Do you have a Firefox browser sitting idle on the server? I have found -- quite consistently -- that if I forget to close my Firefox browser in the evening, that by the next morning my server is crawling slow and if I let it go 24 hours, it is unresponsive.
(ed note: I use the browser for admin -- I don't need to surf with it, although I can and do without much impact.)
If I close my browser daily, it will run indefinitely.
The mouse won't even move and forget serving up web pages. My config is approximately this:
- WinXP Home Edition with all the SPs
- Apache 2.2
- Tomcat 5.x.x
- Java / JRE / JSDK at their respective latest.
- Firefox automatic updates to the latest
- Ancient "Intel Inside" and only 512Mb and 60Gb
I have looked for resource leaking (handles, memory, etc.) and memory is always the same ~75-80% level with moderate paging. i/o count is ridiculous and climbs 10K per refresh. Threads and handles are all about the same as when the problem is not occurring.
I have surfed the web for answers and bug reports, but nothing is jumping out at me.
Also, I don't know if any other browsers have the same effect.