A performance issue becomes progressively worse

Products

• Symantec Products

Issue/Introduction

You experience a performance issue that becomes progressively worse. The issue becomes apparent after the reboot of a client or server, or after starting a client or server application. This could happen in a time space of minutes, hours, days, or even weeks or months.

Environment

Windows XP and Windows Server 2003

Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 or higher

Resolution

For further investigation, generate a Performance Monitor log, which collects performance counter snapshots at a specific interval, either indefinitely or over a specified period of time, allowing to create a report of the same:

• For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003: 

1. Download and run the Performance Monitor Wizard.
2. Click Next, Next, Next, select Advanced Configuration, click Next, Next, change the log file size to 1024 MB and tick Continue logging in next file to enable circular logging, click Next, change the number of hours if necessary, click Next, click Select All in the OS Counters area, click Next, click START to start the logging process and click STOP after reproducing the issue. 
3. Zip the generated output.

• For Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 or higher: 

1. Click on the Windows Start button.
2. Type perfmon.exe, then hit Enter.
3. Open Data Collector Sets, then right-click User Defined in Data Collector Sets, select New, then Data Collector Set.
4. Specify a brief description of the issue in the Name field, click Next, select System Performance, then Finish.
5. Right-click the name (issue description) in the right-hand column, select Properties, navigate to the Stop Condition tab, untick Overall duration and click Apply.
6. Click on the name (issue description) under Data Collector Sets\User Defined in the left-hand column, then right-click Performance Counter in the right-hand column, select Properties, set Sample interval to 5 minutes –less if it takes only minutes for the issue to fully progress, more if it takes days, weeks or months–  and click OK.
7. Click on User Defined in the left hand column, then right-click the name (issue description) in the right hand column and select Start, reproduce the issue, then select Stop in the same location.
8. Collect the entire name (issue description) folder shown in the Output column and zip it.

The generation of Performance Monitor logging will persist through reboots.