Performance Troubleshooting tools

[msworld]

We have a new Windows 2003 R2 as file server. The users complaint, sometimes, it slow to open or save a file. Some users complaint every thing is slow here, email, applications. Which tools do you recommend so that we diagnosis to find out it is server hardware, windows or network issues?

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on

http://www.HowToNetworking.com

 

[itsp1965]

Before running performance monitoring tools did you start off with;

- Check the event logs first
- Check locally for problems creating files/reading files etc in order to eliminate disk issues
- Check to ensure your network connectivity is stable -- do you have a speed/duplexing issue, is the server local to the users or are they jumping through routers to get to it
- How's name resolution to this server

 

[lhuegele]

As a side-note, managing user expectations is very important. It is possible that they only perceive something as slow even though there is no problem. For example, we had a group of users that used to never use the network shares. They were doing all this work and storing everything on their local machines. When they were forced to start using the network shares, many of them started complaining how slow everything was.

We educated those users and reset their expectations with just a little mentoring and 1-on-1 customer service and today they are all happy and still using the network shares.

Good luck,

 

[msworld]

Thank you for all inputs.

1. No errors in the vent Viewer are related.

2. As said, it just happens once for a while. Whenever I stand by the user, he says OK, because you are here. However, one time, my help desk tried to recover a file using shadow copy, when he click previous version, it take long time (he said over 10 minutes) to open. He showed it to me. Under the folder there are only 4 files.

3. The Task Manager shows CPU is less than 10% in most cases, RAM and network always in the level.

4. Is our network connectivity stable. That is the reason I want to check it out and ask you if there is a tool to diagnotis.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on

http://www.HowToNetworking.com

 

[itsp1965]

In terms of network diagnosis most command line tools will not indicate a problem at the physical layer.

Start off by comparing your NIC speed to your switch port. If one is hard coded and the other is set to auto-negotiate you are highly likely to get speed/duplex mismatch errors. Check to ensure that both your server NIC and your switch ports are set to 100MB full duplex (if not higher)

You have also indicated that this doesn't always happen, is it random in nature or does it occur at specific intervals during the day

Although you have indicated one incident in regards to the restoration of a shadow copy.. how large was this file, what type of file was it

In the end if nothing is obvious, I would enable the performance monitor using standard counters recommended by MS

Hope this helps

 

[msworld]

I may find the problem. Both server and Cisco switch speed/duplex are auto/auto. However, if I check the Team Utilization from HP Network Configuration utility, the #2 NIC RX Current and Peak are always 0 bps. See the screen shot at this link:

http://www.chicagotech.net/netissues/nicteaming10.htm.

I also remember we had an issue when we setup NIC teaming on this server. Some one from Cisco suggested us to enable port fast when static access. Enabling port fast fixed the teaming issue. Should we disable port fast? If yes, how do we fix the teaming?

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on

http://www.HowToNetworking.com

 

[msworld]

No, that isn't the problem. I disabled the port fast, but that doesn't fix the problem. Actually, I checked all our servers with teaming, all of them are the same and one NIC RX Current and Peak are always 0 bps. I don't know why. If I want to use Microsoft performance monitor, what I should monitor?

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on

http://www.HowToNetworking.com