Network becomes slow after turning off a server

[kpeterson]

We had an application/file server that is running windows server 2003. The server has always just been a member server. We had some issues with cpu load on the server so we have moved all data/programs to a virtual(vmware) server and all of that is working good. But we just noticed that if we turn off the old server the entire network becomes slow, its like our workstations are tied to the old server. We also had users home folders on that server and everyone had 2 mapped drives to it. We switched via login scripts to what server they map to. If the server is on the network all is good, I can even put a host entry in on my workstation and point the server name to 127.0.0.1 and it works fine as well. So there has to be something telling our workstations to lookup the old server but we just can't figure out why. Any help would be great. Thanks a lot.

 

[Cstorms]

Have you totally gotten rid of this server otherwise? Have you tried ipconfig /flushdns on the workstations to clear the cache, are there old links within any applications that would reference that machine. Even though you may be correct in the new mapped drives you could still be trying to attach to this machine with some other program.

 

[itsp1965]

A couple of things to look at;
- Was this server used as a DNS server at any time
- Do your users have drive mappings to the server when they first connect

 

[kpeterson]

We still have the physical server but it is turned off. We have a virtual server that is a replacement for the physical one, it has the same server name. We first noticed this happening when the network card on the virtual server was turned off, this is when we realized as long as there is something on our network with the same server name(doesn't matter if its a xp machine, server or whatever) it all works.

 

[nsanto17]

did you check to see if any of the machines have an LMHOST file?

 

[kpeterson]

Whoops almost forgot, I ran Ethereal and sniffed packets for a while. I noticed my computer was trying to connect to \\fsapps which is the offending server. It looks like it is looking for the old application share \\fsapps\Apps using SMB/CIFS.


Trans2 Request, GET_DFS_REFERRAL, File: \fsapps\Apps
0000 00 0c 29 94 ce bb 00 12 3f 86 c1 63 08 00 45 00 ..).....?..c..E.
0010 00 8c ef 1a 40 00 80 06 75 76 c0 a8 0a 80 c0 a8 ....@...uv......
0020 0a 0a 12 35 00 8b 26 7f 62 3b 61 33 6a cf 50 18 ...5..&.b;a3j.P.
0030 f9 b9 70 26 00 00 00 00 00 60 ff 53 4d 42 32 00 ..p&.....`.SMB2.
0040 00 00 00 18 07 c8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0050 00 00 01 18 04 00 00 90 c0 00 0f 1c 00 00 00 00 ................
0060 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1c 00 44 ...............D
0070 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 10 00 1f 00 00 00 00 03 00 ................
0080 5c 00 66 00 73 00 61 00 70 00 70 00 73 00 5c 00 \.f.s.a.p.p.s.\.
0090 41 00 70 00 70 00 73 00 00 00 A.p.p.s...

Trans2 Response, GET_DFS_REFERRAL, Error: STATUS_NO_SUCH_DEVICE
0000 00 12 3f 86 c1 63 00 0c 29 94 ce bb 08 00 45 00 ..?..c..).....E.
0010 00 4f 87 df 40 00 80 06 dc ee c0 a8 0a 0a c0 a8 .O..@...........
0020 0a 80 00 8b 12 35 61 33 6a cf 26 7f 62 9f 50 18 .....5a3j.&.b.P.
0030 fa 3a aa dd 00 00 00 00 00 23 ff 53 4d 42 32 0e .:.......#.SMB2.
0040 00 00 c0 98 07 c8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0050 00 00 01 18 04 00 00 90 c0 00 00 00 00 .............


As you can see from the above packets my workstation is trying to connect to a share and it must time out since there is no \\fsapps. I just don't get why my computer is trying to connect. I flushed my DNS looked through my registry and there is nothing related to fsapps. I am out of ideas. Hopefully the above info may help figure this out. Thanks

 

[vdinenna]

If you had an application running on the old server and have moved the app to another server, you might want to search the registry for the IP of the old server and remove it from one workstation as a test. In other words, search the reg of a PC for the server IP of the old server and delete the entry pretaining to that application.