Oddest problem East of the Mississippi!!

[JD]

Ok, here's a doozy for you! We purchased a brand new Dell
2400 pc. It has 2 NIC's on it, one on-board, the other is
a card. We copied (Ghost) a Dell Dimensions XPS 500 pc
and over-wrote the original image on the new 2400 pc. We
brought the system up, it asked for quite a few drivers
and we installed those succesfully. Nothing is showing in
the device manager as having a problem now. On first
glance, everything seems to be functioning normally. But,
here this, if you right-click on the desktop, hover your
mouse over "New" (for, let's say, a new shortcut), it then
completely bogs down the pc. It sits there with an hour-
glass for about 3-5 minutes, then the screen you're
waiting for pops up! But that's not the end! Get this.
If you hover the mouse over "new" as explained above,
unplug the network cable from the NIC card (either one,
depending on which one we plug it into for testing
purposes), the screen comes up immediately! It only
happens while plugged into the network! If you unplug, it
works, if you plug it back in, it bogs down
immediately....but just something small like hovering
over "New"! Anything else you hover over in the menu
works either way! Email, even if plugged into the
network, works like a charm. Other network applications
work just fine, no slowness at all. Just random things
that shouldn't take any time at all, for whatever reason
just bogs down. Another thing like the "New" item
described above is....I go into Windows Explorer, I expand
to Windows/System (or any other folder with hundreds of
files), I attempt to scroll all the way down the list, and
it bogs down, just like above, halfway through it! You
unplug the network cable and it scrolls instantly! Now, I
know what you're thinking....we're having a problem with
our network and it's bogging it down. But I tend to
disagree for the simple fact that network programs and
files work just fine. Why would network email work fine,
yet right-clicking on your desktop and going to "New"
would bog it down? This is perhaps the oddest problem to
ever come across the pike! Please help, please!!!

JD

 

[Jeff]

if i am misinterpreting you, then let me know, but this
is how i see it.

i would assume that part of your problem lies, is that
you still have all the old info from the old machine
conflicting with your new machine. if its only that one
network connection that is giving you problems, just use
the other one, no?

that, or just format and start over. installing a ghost
image from an older computer just doesnt make a whole lot
of sense. you dont know what kind of future problems you
are going to run into either.

my other guess is that when you right click and go
to 'new' it is trying to resolve some network
connection. and it is taking so long because it cannot
resolve. when it finally gives up, you finally see the
menu, but can resolve (for whatever reason) when the
other adapter is plugged in.

 

[Rob]

you might try putting a sniffer on the NIC and seeing what exactly XP is
trying to do. it could be waiting for an ACK from something before it times
out and for some reason using 100% CPU doing it.

 

[Star Fleet Admiral Q]

Do you have roaming profiles setup? If so, are the profiles quite
large (a profile in this instance would be "Documents and
Settings\<logon>\*.*")? If so, then when you try to create and new
(something) whether it be a shortcut, document or using explorer to
scroll through directory lists (whether local or network the list is
cached in the profile), you are causing the profile on the PC to be
synchronized with the network. We have changed this behavior to force
the synchronization to take place only at logon/logoff or when they
user purposely synchronizes the profile.