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Q203052: Poor Program and Service Performance During Crash Dump Transfer

Article: Q203052
Product(s): Microsoft Windows NT
Version(s): winnt:4.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbenv
Last Modified: 10-AUG-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0, on platform(s):
   - the hardware: Intel x86 
- Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition version 4.0, on platform(s):
   - the hardware: Intel x86 
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SYMPTOMS
========

If a server stops responding (hangs) with a blue screen, the Savedump.exe
process transfers the crash dump from the paging file to the Memory.dmp file
during the next system startup. Other programs and services that are started
during this process may perform poorly. If the server is providing services to
users, those services may not provide timely responses to client requests.

CAUSE
=====

This behavior can occur when the system is approaching an I/O-bound state while
it is accessing disk resources. Paging file resources in particular may be
exhausted because the paging file is used to transfer the crash dump to the
Memory.dmp file.

RESOLUTION
==========

To work around this behavior, configure a larger paging file to make sure that
there is adequate space for the transfer to take place efficiently. Or, you may
want to add additional drive and controller resources for the paging file to
transfer the crash dump to the Memory.dmp file.

STATUS
======

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION
================

If you run Perfmon during this process, you may observe that the "%DiskTime" and
"%Pagefile" values approach 100 percent while the Savedump process is running.
The "Disk Queue length" and "Disk Transfers/sec" values also rise significantly.
When the Savedump process finishes, the following event is logged in the System
event log:

  Savedump, 1001: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck...

Also, Savedump.exe is listed on the Processes tab in Task Manager during the
transfer.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in
the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

  Q192463 Gathering Blue Screen Information After Memory Dump


Additional query words:

======================================================================
Keywords          : kbenv 
Technology        : kbWinNTsearch kbWinNTSsearch
Version           : winnt:4.0
Issue type        : kbprb

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