Network Performance Troubleshooting Help Needed

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by hankyknot, Sep 21, 2009.

  1. hankyknot

    hankyknot Corporal

    We have a wired network that is in some instances running very slow. Before I get into what I've done so far here's a bit of background on the network.

    21 PC's connecting to three servers, all PC's running XP Pro, all servers running Server 2003.
    We have an application that started running slow initially on one PC and then on a couple of others.
    The application is launched via an exe file on the file server and run in the RAM of the local machine. Some machines have 1Gb RAM some 2Gb, those slow performing machines are a mixture of 1Gb and 2Gb machines.
    All local applications perform well.

    So I ran some tests using LANSpeedTest which basically writes a 100Mb file across the network to a target folder of your choice then reads it then deletes it and reports the Mbps for the read and write stages. To help with the speed issue in the midst of this we added the 3rd server solely to run the application that was causing us problems.

    I was expecting to find certain similarities with the slower machines, either they all connect to the same switch or they all have handmade patch cables. But here's what I found

    There are slow machines on all three switches
    There are fast and slow machines with both factory made and handmade patch cables.
    All of the machines that were tested on the new server are faster.

    One machine in particular, the one that originally ran so slow that somebody raised the issue runs like a dream through terminal services but like a dog with three legs and cramp when connecting normally to exactly the same server only not through terminal services.

    Today, however this super slow machine, while still being slower than the rest (The best of the rest avg from 55Mbps upwards and the worst avg between 35 and 50 Mbps) is now averaging at 40 whereas before the weekend it was running at 2 and 4 Mbps.

    Because there seems to be no pattern to this I am lost as to where to go next to see what is behind the problem.

    Can anyone recommend the next step, I was planning on checking connection speeds on the slow machines step by step from the server to the pc with my laptop by running the test plugged into the switch, then running it plugged into the PC's wall socket to see if there was a bad patch cable but now that there seems to be no logic I dont know that that would reveal anything.

    Not only am I tearing my hair out but I'm starting to get heat from the boss for not knowing why they have this problem.
     
  2. studiot

    studiot MajorGeek

    DNS problems?

    Is this a single Domain?

    What and where are the DNS and DHCP servers,
    are you using any static LAN IPs,
    Is WINS in use?
     

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