title: sql server hint NOLOCK and ROWLOCK
body: <p>I'm currently investigating an annoying problem on my website. We're giving away prizes regularly on the website, but to enter the competition people have to login. So the website becomes a lot busy at times. I found that when a lot of people trying to login and register, I get heaps of error about deadlocks on <strong>UpdateUser, CheckPassword and GetUser</strong> functions then the server gets too busy and other requests start timing out. </p>
  
  <p>When I look into the stored procedures, I found there's ROWLOCK used on 'UpdateUser'. Are those ROWLOCKs causing the deadlock? or only select would result a deadlock? </p>
  
  <p>I was thinking about using NOLOCK for my situation, but after a little research, apparently it's not recommended...</p>