System 800xA training

Chapter 14 System Check

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 14 System Check................................................................................................................................................................1

14.1 General Information.............................................................................................................................................................2
14.1.1 Objectives.....................................................................................................................................................................2
14.1.2 Legend..........................................................................................................................................................................2
14.2 Checking Windows and Computer Hardware.....................................................................................................................3
14.2.1 Device Manager............................................................................................................................................................3
14.2.2 Windows Event Viewer................................................................................................................................................4
14.2.3 Windows Task Manager...............................................................................................................................................6
14.2.4 Collecting System Information...................................................................................................................................10
14.3 Checking System 800xA...................................................................................................................................................12
14.3.1 Afw Service Connection Status..................................................................................................................................12
14.3.2 System Status Viewer.................................................................................................................................................14

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3.1 General Information

3.1.1 Objectives
On completion of this chapter you will be able to:
 Check computer hardware
 Check status of MS Windows
 Check System 800xA status

14.1.1 Legend
<> Indicates a key name.
| Indicates when you go from one menu to a sub-menu.
Bold Indicates a menu name or an option in a menu, or file structures
“ “ Indicates dialog box buttons, tabs, instructions etc.

 Indicates start/explanation of student activity

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14.2 Checking Windows and Computer Hardware

14.2.1 Device Manager

Device Manager can be useful for checking and updating drivers, but it can also be
useful for troubleshooting resource conflicts. Open Device Manager by clicking right
on My Computer and select “Manage”.

Look for any items that have yellow or red icons. By right clicking on that device and
selecting “Properties” more information about the type of error can be accessed. There
may be an incompatible driver, a resource conflict, or the device may not be
responding.

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14.2.2 Windows Event Viewer

Using the event logs in Event Viewer, you can gather information about hardware,
software, and system problems and monitor Windows XP security events.
Windows XP records events in three kinds of logs:
 Application Log
The application log contains events logged by applications or programs. For
example, a database program might record a file error in the application log. The
developer decides which events to record.
 System Log
The system log contains events logged by the Windows XP system components.
For example, the failure of a driver or other system component to load during
startup is recorded in the system log. The event types logged by system
components are predetermined.
 Security log
The security log can record security events such as valid and invalid logon
attempts, as well as events related to resource use, such as creating, opening, or
deleting files. An administrator can specify what events are recorded in the
security log. For example, if you have enabled logon auditing, attempts to log on
to the system are recorded in the security log.

Event Viewer displays these types of events:

 Error
A significant problem, such as loss of data or loss of functionality. For example, if
a service fails to load during startup, an error will be logged.
 Warning
An event that is not necessarily significant, but may indicate a possible future
problem. For example, when disk space is low, a warning will be logged
 Identification
An event that describes the successful operation of an application, driver, or
service. For example, when a network driver loads successfully, an Information
event will be logged.
 Success Audit
An audited security access attempt that succeeds. For example, a user's successful
attempt to log on to the system will be logged as a Success Audit event.
 Failure Audit
An audited security access attempt that fails. For example, if a user tries to access
a network drive and fails, the attempt will be logged as a Failure Audit event.

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The Event Log service starts automatically when you start Windows XP. Application
and system logs can be viewed by all users, but security logs are accessible only to
administrators.
By default, security logging is turned off. You can use Group Policy to enable security
logging. The administrator can also set auditing policies in the registry that cause the
system to halt when the security log is full.

What to do with Error ID’s?

Unfortunately, not all the errors provide obvious explanations; therefore a good idea is
to go to the web for help.
The following website is an excellent starting point
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/eventserrors.mspx

Or use the Microsoft Knowledge Base search on Source and Event id

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14.2.3 Windows Task Manager

This handy tool has so much information about what is running on the computer as
well as how much memory and processor time and who is using them. It also provides
the ability to kill programs that have stopped responding to normal commands or are
affecting other programs running on the computer.
Task Manager can be started by right clicking on the Task Bar or by CTRL-ALT-DEL
and then selecting Task Manager. It can also be started by typing “taskmgr.exe” in the
Run menu.

14.2.3.1 Application Tab

The Applications tab does not provide a lot of information, but it is useful just for
killing misbehaving tasks. Each window seen on the screen will normally have an
entry on the Applications tab.

The status column may say not responding when a program is “off in the weeds”. In
that case the End Task button can be handy. The “New Task” button is just like the
Start | Run command. It asks for a program to run.

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14.2.3.2 Processes Tab

The Processes tab is where the Task Manager really starts to become valuable for
troubleshooting. For the sake of understanding, it is good to know the difference
between Services, Processes, and Applications.
 Applications
Applications may use many processes running at the same time. For example, an
application that displays process control graphics might need one process to
retrieve a graphic file from disk and send it to the driver for the graphic board.
Another process keeps track of which OPC servers have subscriptions for which
data. Another process might need to retrieve dynamic data from an OPC server.
 Processes
Processes are executable programs that are started by applications at run time.
You will notice there are many on an 800xA system that look like they are part of
the system from their names.
 Services
Services are executable programs that are started by the operating system. They
can often be very similar and even have the same function as a process. Services
are more tightly integrated into the operating system. You can start, stop, and
schedule Services from the Services applet in the Control Panel.

Processes can be stopped from the Task Manager Processes tab. But the real value of
this tab is the information it provides about what is taking the computer’s resources. If
a computer bogs down, the first thing to do it open Task Manager and see how much
idle time is available.
You can sort on any of the columns by clicking on the heading. Clicking a second
time will reverse the sort order. That way you can sort by the largest users of CPU or
by the largest users of memory.

Although the default view with memory and CPU per process is very useful, the
columns can be customized. Click View | Select Columns:

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For example some faulty applications may “leak” memory, but they may also leak
handles, threads, or other things listed in these optional columns. A “leak” is when an
application allocates (or reserves) resources it needs temporarily, but does not release
them. The next time it needs resources, another allocation is made so that the
resources the task uses continually grows. This is a design problem, but in order to get
it fixed, a user might need to find the flaw and report it to the vendor.
Other examples of some columns we might need to choose are GDI Objects and User
Objects. There are a maximum number of these (10,000/PC) allowed at any one time
in Windows. 800xA graphics use these, and if we are having a problem with graphics
call ups, we might want to check how many are in use.

14.2.3.3 Performance Tab

As a quick overview of resources, the Performance tab is very handy. You can see at a
glance how much CPU and memory is used and how much is available.
There is a trend graph so you can see a history for about 2 minutes by default with an
update rate of once a second. By selecting the Update Speed setting from the View
menu, you can change this.

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Some of the memory figures on the Performance tab may need a little explaining
although others are quite obvious:
 Physical Memory: Total
The total amount of RAM installed in the computer.
 Physical Memory: Available
The amount of memory available to applications. You will notice this is never the
same as the total installed because the operating system has many processes
running. It is a good idea to record the approximate amount that is available when
things are running normally so that you will have some reference when things
don’t seem to be running right. This will vary depending on what type of node is
running and how much is installed.
 Physical Memory: System Cache
The section of memory that allows Windows to reduce disk operations by reading
larger chunks of data at a time than asked for and storing them in cache in
anticipation of additional requests. The System Cache is tuned by Windows
dynamically. There is not much a user can do to influence how much is allocated
other than shut down other applications to free up memory.
 Kernel Memory
The amount of memory used by the operating system components in highly
privileged mode. This is further broken down into paged and non-paged. Paged is
the portion that can be swapped to disk when applications require more memory.
Non-paged is the portion that must remain in memory all of the time.
 Commit Charge
The amount of virtual memory in use by all processes. The limit is the amount that
can be committed without enlarging the page file and the peak is the maximum
amount that has been used in this session.
 Handles
Consist of access control information and a pointer to an object such as a file. One
type of flaw that can occur in a program is called a handle leak. This is what
happens when handles are not deallocated when they are no longer needed. It is a
type of memory leak. They build up and consume memory.
 Threads
Are single sequences of executable instruction within a process. A process may be
a multi-threaded process where the threads can run in parallel or at different rates
or priorities and perform different tasks. The number of threads includes one idle
thread per processor.
 Processes
The executable programs that are seen on the processes tab incl. the idle process.

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14.2.3.4 Using the Task Manager

The Task Manager displays information about what is happening on the computer
including many factors related to performance. There are other utilities for getting into
more detail on performance that will be discussed later, but Task manager is quick and
simple and provides quite a lot of information.
One easy use for Task Manager would be to take a screen capture of the Performance
tab during normal operation for comparison if something doesn’t appear to be working
right. The processes tab can also be captured to get an idea how much utilization is
normal for the various processes. Some of them may vary quite a bit, but by watching,
one can get an idea. This can help when things are not working. Keep in mind each
node may be different if it has a different set of applications.

14.2.4 Collecting System Information

In many trouble shooting scenarios it is very important to collect data for later deeper
analyses. You can get a summary of the system by calling the “winmsd” utility from
Run in the start menu.

Or you could use the information button on the plant explorer menu and choose the
system info in the next window.

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Press “System Info” in order to get information about the system same as winmsd in
Run menu.

You will now have a window showing system information. The information can also
be saved. (Menu: File | Save)

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14.3 Checking System 800xA

14.3.1 Afw Service Connection Status

You can see the state of the services that are used by the 800xA system by double
clicking the icon in the taskbar.

Here we can see a redundant system that is OK. In the Status column a green circle
means status OK, a red circle with a white cross means there is a problem. A yellow
icon is a warning.
A green triangle in the node column means the connection is currently used (current
affinity selection). A grey triangle means it is not currently used, but may be used if
fail-over should be needed. You will see that all services are OK but most of the
connections are active on the ConsultIT-26 node.

The spark symbols show the status of the network connection for that service provider.
The first column is the primary network. The second is the secondary network. When
this picture was taken the secondary network was not present so the sparks all show
red with a white line through them.

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In the next picture one of the two Aspect and Connectivity Servers is down. You will
see that the ConsultIT-26 node is down. Only the service providers on ConsultIT-24
node are green. You can also see a warning in the fifth row of the viewer. It has an
exclamation mark in the icon.

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14.3.2 System Status Viewer

This viewer is a view of the status of the services. This viewer is part of Process Portal
and can be found in the Service Structure on the top level. The following picture
shows a system which is OK.

The next picture shows a system with only one service OK, one warning and the rest
is in error. The red square with a hole in it means an error was propagated. This means
that if you expand the branch in the tree containing the icon, you can see where the
error originated from.

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