I had a server run low on disk space on one of the data volumes (a bit over 1 GB free on a 2 TB volume). When this happened, CPU utilisation went up to 100%. Task Manager showed System was the offending process. This is not the first this has happenedto us (although it’s the first time I’ve looked at it).
So, I ran Process Explorer on the server and took a look at the threads for the System process. Here’s what I saw:
TmXPFlt.sys threads in the System process using excessive CPU
It turns out TmXPFlt.sys is part of Trend Micro Office Scan’s virus scan engine. I tried unloading Office Scan but it made no difference. In the end I had to restart the server.
We install anti-virus to protect our servers, not to take them down.
It’s just not good enough!
I had this issue on a Celeron 900mhz with Officescan 10. There’s hardly any CPU to use anyway, let alone with the virus scanner trying to hog it all. I disabled Officescan Client, and then disabled the TMBMSRV service under services.msc, and then renamed the TMBMSRV.exe file itself so it wouldn’t load again. I did the same for Tmproxy.exe.
CPU usage returned to a more normal level, and remained the same after reboot.