Home Forums Discussions Problems V4.0.60 Slowing

Ever since upgrading we see intermittent slowing of AC on my network. Rebooting the server fixes the problem at the expense of putting my 5 workstation office down for 20 minutes.

We are running Windows 2003 server with a hard wired network and a variety of boxes (some older some very current) with RAM of 500-2G

We are using Trend Micro Client Server.

Anyone else having this problem? Any fixes in the works?

First I would upgrade to 4.072 just to have the most current version.

I will tell you that I have Trend micro Client Server and have noted that I am getting errors on e prescribing (did not before), but did not have this problem in the past.

I don't know why you are having this problem - why 20 min. ?
I just tell all my staff (use IPMSG a freeware LAN IM program) to close any active charts and reboot server (they don't even have to really close AC but it is safer. Takes 3-4 minutes to take down and reboot.

Rebooting an active windows 2003 server is not quick.

Mine is windows 2003 enterprise edition - not sure why it takes so long, might be worth rebooting at the end of each day just to make sure.

Our server also takes about 10 minutes from the beginning of POST to Windows login screen.

It's a built in feature of Windows Server2003R2, takes 10-15 minutes to shut down and reboot. Don't you love it? I do. All kidding aside, I will verify that it takes forever to reboot.

Steven, You have to find a way to market your actual OS. If you can reboot in four to five minutes. Mine takes at least ten minutes. In fact, we only reboot (if necessary) at lunch or after hours.

Rich, I am not sure what you mean by 500-2G. Do you have 500 or 2GBs of RAM. Or is 500 related to processor speed.

Either way, the first thing you should do it upgrade to 4GBs. And, try to do 2 X 2GBs and not 4 X 1GB.

It sounds as if you are not using SBS but regular but still you have:

AC = SQL
WSUS = SQL
Sharepoint (if you have SBS) = SQL

I really think that SQL stands for Super Quick Leaks, because it asks Windows for a lot of memory and Windows obliges.

Here is what I would do. Go into your office in the morning. Reboot your server. Go to Dunkin' Donuts and come back. It should be about rebooted by then. Then open task manager and look at how much memory SQL.exe processes are using and then go to the Performance tab and check out your physical memory. Like I rebooted earlier today, mainly because of memory alert issues. Right now, I have 2.6 GBs of RAM left out of 4 GBs. Now actually that is 2.6 out of 3.2 due to the constraints of a 32-bit OS.

Adam knows the following to be true. I bought a new $4,000 Dell Server which, as he says, was a great heater during the winter, because it was on but I did not use it. I couldn't make up my mind between SBS 2003 and SBS 2008. I just knew it was going to be a big job so I went ahead and stayed safe. But, it sure would be nice to put in 64 GBs of RAM. Then you could reboot once a year. Of course, I would only put about 12GB in, but I would put at least 12.

And, to take it to the extreme, about a month ago, when I disregarded the memory alerts, my whole staff sent messages to me (using the world's greatest messenger system -- IPMSG) (I can't believe it's free) saying "Is your AC slow?" Slow, it was grinded to a halt. One 15 minute reboot and a Dunkin' Donuts coffee later, and we were flying again.

Rich, do you have your alerts set up to send you memory alerts? But, when they begin to be slow, check your Task manager and look at the memory and the SQLs. Of course, WSUS actually doesn't come on except when it is being used.

Alright..... Bert keeps giving me a bad time so I got out a stopwatch. I hit the start, shut down and then restart with Windows 2003 server and it takes 2 min 53 seconds to get back to fully rebooted...... granted I do not have a domain set up and I don't know what else is different.

I don't have a powerhouse of a server - Supermicro with Pentium 3.4 ghz, 2 gb ram and Windows 2003 enterprise edition. Should I be amazed mine reboots this fast. I am just confused because in our current world 3 minutes seems like forever.

I agree...3 minutes. Try 15 minutes, though. Plus, there's the RAID, etc. But, that doesn't take long.

Are you sure, you aren't just logging off, lol... J/K

And, your stopwatch may be off.

It is an East Coast/West Coast thing -- we are just faster...

True. True.

Wow, did I miss a bunch of fun threads by missing the past two days. Geez, would someone email me when my name is missing from the left hand side?

Rich,

I used to use that version. Have you called TM and ask about the latest version? Trend Micro seems to just support you and give you free virus definitions forever. I asked them once, and they told me that when my year was up, my new virus definition subscription would be like $14.00. No lie. I must have misunderstood. But, I have had it now for over two years and have never had to pay for a new subscription. But, if you call and ask them something, I bet they will say, "Hey we have a new version for you. Here is the serial key." The name is at the bottom here. I can never remember it.

Worry Free Business Security

Bert, I think he meant his workstation computers have between 512MB and 2GB of RAM, probably depending on how old each is.

Oh. Yeah that would make sense.

All the more reason then to inform us how much RAM is on his server. I would have to guess more than 2GB if he is running that on his workstations.

Of course, if rebooting the server fixes it, then it would have nothing to do with his client's RAM. But, I would suggest upgrading from 512MBs to at least a GB on all the computers if the motherboard will allow it. XP Pro takes up nearly that on its own, and I don't even know if Vista will run on 512.

Rich,

Is there any chance you are using Office Scan 8.0 on Trend Micro?

Thanks all for your help.

I will check Bert's question on memory but I think it is very likely that there are memory resources that are being used by SQL and not released.

I have ordered more memory. Upgrading to the AC latest version does not help. I have trend for SMB with latest version.

Server 2003 seems more or less stable, expensive and I eventually figured out I would have to administer it myself as the local folks were expensive and not more tech savy than me. Rebooting is not quick with exchange and all the other services needed.

Thanks Rich,

Check your Trend Micro (I have it too as stated above). See if you have Office Scan 8.0 on it. That could be an issue. I have found two good articles on it.

http://esupport.trendmicro.com/4/OfficeScan-80-causes-memory-leak-on-servers.aspx

This is one. Let me know.

I am not sure what all services you guys are running on the server, but server reboot taking 10 mins is bad. You all might be having some unneccesary services running.

SQl Taking away memory is not bad. As Bert was saying SQL will take as much memory as is available, but it will also give it back when the OS wants.

Let me explain it this way. If you have 4GB RAM on your server and sql is running. Lets assume the server needs 1GB ram to run itself and other programs. SQL will take anything that is free. So if you see in task manager you will see that sql is eating 3Gb ram. Next momemnt you fire office application, it needs 300 MB ram, it asks the OS, the OS looks for memory, then sql will give back that 300MB. Bottomline sql will take away anything that is not bein used. I know sql 2005 and plus has come long way in managing this memory sharing sharing stuff. In sql 2000 it would not play nice and cause hangups

Coming back to Server rebooting. Servers are supposed to be up for days and months. Make sure you all are not running too much stuff on one machine.

I reboot the server once in 2 weeks. I rtun win serevr 2008 and no domain etc.

That is true, but even so, and maybe my server is messed up, but I continue to get error messages every two weeks saying my memory is low. I could just turn it off, but then AC does start to have problems. Any ideas?

If I run AC back up and do not delete the previous day's back up I also get a low memory warning. Sort of defeats the purpose of doing the back up. I have subsequently turned off AC autoback up.

Leslie

Then there must be a memory leak in the autobackup program of AC. I dont use AC Backup but depend on Mozybackup and it does a good job of copying the files using shadow copy.

But then I use Server 2008.

I also use Mozy but one can never have enough backups and, if the program will do it automatically, seems like a good thing to do. it just uses too much of my server's memory.

Leslie

Leslie,

I am confused. Because doesn't Backup just come on and then go off? How often do you backup per day? When I back up, it comes up in the processes list, grabs its 30MBs, does its thing, then pops back out.

Bert,
The AC backup takes quite a while to complete and then puts the file back in my H drive. After 2 nights of automatic backup, my memory is low. If I do not back up the imported items it is better, but there is a whole lot of info in those imports and I feel they are as critical as my notes so I back them up also. I would think some sort of zipping process would further compress these files and would help. Maybe it is just me and I ma doing it all wrong.

Leslie

Maybe you guys are better off ussing something like Acronis or Backup4All to backup the imported folders etc.

We dont have lots of stuff in imported folders(we are not paperless yet?)

Srini,

She does use a total server backup. This is just referring to the modular backup by Amazing Charts.

You must be doing something wrong or you are confusing storage space with memory. (sorry, I know that is doubtful).

But, even if you are backing up 10GBs of data, and you do it overnight, it will require memory, but once done, the backup shuts off and the memory is back. It is just like opening five websites, three Word Documents and 10 Excels. You will use a lot of memory as they will be running in RAM, but when you close them; you get that memory back.

Well, I suspect it is more likely that I am doing something wrong. Could it be that 3 different backups are trying to go at the same or overlapping times? I back up to a tape drive nightly using Backup Assist. I also back up nightly to Mozy. But when I turn on the AC automatic back up I get the low memory error and it then does not complete.

Leslie

Well, it is definitely not a good idea for them to overlap. I am not too concerned when I back up eMedware and AC at the same time, because they both take about 45 seconds, but I don't send anything over the net and I don't back up Imported Items.

So, I suppose there are several things you could be doing with the backup that would be helpful to know. Are you:

1. Local backup with no ImportedItems (now known as I.I.)
2. Local backup without I.I.
3. Online backup with I.I.
4. Online backup without I.I.

Also, you can back up to multiple places which costs more. It already backs up to your AC folder regardless of what you do.

But, while it takes up memory, unless you had VERY little memory left, I couldn't see it crashing all the time. Also depending on what you are doing, you could consider a manual backup. Again, it depends on what you are doing. I do three small backups of F.A.P., eMedware and AC before I go home. I like to know on top of my other 45 backups, lol, that the big three are done and everything else is gravy.

I generally reassess my backup strategy every three to four months. You may decide that your rockin' backup program, Backup Assist, which backs up your server along with Mozy is good enough for the Imported Items, and you can just do a quick backup of AC.

By the way, if you are using V5 of BA, which I am almost sure you are, there is a really cool add-on for SQL. It will back up SQL online (meaning while the SQL serves are running) as AC does as well. Your Mozy backup probably doesn't and, thus, those database backups may be corrupt. But, with the add-on, you can backup and instance of SQL up to every minute with almost no footprint. I think that that is a bit too much, and I back up every hour, so I will never lose more than three or four patients except on a Friday when it would be six.

By the way, there should be some error logs on your server in the system section or the application section that would shed more light on your errors.

I understand what you mean. I mean that AC backup program must be having some kind of a memory leak. In software industry, when a program runs and uses 100MB of RAM and when done does not release that 100MB of RAM it is called "memory leak"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

It is very much possible that she is running too many stuff at the same time and trying to copy too much stuff.

Bottomline is that memory cannot be eaten away by a program aftre it is done execution. Or her disks are slow and she is seeing the symptoms of too much disk activity. Even that can lead to slow performance on sql server.

Thanks, Bert. You know I have had back up issues from day one almost. I will look at it again.

Leslie

Srini,

But, that wouldn't explain why the program doesn't finish each time. I don't think she is saying that she continues to have performance issues with her system that progress each day after she runs her backups.

You are correct, Bert. Everything works fine until I do the automatic AC backups.

Leslie