Server running with High CPU Utilization

 Check the status of CPU by opening Task Manager


 Check and identify the process which takes more memory (find out PID – process ID)

Click on View->select columns-> there select PID (Process identifier)

 Check if the respective process is related to any program which is running in the back ground and if not required then kill it by PID (Command kill pid no.). For example if we want to kill pid 100, then the associated command would be - kill 100

 Check for the event viewer for any errors generated recently which might cause the issue

 Also we can check the Page memory/virtual memory ration. It should not be above 4.

 Ration: For CPU Utilization the ratio should be below 80% [As per the counter set in the performance monitoring tool]

 Some times svchost consumes more resource, so do not kill that process as it contains some other sub process related to windows and with the same naming convention.

 Note: Also we cannot kill the process system generated

 If we find any unknown process in the process tab in task manager then search it in the google for the detailed information. Sometimes there may be a chance of server getting infected and there are several processes running with some unknown name. So we need to identify it and uninstall the related program from the systems along with the files associated with it.

 Hotfixes/service packs: Some times because of missing patches/hot fixes the server runs with 100% cpu usage. For example: You experience slow performance and high CPU utilization on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server. On a single-processor server, CPU utilization may reach 100%.



In addition, the Remote Desktop Connection window on a terminal client stops responding.

Cause: This problem occurs because the Win32k.sys driver does not correctly verify some data before the data is used. A supported hot fix is available from Microsoft. However, this hot fix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hot fix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hot fix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, it is recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hot fix.



There are tool available which helps to identify the process tree/sub process and resolve the issue.

 Process explorer is the simple exe which we can download and run in to the system. It is used to explore the process in to the nth level and show the sub process and their status relatively. By using this we can easily identify the process/program and kill them if required.

 Some times because of some unwanted services running in back ground cpu experience slowness, so we need to identify it and stop it and check the status.

 We can set a perticuler counter in the performance monitoring tool to identify the process consuming more resource.

 Here the troubleshooting steps vary based on the process/service using more cpu. Based on the service/process name we need to proceed with the troubleshooting steps.