High CPU usage on WHS v1 and SageTV v7

[frontlinegeek]

I recently had the unfortunate honour of having my mobo die in my WHS/SageTV server. After fully recovering from it all though, I have a new issue that I am not sure was or was not happening before. However it is happening now and I am aware that it is and I want to make it stop if possible.

The CPU usage on the SageTVService.exe is always at 50% or higher. I have tried reinstalling the WHS add-in for Sage several times. When I restored everything, I restored my wiz.bin so I thought there was maybe something wrong with it. I TOTALLY wiped out the installation directory and installed and the same issue persisted.

There is no corresponding disk thrashing at all so I am totally at a loss as to what is happening. As soon as I stop the service in computer manager, the CPU % drops right to near zero and stays there for as long as I have SageTVService turned off.

Here are the system specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+
785G chipset
2 GB DDR2
500 GB boot drive
2 x 2TB, 1 x 1TB and 1 x 500GB for drive pool
HDHR-3 (The tiny one)


WHS v1 PP3 - FULLY patched
SageTV v7.1.9
HDHR has latest firmware as of this posting and latest drivers on server
Using latest drivers from mobo site
Java at latest version as of this posting.


I know that the CPU is a little dated so if the fix is to bugger off to the store for an X3 or X4 AMD chip, I will gladly do so but I want to be sure that I am not wasting my $$$. I suppose, as a last ditch move, I could steal the CPU from my gaming system and toss it in as a test.

Otherwise, if there is anyone out there that can help, THANK YOU!!! Also, if I can still open a ticket, I will. Do they still service tickets?

[frontlinegeek]

Well, like an idiot, after typing everything up and posting, I realized that I did not carry over my Intel GB CT PCIe card.

After reinstalling that in the new mobo and disabling the onboard realtek, all is well. Whoops...

At least this will stand as a cautionary tale for people in the future. Stay away from Realtek on Windows Server based products... I knew there was a reason I bought an Intel card!!!

[frontlinegeek]

Well, spoke too soon and things are still high utilization...

The system is far more responsive with the Intel NIC installed but the CPU % for Sage is so high on average that it has more than twice as much logged CPU time than the "System Idle" process and after less than 24 hours...

Help???

Or is it HELP!!!!!!!

I really don't know at this point.

[gplasky]

Try this. shut down Sage and remove your wiz.bin and wiz.bak. Let Sage come up and it should create a new wiz.bin. You'l lose your favorites and some other data but bear with me. What you want to see is does the high CPU utilization go away. If it does then it is something in your original wiz.bin causing the issue. And what it may be is recordings or movies that might have old paths that no longer exist. And sage is trying to verify the paths. I think there is a setting in the .properties file that can help fix that situation but off the top of my head I don't know what it is.

Gerry

[frontlinegeek]

Well, I thought I tried that but I will do it again by just removing the wiz files.

On the upside, I have all my favs written down so there is no loss there if this fixes things.

I will have to let this sit for several hours before I know for sure if it is the fix so likely won't be able to reply till the morning.

Thanks!
Jason.

[frontlinegeek]

So that did not help but I may be on to something else...

WHS is generating a chkdsk log file of giant proportion every day or so. I have a bad feeling that the drive it relates to is having issues and that this may be causing Sage to drive the CPU usage way up.

I am investigating now and will demigrate the drive from the pool so I can know if it is the source of the issue.

More reports to follow...

[Skirge01]

Are you using the drive pool? The chkdsk logs are troubling. What kind of info do they contain? I suspect you may see invalid DE references. How did you restore WHS? Did you perform a new install, the MS recommended "recovery" method, or something else? My initial thought is that WHS is actually messed up and the SageTV issue is a side effect.

[frontlinegeek]

I am using the pool and had no issues before the death of the mobo.

I am still backing out the suspect 2TB drive from the pool so I am still a while from knowing one way or another as to what is happening with the drives/drive pool.

Worst case, it is a bad drive. Less badly, I set aside a 1 TB for TV recording and set the rest for the DP for ripped media content.

Best case, comically, it is a bad drive.

[frontlinegeek]

Well, 3 long days later and here is the deal.

Not only did the mobo die, I lost TWO 2TB drives!!! One was dead before I even got to rebuilding but another was what was messing up my universe!!!

A WD Green 2TB that after removing from the DP (Took 25 hours!!!), once formatted (Took 8 hours!!!), was marked 45% bad sectors!!! So ya, that is now removed from the server and will also be RMAed with WD.

Good grief what a party. But really, the two drives were both over 2 years old and are on 24/7 so that is not that bad.

I can presume that even if the drive was not in a DP, where it was flaky and had dying sectors, it still would have messed up the Sage service and caused the super high util %...

Thanks to those that commented in!