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w3wp.exe refuses to use the entirety of the CPU's power and I can't figure out why.

I am running 4 websites in IIS 6.0 on a windows 2003 server. Every 1-2 hours, all the websites hang. On the server, w3wp.exe is using a solid 50% of the CPU. The other 50% is being used by the system idle process. I have tried setting, in the application pool, to just have the process reset when it uses 50% for more than 5 minutes, but since this happens every 1-2 hours, this creates an unacceptable level of downtime for my websites. Not only do I lose the 5 minutes when its frozen, but I also lose more time, because it never shuts down properly, and the computer always has to force close it after 90 seconds. This is a new problem on a server that has never given me any trouble, and I have made no significant updates recently.

I have also tried upping the priority of w3wp.exe, and it didn't help.

I'm at wits end trying to figure out why it refuses to use the whole CPU, any advice would be great!

Thanks!

wobbled

You can limit CPU usage within the building of an application, I'm not sure that w3wp.exe does this by default though.

You should be able to increase the CPU that it is allowed to use through IIS by improving the IIS Usage itself.

see http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/insider/iisi1104.mspx

let me know if this helps

zoogelsnof

ASKER

Sorry, no. See, that page tells me how to LIMIT the application pool in IIS. I already know how to do that. I need to know why it's still acting like it's limited, even though nothing is limiting it (that I can find).

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Redwulf__53

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zoogelsnof

ASKER

Thanks for the thought Redwulf,

Your answer was helpful, and did help me isolate which website is causing problems. Unfortunately, that actually creates a greater mystery, because the offending site hasn't had any code updates in nearly a year =)

That website has had a number of annoying bugs i've been meaning to fix for awhile though, so i think i'll start pecking away at them, and hope that fixing them leads to a solution to this problem as well.

At least the problem no longer effects the rest of my websites, so I thank you for that!

Redwulf__53

Cool! Glad to be of assistance.