What software tools to use to debug "paused" response times on IIS6?

Question

Adrian Tools was excellent for Sun, but what do you use to troubleshoot a Microsoft 2003 Web server running IIS6 extreme slow downs? It is a 64 bit system with 8 gig of RAM, and an 8 hard drive Dell PERC raid. CPU never usually goes above 25 percent, having two physical CPUs with two cores each.

It's not a consistent slowness; it is very jerky. Two or three seconds of nothing, then extreme speed, not always before doing tasks either. Just about any time. No hard drive errors, etc. No blue screens. No odd Event Log entries.

It is especially slow when we upload new website content, but this may just be normal considering the jerky slow downs. Once it responds it is not bad, and there isn't Energy Star spin downs setup.

I tried MS "Server Performance Advisor" but this didn't show anything conclusive. Any techniques or software links that may do the trick?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Do try the client side tools like IEdevToolbar for IE6 and IE7 (Built-in to IE8). Besides that Fiddler might also give you some idea of what's loading the IIS.

Check for .js downloads, compression etc.