Recently our server hangs after a few days of use, it becomes totally unresponsive. When you try to physically log into the console the login screen is missing, you only have a blue background and you can move the mouse cursor. The disk lights keep blinking so it appears it's still doing something except when you try to rdp or you have an existing session the desktop doesn't seem to respond to mouse interaction or keyboard input and also the taskbar is missing. We have monitored cpu, memory, network and disk usage using perfmon, everything seems normal as far as we can tell and nothing is logged in the event log when the server hangs. The only way to get the server running again is by hard resetting the server. I have found the following KB article:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969289 Which seemed to fit the bill, except the hotfix that is available for download is a much older version than the one that's installed on the server, the last update on the mrxsmb.sys is dated april 2011. The server has win2k3 r2 standard x86 with latest service pack and patches, it has the following roles, DC, DNS, DHCP, WSUS, WDS, File & Print server. We thought defective hardware was the culprit but after swapping the hardware the problems reappeared. We've been struggling with this issue for awhile now, any help would be appreciated. On a side note we have considered the anti-virus software but the virus scanner isn't logging anything strange.

Hi DannySan, I had the same issue a few months ago however the physical server was responding to requests the RDP sessions was stale, we fixed it by simply updating the video card drivers. What hardware did you swap out? and does the memory/cpu usage spike before it stops responding?

have you tried to rdp into the server when it fails? is there a scheduled task that coincides with the "hang"? do you have a memory dump you can post here and get one of the Microsoft weenies to review? have you tried eliminating roles one at a time to isolate a possible problem?

Hi Ben, When the server is about to hang, it responds to requests for awhile and then stops responding to any new requests, if you had a running rdp session, you can still unlock the desktop but you can't do anything. Regarding the hardware, we had a spare server which was almost identical so we swapped the disks to the spare server, but on that server the same issues appeared, which makes us believe that it's nothing to do with hardware but with the OS or some application. From what we could see from the taskmanager there where no spikes in memory/cpu usage before it stopped responding, but updating the videocard driver seems like a painless thing to do, we can give it a try, thanks for the tip.

I'll ask around and post back if I find anything else.

Hi Roy, Only running rdp sessions are accessible, the server won't respond to any new requests, like rdp or smb, when we do a nslookup we receive a message that the host is not available on the network. We don't have any scheduled tasks running, because the server hangs and seems to be doing something it doesn't crash with a bsod and so we don't have a memory dump unfortunately. Because it's a production server we can't eliminate roles, we are however thinking about placing the shares on a different server, that's basically all we can move at the moment.

Hi, Please update BIOS, chipset drivers and run Windows Update to check the result. If the issue persists, please test the issue in Clean Boot. For the detailed steps, please refer to the following Microsoft KB article: How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353 What’s the result in Clean Boot? Regards,Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi Ben, If you could it'll be very much appreciated. By the way I looked up the support site of the server and unfortunately we're already running the latest videocard driver.

Hi Arthur, We already have the latest firmware and drivers installed including the latest windows updates. By the way, the problem we're having is on a Windows 2003 R2 Standard server and not windows xp. The server only hangs when in use, like three or four business days, in the weekend the server runs fine, the only thing running then are the backups. We ran a hardware check using HP SmartStart and everything came out fine, no problems with disks or storage controller.

I think I'm going to create a support ticket, last friday the server had a system hang so we rebooted, 45 minutes later it had another hang. We're now moving some of the shares to another server so people can at least go on with their business untill we find out what's causing the system hangs.

Hi, I know the operating system is Windows Server 2003 R2. The Clean Boot steps for Windows XP are similar for Windows Server 2003 R2. I realize that you have submit a support ticket and like to confirm what is the current situation? If there is anything that I can do for you, please do not hesitate to let me know, and I will be happy to help. Regards, Arthur Li Forum Support Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, I would like to confirm what is the current situation? If there is anything that I can do for you, please do not hesitate to let me know, and I will be happy to help. Regards, Arthur Li Forum Support Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.