3

We have a Windows Server 2012. From time to time the Windows Indexer has too high CPU usage. What could cause this and how could it be solved. It runs perfect several weeks and then it takes too much CPU load.

What is the easiest approach to solve this issue? Do you need more details?

enter image description here

enter image description here

When I look twith Processmon it seems to access sometimes to strange registry values likes: HKCR.com($e8f18eb3)/0/Posteingang/_DPM/곯가가가갦겼곱갮격갢걑걊겥겧곭곟곬겢갘겷갤걠걍각

It also seems that this problem occurs only after restart. And then it gets better when we rebuild the index.

3
  • What is the problem? If you ahve a fast enough disc and a lot to index, why should the indexer not be effieicnet?
    – TomTom
    Sep 1, 2014 at 7:40
  • Everytime the system slows down it seems that the indexer is running with 20-30% CPU usage.
    – Matthias
    Sep 1, 2014 at 7:42
  • Maybe it is a solution to run it at night or exclude some cirtical directories. Therefore I tried to see if there is a directory which is critical with processmon.
    – Matthias
    Sep 1, 2014 at 7:44

3 Answers 3

6
+100

The CPU usage you showed in the screenshots is not very high. So let's start by investigating what do you mean by "slowness". It's very likely that your disks are saturated, causing everything to feel slow. It's a good hypothesis that the indexing server is the one causing it, but we've to collect more evidence first.

Go to Task Manager > Performance > Open Resource Monitor. In the Resource Monitor, you'll see a tab called "Disk" where you can check which processes are using most of the disk I/O at that moment. Also check what is the "Response Time". Depending on your disks, you could see something 1-15ms as being quite normal or worse numbers like 200-2000ms. That would mean your disks are heavily saturated and you've identified the cause for the "slowness".

If the Indexing service is causing it, check a few things first:

  • services.msc > Indexing Service => Ensure it's configured with "Automatic (Delayed Start)"
  • Control Panel > Indexing Options => Ensure only the absolute necessary folders are indexed

If you added a new folder and/or there has been newer data added to an existing folder, you'll have to live with that and wait for the Indexing Service to finish it's job. You could try, but this is not guaranteed to make much difference, to give the Indexing Service "Below Normal" priority in Task Manager, but since the workload is I/O-bound it probably won't help that much.

If any other process is causing the excessive disk I/O, then you have to investigate that separately.

2
  • The Windows Indexer is stopped for now. But I am going to check this for the next time it occurs. I do not know for sure how Outlook does its indexing. I assume it relies ontop of this service. I saw outlook sometimes going up to 200 ms for the response times. other things were a lot faster.
    – Matthias
    Sep 1, 2014 at 12:52
  • Outlook is also very slow sometimes. I think I am going to investigate more on this too.
    – Matthias
    Sep 1, 2014 at 12:53
2

You ask the totally wrong question. NO server gets unresponsive with 20% or 30% CPU usage. Here is a hint: it is only using that little CPU because your discs are overloading. So the question has nothing to do with CPU, and all with the discs. Discs are THE notorious bottleneck on any server, hence the strong push - despite the price - towards the way faster (factor 100 or more) SSD.

So, the question is - what is the system so busy indexing. Putting something like a mail spool into the index is one of those "not smart" things that can eat up all the IOPS. Start investigating on this side - but do not say you have a CPU problem.

0
0

Your posting seamed to be MS Exchange related. If that is true then an additional option might be to "FineTune" the Microsoft Exchange Search indexer. This isn´t that easy so I will put a link here to the documentation as the field is to small to list all options.

In general you can:

  • Exclude some files (e.g. ZIP files)
  • Configure the Max Attachment Depth
  • Adjust the Processor Affinity Percentage
  • ...

But what you wish to do depends on your environment, so its not that easy to give you a 100% advise.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .