Help with Perfmon...
Jon,
I can't really access your website (I think port 8087 is being blocked).
So, I'll ask the question here...
The backround:
I have been using your perfmon script...well since it came out.
Recently I was able to get a few of the last components that makes up my HTPC environment.
I have a 1.5TB serial ATA drive plugged into my HS server. I have my movies loaded on there (no, it's not full...I wish I had THAT many movies! Can you blame me for getting that drive...? $120 for 1.5TB from Newegg! No rebates!). I also have a 1TB RAID 5 array (true raid 5 with a hardware controller...Promise SX6000). 2.13GHz Intel Celeron, 2GB ram, Intel server grade gigabit NIC (it offloads the network processing so my system doesn't have to do anything but pipe data to it).
I serve a list of movies from HS, using the XML data from DVD Profiler (using a heavily modified version of the DVD Collection webpages that are on this board). You use the touchscreen (which is run from a VGA splitter from the HTPC) to surf the movies, choose one, then HS sends Telnet commands to ZoomPlayer Pro (my trial is up soon!!) to play the movie...streaming from the server.
When HS loads, it runs a program (from startup.txt) that puts IT and hs_compat into the next level UP from normal for priority. This made 90% of all my timing issues go away with HS. Even if I am streaming movies (after I did what I did in the last section of this), or I have even converted some DV from my camcorder to mpg format for burning to a DVD+R, HS responds as if it was the ONLY thing running .
The Problem:
Whenever I played movies, about every 5,10, or 15 minutes the movies would pause. Very distracting. More often then not it was every 5 minutes.
So, I thought, it had to do with the network bandwidth. So, I upgraded my HTPC to gigabit. As the rest of the house was already wired...it didn't matter to the server. Problem persisted. OK, then maybe it was the hard drive.
Moved a few movies over the RAID parition...repeat of above.
I unplugged the SATA drive...which put the server back to it's original configuration. Movie played fine.
So, I had the Serial ATA drive plugged into my server, and the movies would act strange. EVEN if I was NOT using the drive. Just as long as it was plugged in.
The situation:
So, I started to turn on more verbose loggining in all my scripts. I went to the log screen with my PPC. When the movie went and paused, I refreshed the webpage. I discovered that perfmon was running every 5 minutes. Which corresponded to EACH time the movie would go crazy.
I also proved this by turning OFF PERFMON from running. Now it appears that I have no more issues, so long as I am not running perfmon.
The Question:
Do you have any idea WHY this would cause this kind of an effect? I was going to look at the code, but discovered that it was a VBEN file, so I do need your help with this.
If it's not something you are willing to look at (I see you have MANY new scripts out and realize that your time is short), I'm ok with that. It was neat to see what was going on with the server, but I'd rather watch movies then see if the server has had a bad processing day or not!
I appreciated the script for as long as I have run it...it was really neat to see the trends and how the system responded under the load of various scripts for various rooms (depending on the number of sensors in a room, as well as the proximity of them, I might have 6-10 triggers for HS in a matter of 10-20 seconds).
Thanks again!
--Dan
Jon,
I can't really access your website (I think port 8087 is being blocked).
So, I'll ask the question here...
The backround:
I have been using your perfmon script...well since it came out.
Recently I was able to get a few of the last components that makes up my HTPC environment.
I have a 1.5TB serial ATA drive plugged into my HS server. I have my movies loaded on there (no, it's not full...I wish I had THAT many movies! Can you blame me for getting that drive...? $120 for 1.5TB from Newegg! No rebates!). I also have a 1TB RAID 5 array (true raid 5 with a hardware controller...Promise SX6000). 2.13GHz Intel Celeron, 2GB ram, Intel server grade gigabit NIC (it offloads the network processing so my system doesn't have to do anything but pipe data to it).
I serve a list of movies from HS, using the XML data from DVD Profiler (using a heavily modified version of the DVD Collection webpages that are on this board). You use the touchscreen (which is run from a VGA splitter from the HTPC) to surf the movies, choose one, then HS sends Telnet commands to ZoomPlayer Pro (my trial is up soon!!) to play the movie...streaming from the server.
When HS loads, it runs a program (from startup.txt) that puts IT and hs_compat into the next level UP from normal for priority. This made 90% of all my timing issues go away with HS. Even if I am streaming movies (after I did what I did in the last section of this), or I have even converted some DV from my camcorder to mpg format for burning to a DVD+R, HS responds as if it was the ONLY thing running .
The Problem:
Whenever I played movies, about every 5,10, or 15 minutes the movies would pause. Very distracting. More often then not it was every 5 minutes.
So, I thought, it had to do with the network bandwidth. So, I upgraded my HTPC to gigabit. As the rest of the house was already wired...it didn't matter to the server. Problem persisted. OK, then maybe it was the hard drive.
Moved a few movies over the RAID parition...repeat of above.
I unplugged the SATA drive...which put the server back to it's original configuration. Movie played fine.
So, I had the Serial ATA drive plugged into my server, and the movies would act strange. EVEN if I was NOT using the drive. Just as long as it was plugged in.
The situation:
So, I started to turn on more verbose loggining in all my scripts. I went to the log screen with my PPC. When the movie went and paused, I refreshed the webpage. I discovered that perfmon was running every 5 minutes. Which corresponded to EACH time the movie would go crazy.
I also proved this by turning OFF PERFMON from running. Now it appears that I have no more issues, so long as I am not running perfmon.
The Question:
Do you have any idea WHY this would cause this kind of an effect? I was going to look at the code, but discovered that it was a VBEN file, so I do need your help with this.
If it's not something you are willing to look at (I see you have MANY new scripts out and realize that your time is short), I'm ok with that. It was neat to see what was going on with the server, but I'd rather watch movies then see if the server has had a bad processing day or not!
I appreciated the script for as long as I have run it...it was really neat to see the trends and how the system responded under the load of various scripts for various rooms (depending on the number of sensors in a room, as well as the proximity of them, I might have 6-10 triggers for HS in a matter of 10-20 seconds).
Thanks again!
--Dan
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