why is this machine slow but its twin fast?

[Guest]

I have several identical machines (Win2KPro) on a Win2K domain and they all
must use the Internet and a VPN to a remote server, and all share a T1
connection, only 25 machines are involved in total.
most run fine, but a couple have chronic slowness with the Internet
connection, which translates into extreme slowness in VPN connection.
how do I diagnose why some machines have sucjh slow access while the machine
right next to it has no problem at all?
what can I look at? is there a way to bumo its Internet speed? we are no
where near maxing out our current bandwidth.

 

[Dave]

there are pocket size ethernet analyzers that you can plug in between the
machine and switch/hub/router that will analyze for common faults like bad
cables and common protocol errors, excessive retries, etc. something like
that is a good starting point. after that it depends on your network
configuration, you might be able to use a sniffer on another machine, or if
you have a good router there may be management capabilities in it that could
help, but you will have to supply more details for someone to give you some
hints about that.

 

[Guest]

Number of things to try
1) spy ware/virus uptodate & scanned
2) try swapping ports on router
3) swap network cables at both ends
4) Swap machines on desks with one that works well
5) Change network card