Excessive Processor Usage on Print Servers

Print servers show high processor usage (70 percent to 90 percent) in Performance Monitor. The print servers also receive RPC Server Too Busy errors, and clients report slow printing problems.

These symptoms occur because named pipe connections and server sessions are not timing out and disconnecting, which causes an excessive load on the server. Other symptoms of this issue are a high handle count for Spoolss.exe (more than 15,000) and a high number of named pipes or spoolss sessions for any one user connected to the server.

Windows NT 3.51

To resolve this problem, obtain the following fix.

This fix should have the following time stamp for Windows NT 3.51

Windows NT 4.0

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0 or Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
This is a client fix that will result in idle pipes from the client to the print server being closed. The more clients it is applied to, the more relief the print server will experience.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 4.