HELP - LAN access has slowed to a crawl on one machine

[Guest]

The windows machine on which I do most of my work (and use for my email
client) has suddenly slowed to a crawl. I have cable modem access and a
wired, home LAN with a router. Router, modem and computers all have fixed IP
addresses. WAN access is a dynamically assigned IP address (required).

Downloading email used to be virtually instantaneous. Now it takes about 5
minutes per message per account (and frequently times out.) Web pages take
forever to come up in IE. I am accessing the web now from my Mac on the same
LAN, using the same cable modem and the connection is, if anything, a little
more responsive than usual. I have also noticed that thrying to access the
shared drives on the machine with the problem also times out or is very slow
from the other computers. Even accessing the admin page from the router on
the bad machine times out most of the time.

I have tried all the usual things. (Including Anti-virus sweeps and quite a
few anti-spyware apps. Hijack this log shows nothing unusual as far as I can
tell. ) No Events in the windows logs. I am at a loss as to figure out what
to change to fix this problem.But I urgently need to do so.

 

[Guest]

Are the drivers/software up to date for the device,if not get them from the
mfg
web site.Also,you might unplug the modem for 5 min or so,once repluged,
youve reset it.You might also,open cmd prompt,type:netsh Winsock reset
Then type:EXIT A restart resets it.

 

[Guest]

I have tried all these things. Nothing makes a difference. The performance
is fine on all the other machines.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

The windows machine on which I do most of my work (and use for my
email client) has suddenly slowed to a crawl. I have cable modem
access and a wired, home LAN with a router. Router, modem and
computers all have fixed IP addresses. WAN access is a dynamically
assigned IP address (required).

Downloading email used to be virtually instantaneous. Now it takes
about 5 minutes per message per account (and frequently times out.)
Web pages take forever to come up in IE. I am accessing the web now
from my Mac on the same LAN, using the same cable modem and the
connection is, if anything, a little more responsive than usual. I
have also noticed that thrying to access the shared drives on the
machine with the problem also times out or is very slow from the
other computers. Even accessing the admin page from the router on
the bad machine times out most of the time.

I have tried all the usual things. (Including Anti-virus sweeps and
quite a few anti-spyware apps. Hijack this log shows nothing
unusual as far as I can tell. ) No Events in the windows logs. I am
at a loss as to figure out what to change to fix this problem.But I
urgently need to do so.

Tried a different NIC?

 

[Guest]

NIC is integrated into the motherboard. Not reporting any problem in Device
Manager.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

NIC is integrated into the motherboard. Not reporting any problem
in Device Manager.

So put in a PCI NIC or if a laptop - a PCMCIA card to check. Hardware does
go defective and start "not working properly" without any obvious software
indications. =)

 

[Guest]

I put in another NIC, gave it a different, fixed IP address. I also replaced
the network cable, reset the router and the cable modem. Not a bit of
difference. The LAN connection is so slow that I can't transfer files between
computers. When I try to copy files from my Mac to my pc (which I do
regularly) I get a message saying that network access was interrupted. Not
seeing this at all betweeen my Mac and my other pc.

I think this is a software (OS) problem, as I originally suspected, which is
why I posted it in an XP Pro newsgroup. Does anyone have any ideas? Has
anyone ever seen this kind of behavior before?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I put in another NIC, gave it a different, fixed IP address. I also
replaced the network cable, reset the router and the cable modem.
Not a bit of difference. The LAN connection is so slow that I can't
transfer files between computers. When I try to copy files from my
Mac to my pc (which I do regularly) I get a message saying that
network access was interrupted. Not seeing this at all betweeen my
Mac and my other pc.

I think this is a software (OS) problem, as I originally suspected,
which is why I posted it in an XP Pro newsgroup. Does anyone have
any ideas? Has anyone ever seen this kind of behavior before?

Troubleshoot the next level then...

Image the machine - put a BASE installation with the latest drivers on it -
copy files on the network..

Faster?

If so, then your problem was software based - you can decide where to go
from there.
If not, if it is software - it is some default software/patch - and then it
should be much easier to track down - since minimal is installed..

Either way - you can go right back to the image (restore it) and be back
where you were - perhaps with the solution in hand.

Another alternative - BartPE.
Make a bootable BartPE CD - boot with it - enable the network and copy with
it..
Faster?

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure how to do this or if I have the resources.

I am failry certain that this is a software issue. Assuming that it is, what
steps should I take to correct the problem?

 

[Guest]

I have been seeing frequent "cable disconnected from network" error messages
on the second NIC. This is not the case. The router sits right next to the
computer and I can see both connections in front of me. I have re-connected
the old, integrated NIC and the performance is the same.

As previously stated, this problem appears to be independent of the
hardware. I would like to know what can change in the OS that might make a
difference. I haven't changed any settings recently. But, shortly before
seeing the problem, I did update Windows, using MS update. I am wondering if
there have been any recent changes that might sap LAN resourcess. Or if there
is any way to monitor and document what is happening. I see a network tab in
task manager, but it doesn't tell me anything useful.