2003 R2 with Slow Workstations

[ttraider]

I recently set up a 2003 R2 on a HP ML110 server with 2Gig RAM. All 25 stations are XP Pro workstation. The staions are set up to do netbios over TCP/IP. No access of internet or e-mail from any workstations. They are strictly set up for data-entry only. Each workstation has its username and password to access the server. Workstation has 512M RAM and it is 2.2 GHz, running XP pro.
Here is my problem: Everday several stations are logged in at one time, the first station experience no lag time. to get to teh database. After that there is significant delay of up to 15 minutes in getting to the files. The files are very samll, usually less than 50K each. There is no lag time in logging into the sever. The only lag time is when they are initially accessing the server. Also once they have accessed the files, there is no lag time in writing and reading files. Server has RAID 1 which is also set to cache, (not a good idea, but I was trying to increase the speed). The virtual memory is set to 2Gig - 5 Gig max for the 3 drives letters.
What did I missed or do wrong. Someone suggested that I should go the DNS route to see if it improves the speed, but I'm not sure if that would help.

Thanks a bunch.

 

[porkchopexpress]

Windows XP is heavily DNS dependent so it might not help if you aren't using it. Have you tried adding the servers IP to the hosts file?

 

[ttraider]

I have added servers IP to the workstation, but I'm not sure about how to add the servers IP to the hosts file.

 

[porkchopexpress]

You will find it here c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Just add an entry below this

127.0.0.1 localhost
e.g
192.168.0.1 yourserver

http://accs-net.com/hosts/how_to_use_hosts.html

 

[porkchopexpress]

Is this just setup as a workgroup? I don't want to push you but if it is you would be better off setting up a domain.

 

[ttraider]

I'll try that host ip.
It is not setup as a workgroup.

 

[Davetoo]

Why not just setup DNS then since you have an establised domain?

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It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

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