• Try to ping and connect (RDP) to the server during the time frame when users complain the server is not responding. Try to run SSMS from the RDP session. Also run a perfmon trace to see about CPU, memory and/or disk pressure. If results from the perfmon trace show no strange behaviour, run a SQL serverside profiler trace to see what is going in on the SQL instance.

    Deadlocks probably won't be the issue. In a deadlock situation only one of the processes is killed and an error is reported back to the application. This won't result in a unresponsive experience for the user.

    ** Don't mistake the ‘stupidity of the crowd’ for the ‘wisdom of the group’! **