Background: Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server Express 2008 R2, DNN 5.6.1, IIS7, Traffic nominal (1000-2000 visitors / day)







Moved a clients site to a new server as specified above. 80% of time the SQL server is taking 100% of the CPU. Site takes 45 seconds to load (not just on first load either). Sometimes the site just times out and doesn't load at all.. Essentially the site is rendered useless. 20% of the time (under the same load) everything is runs really fast and pages load in less than 1 second.. CPU rarely registers 5-10% usage.







I cannot recreate the issue (it occurs seemingly at random) and have no idea what causes the problem to go away. Clearly SQL server express is the culprit. IIS uses about the same amount of RAM and CPU regardless of whether the problem is occuring or the site is running normally.







What is SQL server doing most of the time that takes all the processing power the server has? More importantly is there something I can do about it before I lose a client :-)







For what it's worth, their site has no issues on SQL Server 2008 work group edition.. but the no longer want to cover the $150/month costs associated with that dual proc license..







Any help/advice would be appreciated.







Mike.

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Michael Crawford Search Studio Inc.