slow network performance after sp4: software windows 2000 novell clients

[Guest]

When right clicking on context menus on the desk top that
require network resources it takes 20 or 30 seconds for
the menu to come up. This was a direct result of
installing sp4. Many tests were completed to confirm
this. I have a Novell server that manages roaming user
accounts using novell client 4.80 4.81 4.83 and 4.9 The
last one has slightly bettor performance. 4.8 series has
serious performance issues. Overall network performance
has been reduced about 30 to 40 percent. Back up process
that run nightly and weekly take considerably longer than
they did before the upgrade from windows sp2 to sp4.
There must be someone or company that has experienced
similar problems. Has there been any solutions?

Sincerely,

Kirk McCoskey
..

 

[Keith V. Klenke]

make sure you have all the post sp4 w2k patches

make sure DS is clean & healthy

make sure you are using the latest nwclient & patches
support.novell.com/filefinder

make sure you have the server updated to the latest patches & oplocks level1
& 2 are set correct

SLP is setup properly on the server, & distributed properly to workstations
via dhcp

DNS setup properly

that speed/duplex on *everything* is hardset, & hardset correctly

latest drivers for everything (nic/chipset/controller/etc)

check cables, make sure everything is cat5e certified, not using flat
cables/cat3/etc (ive seen it in a lot of places)

purge all volumes & turn off compression

make sure there is more than 10% free on EVERY volume

make sure bios/firmware to everything (server/raid
cards/switches/workstations/etc) up to date

 

[Peter van der Woude]

Hi Kirk,

From another post:

"Description of the problem: Right-click over any shortcut (or quick-launch
toolbar icon). It takes about 10-25 seconds before the context menu pops
up. Try again, on the same or another shortcut, and it's fast. Wait about
5 minutes, and it is slow again. It happens on Windows 2000 SP4, but not
on Windows 2000 SP3. It happens with Netware Client 4.83, or 4.83+sp2, or
4.83+sp2+"update e". If you remove the Netware Client, it goes away.

What seems to be happening, based on Ethereal traces, is that the Netware
Client is trying to resolve the short-cut target's drive letter (usually
"C") as a network name. In my case, it tries IPX SAP, SLP, and Bindery,
making multiple requests (even though it gets negative replies, but that's
another problem) until it finally gives up.

My fix is based on Novell TID # 10065560 item 6, which tells how to
pre-load the Bad Server Name Cache with permanent entries for servers you
don't want to try to resolve. But I'm abusing this to preload the cache
with the letters A through Z. (I hope you don't have any servers on your
network with these names.) This appears to work around the bizarre behavior
of NWC 4.83 with Win2K SP4 trying to resolve drive letters on short-cuts as
if they were network names.

If you want to try the fix, import the .reg file below, or do it
manually as follows: Using regedt32, create a REG_MULTI_SZ value
called "BadServer" under the key:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetwareWorkstation\Parameters
The data is the letters A through Z, each on a separate line.
Note: The change does not take effect until you reboot.

======== start badserver.reg ==========
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetwareWorkstation\Par
ameters]
"BadServer"=hex(7):41,00,00,00,42,00,00,00,43,00,00,00,44,00,00,00,45,00,00,
00,\

46,00,00,00,47,00,00,00,48,00,00,00,49,00,00,00,4a,00,00,00,4b,00,00,00,4c,\

00,00,00,4d,00,00,00,4e,00,00,00,4f,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,51,00,00,00,52,00,\

00,00,53,00,00,00,54,00,00,00,55,00,00,00,56,00,00,00,57,00,00,00,58,00,00,\
00,59,00,00,00,5a,00,00,00,00,00
======== end badserver.reg ==========
"

Hope this helps,

Peter

 

[Wendall Willey]

Change the "BAD SERVER NAME CACHE TIMEOUT" from default of
300 seconds to the suggested 4294967295 seconds (which is
noted to mean the value will never timeout)... located in
the NOVELL CLIENT PROPERTIES under "ADVANCED SETTINGS".
This is just a BANDAID, but worked for me on a small
single Novell server network. The first access of a
file's Properties will still take appx. 10 seconds, but
all accesses after that are quick all day. Might not work
on large networks, but worked for me.

FYI,
Wendall Willey
Texas Dental Association
email = (e-mail address removed)