Slow network for 2k domain and XP Pro workstations

[Michel Young]

I've got a strange situation. On our small business network I've got
our workstations connected to a 100MB switch. There are about 10 pc's
on the network and then the domain controller.

Workstations: Windows XP Pro 256 - 512MB RAM (ample HD space)

Server: Windows 2k RAID 5 array 1GB RAM.

What is strange is that upon initial login, the workstations take
about 3 - 5 minutes to login! Sometimes if it's a brand new
workstation it'll take up to 15 minutes login (I'm assuming the
machine is creating the local account information).

Another interesting trick is that the DHCP server and DNS server are
coming from the router. Basically is such a small network I didn't
think to have Win2k run those services (and I don't think I need to).

Any thoughts or ideas?


Thanks in advance,


Michel

 

[Marina Roos]

Let your server do the DHCP and DNS-serving. How many nics in the server?
Make sure that DNS on your servernic(s) is pointing to your server-IP. Put
the ISP-DNS-numbers in the tab Forwarders of your DNS-server.

Marina

 

[estafford]

Your problem may be caused by the asyncronous loading of networking during
boot up. This speeds up the login process in a stand-alone workstation by
allowing the user to log in with cached logon credentials before the network
is fully ready.

To disable this "feature" and restore your domain logons to their normal
speed, open the MMC and add the group policy snap-in. Under Computer
Configuration-->Administrative Templates-->System-->Logon, change "Always
wait for the network at computer startup and logon" to ENABLED.

This solution worked for me after adding 5 XP workstation to our network.
One system take up to 5-10 minutes at random logins.

ES

 

[ssears]

Marina:

Your appear to be the only adviser on the newsgroup that
has a clue about performance.

We have a W2k Server with 20 workstations.
Gradually moving from W95 to XP.

We are having performance issues running a clinet server
database. A Find First, Edit, Update, Next Routine that
takes 5 minutes under W95 takes 1 hour on XP.

We have checke the DHCP, DNS, & Workstations but all seem
well.

It appears as if the issue is related to disk writing as
the network performance monitor under task manager never
exceeds 0.60%.

Any ideas?

 

[ssears]

Marina:

As requested... please see below

Shannon

Host Name T-M1
Primary DNS Suffix STENEK.COM
Node Type Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled No
WINS PROXY Enabled No
DNS Suffix Search List STENEK.COM

Ethernet Adapter
Connection-specific DNS STENEK.COM
Physical Address 00-00-39-A9-77-EA
DHCP Enabled YES
Auto Configuration Enabled YES
IP Address 192.168.0.48
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.0.254
DHCP Servers 192.168.0.1
NDS Servers 192.168.0.1
Primary WINS Sever 192.168.0.1
Lease Obtained Sept 23, 2003
Lease Expires Oct 1, 2003

 

[Marina Roos]

Does your server have 1 nic and is that gateway set to 192.168.0.254 and is
your server-IP 192.168.0.1?

Marina

 

[ssears]

Yes 1 NIC. The 192.168.0.254 is the internal address of
the firewall. Is this correct?

 

[Marina Roos]

If that firewall is the gateway to the internet, yes.
Have you set options 003, 006 and 015 in DHCP-server?

Marina