks,
JD

[jdeber2]

Ok.. (acting on Postcode's advice)
Under computer in device manager mps multiprocessor pc was
already there I saw no sign of ACPI. When I displayed the
list of known drivers mps mutiprocessor is the only
choice. Am I missing a step here do I need to only make
sure mps multiprocessor pc is chosen and reboot?
FYI.. The bios was flashed prior to this

[Ghost_Hacker]

Not having the ACPI HAL is a good thing so your OK there....

Here's some information I have been able to find which might help explain what's happening. This first bit is from documentation found in the Windows 2000 resource kit. ( the info is interesting to me but may not help to solve your problem.)


"Using multiple processors rather than switching to a faster one might not dramatically improve performance. For example, a 200-megahertz (MHz) dual-processor computer might not perform equally to a 400-MHz uniprocessor computer with all workloads because of overhead inherent in synchronization. Because scaling can incur some overhead, it is important to be aware of the factors involved and how to manage them. For more information, see “Measuring Multiprocessor System Activity” in the Server Operations Guide."


Like I said 2000 just uses up more resources then NT did.Here's some other interesting points from the 2000RK.


"In an environment with a large volume of network processing, you might want to control DPCs that arise from interrupts generated by your network adapters. The default handling of these DPCs might not allow you to attain optimal performance for your SMP configuration if you have a network-intensive workload
Depending on the processor platform detected by the HAL, the operating system might configure different default settings to handle DPC distribution...... However, if one of the processors is nearly always active (if Processor\% Processor Time consistently equals 100 percent) and more than half of its time is spent servicing DPCs (that is, if Processor\% DPC Time exceeds 50 percent), then adding a network card is likely to improve system performance......"


Are you connected to a busy network? Or do you have any network intensive programs.....I have been unable to find any information that would lead to an idle system using the kind "CPU" resources you mention. So something else maybe running in the background.


It's hard to pin point your problem without more information and not having any first hand knowledge of 2000 on SMP rigs limits me on this one. But Postcode might be of more help since he seems to have had this problem before.


In the meantime I'll keep researching over the weekend since your problem has gotten the "geek" in me interested http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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"It's just a whisper in my Ghost"



[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 02-09-2001).]

[jdeber2]

Well I wish I had enough "geek" in me to figure this one out
The info you gave me is very helpful. I excpected 2000 would use more resources but I can't Imagine 50 to 70 percent all the time at idle is
normal. Just opening a program maxes both cpu's. I don't have any complicated or busy network issues. I am connected to a cable modem via a network card. Nothing signifigant in the backroun running eithr. I am going to check all hardware and connections internally and report back with
any change. Hey thanks alot for taking interest in my problem.

JD

[jdeber2]

More info:

In the system processes tab of the task bar I can chose to assign cetrtain processes to a particular processor. Bye right clicking on the process and choosing set afinity I can accomplish that task. I cannot , however right click on the system idleprocess which is taking up 90% of the sytem resources at any given time. I would put this process on one cpu and see what happens but I can't do it. I am now thinking that the problem lies somewhere beneath the system idle process.

This is probably something much simpler than we think. Someone out there is sure to have seen this problem. If so pleas fill me in because I am offficialy confused.

JD

[kenja]

Just a thought: Are your hard drives in DMA mode? To check: Device Manager > IDE ATA controllers > right click on Primary/Secondary IDE Channel > Advanced Settings tab > Current Transfer Mode.

For reason(s) unknown to me, I can't get my Soyo motherboard to recognize a Quantum "Fireball Plus AS" as being a DMA drive, so the device is stuck in PIO transfer mode. (DMA is auto-selected fine when using a Maxtor drive.)

Anyway, could hardly get the Sandra "Drives" benchmark to completion. Task Manager Performance tab showed the CPU Usage pegged at %100, and screen/curser lockups were common.

When you say: "system idle process...is taking up 90% of the sytem resources at any given time.", I'm not sure what you mean by "system resources". My CPU Usage (the column just says "CPU") is normally in the high 90's for the System Idle Process. This is the same for an 800MHz Duron and a 600MHz Celeron (uniprocessors, of course).

Very true about Win2k being demanding; I had a 200MHz Pentium machine that was chipset-limited to 64MB and it sucked. Crucial's site has an interesting page about Win2k memory requirements.


[This message has been edited by kenja (edited 02-10-2001).]

[jdeber2]

I checked the drives. Both drives list device #0 and device
#1. Under the Primary IDE Device 0 is DMA Transfer mode and device 1 is in PIO Transfer mode. Under seconday IDE device 0 is in PIO transfer mode.
device 1 says dma if available but under current transfer mode says not available. I have a 30 gig maxtor drive with a 1.5 gig and a 28.5 gig partition. Should I switch everthing to DMA? PLease advise..

JD

(nearing the geek boiling point)

[jdeber2]

Here is Some system information that might shed some light.

OS Name Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Version 5.0.2195 Build 2195
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name xxxxxxxxxxx
System Manufacturer IBM
System Model 658913U
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 1 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~200 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 1 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~200 Mhz
BIOS Version 04/12/00
Windows Directory C:\WINNT
System Directory C:\WINNT\System32
Boot Device \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
Locale United States
User Name xxxxxxxxxx\Administrator
Time Zone Eastern Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 97,840 KB
Available Physical Memory 26,144 KB
Total Virtual Memory 328,944 KB
Available Virtual Memory 178,612 KB
Page File Space 231,104 KB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys


Item Value
Drive A:
Description 3 1/2 Inch Floppy Drive

Drive C:
Description Local Fixed Disk
Compressed False
File System NTFS
Size 1.59 GB (1,710,825,472 bytes)
Free Space 453.69 MB (475,725,824 bytes)
Volume Name
Volume Serial Number 94B54D1D
Partition Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size 1.59 GB (1,710,825,984 bytes)
Starting Offset 32256 bytes
Drive Description Disk drive
Drive Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Drive Model Maxtor 53073H4
Drive BytesPerSector 512
Drive MediaLoaded True
Drive MediaType Fixed hard disk media
Drive Partitions 2
Drive SCSIBus 0
Drive SCSILogicalUnit 0
Drive SCSIPort 0
Drive SCSITargetId 0
Drive SectorsPerTrack 63
Drive Size 30729646080 bytes
Drive TotalCylinders 3736
Drive TotalSectors 60018840
Drive TotalTracks 952680
Drive TracksPerCylinder 255

Drive D:
Description Local Fixed Disk
Compressed False
File System NTFS
Size 27.01 GB (29,002,301,440 bytes)
Free Space 23.92 GB (25,684,664,320 bytes)
Volume Name
Volume Serial Number 8C1477E3
Partition Disk #0, Partition #1
Partition Size 27.01 GB (29,002,337,280 bytes)
Starting Offset 1719083520 bytes
Drive Description Disk drive
Drive Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Drive Model Maxtor 53073H4
Drive BytesPerSector 512
Drive MediaLoaded True
Drive MediaType Fixed hard disk media
Drive Partitions 2
Drive SCSIBus 0
Drive SCSILogicalUnit 0
Drive SCSIPort 0
Drive SCSITargetId 0
Drive SectorsPerTrack 63
Drive Size 30729646080 bytes
Drive TotalCylinders 3736
Drive TotalSectors 60018840
Drive TotalTracks 952680
Drive TracksPerCylinder 255

[jdeber2]

I got it!!!!!!!!!!!

It was the network card. I had an old ISA network card that was
using up all these resources. I discovered this after pulling hardware as a last resort. I put in a new PCI card and everything was fixed. My processor now runs around 2 to 3 percent at idle. And I have all of My ram back to . That card was using 60 meg of ram up some how. Apparantley this card was incompatible with 2000.

Thanks for everything.

[kenja]

Glad you got it! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif I didn't see your last post until just before I was going to send this (but here it is anyway!).
About the "Advanced Settings" tab in IDE Channel Properties:

The (default) boot drive is always Device 0 on the primary channel, so your problem is not caused by having a hard drive stuck in PIO (Programmed Input/Output) mode.

Device 0 is the master, Device 1 is the slave. Neither of my channels have a slave attached, so I set Device Type to "None" for both Device 1's. (In hopes of a slightly faster boot-up.) For Transfer Mode, I select "DMA if available" (I believe "PIO only" would just be used for troubleshooting purposes, but it doesn't matter with Zip drives and "slower" CD-ROMs).

(BIOS settings can also be involved with enabling/disabling UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access).) The Current Transfer Mode will read "Not Applicable" if there is no device present. My DVD player (device 0 on the secondary channel) shows a Transfer Mode of "Ultra DMA" with "DMA if available".