strange behaviour & crash (XP SP3) 1.7.4 [SOLVED]

[Geri]

i have a strane issue. i am hosting a portal since months, it was no problems with it, but now the numbers of the users incrased, and there is strange issues happening.

-the portal system is a php-fusion portal, the xampp is the version that was the newest about 5 months ago.
-the computer is a ibm pentium2 notebook (yeah, its a notebook, becouse it have no noise, and i cant sleep from a server's noise).
-pentium2 333 mhz, 128 mbyte RAM, 10 gbyte HDD

the portal now must serve about 1-2 request in every second.

but after 1-6 hours of operation, suddenly, the portal system crashes.
-sometimes, only http stops to serve the queries, and i need to manually close and restart xamp.
-sometimes, the whole computer starts to swap, and i cant even move the mouse cursor, the portal system creates abnormal operations and swaps like hell. i must hard reset the computer to recover
-i have no idea, why its happening.

-i tryed to check if maybee the laptop is being too hot - not that is the problem
-i checked for abnormal network operations, such as spambots - nothing special

the problem only happens when the traffic is large (peoples are online)
if nobody is around, or the traffic is low, there is no problem.

settings:
-the max php execution time is 10 mins (my portal need that for large file uploads, it servers a subcultural community with ppls own-content share to others)
-php memory limit is also large, due to the previous reason
-no other software runs on the machine, server runs a winxp

is there any idea, how to fix this problem, without searching & buying a quiet ~p4 quality laptop?

[Sharley]

Would you be so kind as to add your XAMPP version and Operating System to your profile as per these instructions:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=48626
Thanks.

[Geri]

i added the needed values

[Sharley]

i added the needed values

Thanks for that and now we know your XAMPP version.

This version was not a very good release with many issues that can be found here:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=44327

Having said that then there is no XAMPP release suitable for your needs as XAMPP is configured by default for developers using localhost only.

You could try a later version like 1.7.7 or go back a version to 1.7.3 which was a known stable version - but your issues may still appear when the server is busy.

My suggestion is that you use a more robust server suite suitable for production and in this members signature is such a free server:
memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=41947

From some post feedback in these forums your issue was never resolved no matter what configuration changes were made to Apache or MySQL.

Sorry I could not have been more help.

Good luck.

[Sharley]

If it is a database intensive portal then this link may help:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=48482&p=186087

[Geri]

thankyou for the informations.

i did the folowing things to solve the issue, and try to lower the load of the server:

-i halfed down my chat's update rate

-my minion are mostly female, so i threatened them that i will **** them if they use the portal in multiple tabs simultanously
-so they opened 10+ tabs to troll me, AND the server survived! There was no slowdown, or any issue at all. i have no idea, why.

-some minor advertising was linked directly from php content, i moved it to different server

-instead of calling new peoples to the portal in buckets, now they invited slowly, 1-2 per minute

however, i, and my minion is satisfyed now, temporally.

if the issue happens again, i update to newer version of xampp, and i buy an 1ghz+ computer as server too.

[Sharley]

I will mark this topic solved now.