Hello everyone,

I'm having a nasty little problem that I am hoping has an easy answer.

there are two places on the web site where on average 350 items are added or
updated.

When any of these two actions occur, for 3 - 5+ seconds, the CPU usage on
the server is pegged at 100%, and the database is locked for that entire
period. Then, if nobody else is using the database or ordering platform, it
will continue as normal.

If, however, a read/write request is made to any database during this 3 - 5
second window, the server then freezes all ASP activity on every web site
its hosting for at least 2 minutes. Eventually it works itself free, but by
that time its too late. We've had users email us this: "Then it says script
timed out on the screen and this has happened several
times."

There aren't that many users, using the site at one time, but the database
is Access 2000.

The big writes to the database are to a table called shopping cart, where
everyone is getting their own cart. Nobody is ever changing anyone elses
data but there own. I thought that only the records that were being changed
are locked and other people can grab their own records. Is this a flawed
statement?

Can anyone guide me in the right direction?

Jason