W2K: Spoolsv.exe eating my resources!

[Nemesis77]

I have a 1.2GHz Compaq Evo N600c with 256 megs of RAM. I recently noticed that spoolsv.exe constantly eats about 50% of my CPU-cycles and it keeps on eating more and more of RAM. It's RAM-usage increases by about 60KB/sec. I know that spoolsv.exe is related to printing. What should I do to get rid of it? I can't kill the process.

 

[bubba]

By chance, do you have a Matrox video card? I had the same problem in a work computer. Turns out it was a conflict with the Matrox desk manager and spoolsrv. Disable the desk manager and you should be OK.

 

[Saltin]

You could also disable the print spool service. That process is a direct function of the service.

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: bubba
By chance, do you have a Matrox video card?

Negative. It has Ati Mobility Radeon 7500.

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: Saltin
You could also disable the print spool service. That process is a direct function of the service.

Hmmmmm, have to take a look at that tomorrow at work (I left the lappy there)

 

[Drakkhen]

Have you installed any printers lateley? Is this a home or work computer?

If it is a work computer, does it have a client for Netware loaded on it? If so, version 4.80 of the client had some issues with the spoolsv.exe continually taking up resources.

I have also seen printer drivers cause this to happen.

Oh well, good luck!

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: Drakkhen
Have you installed any printers lateley? Is this a home or work computer?

If it is a work computer, does it have a client for Netware loaded on it? If so, version 4.80 of the client had some issues with the spoolsv.exe continually taking up resources.

Bingo! It's my work-laptop and we use Netware at work! I have to check the version when I get back to work. But we have like 60 laptops at work, and it seems that I'm the only one experiencing this problem.

I haven't installed any printers on the machine.

 

[Drakkhen]

Well, I sure hope that is what it is. If so, then that is a quick and easy fix. Try upgrading to the latest client for 2000, I believe it is 4.83. I know that one works very well.

 

[SaigonK]

With Netware this is a known issue with the 4.80 client.
Dont install the 4.83 unless you know that your server is at the same rev for certain applications. (4.83 doesnt correctly support the older NAL and Zen objects.)

You could also open a command prompt and type NET STOP SPOOLER whne you see the service getting locked up.


I would also go to Novell and look for a patch, I know they released one and you can download it for this very issue.
We had the same problem on about 50-60 of our systems and it was normally Microsoft Powerpoint or Word that caused the issue.

 

[Nemesis77]

Upgrading the client is rather difficult. We would have to get it accepted from the firms Q&A department. And they are rather negative to that kind of things. I'll have to think about my options.

 

[Drakkhen]

Well, here is a LINK to the latest patch for your version of the client.

Good luck!