Some clients have started taking 5mins+ to log on

[richclever]

Some of my win98 clients have started to take upwards of 5mins to log on to the NT4 server. All the machines on the network are the same spec, and have identical software on them. I only have 10 machines on this network, and they are all quite new so ram and harddrives shouldn't be the problem. I can log on to one machine with my profile which is quite large (20Mb) and there is no problem, but on others it takes forever, and even tells me the network is busy.

Any ideas

Richard

 

[johncurtis]

I'd check the profile sizes. 20MB or greater is really too large. Change settings in IE to not store temp files in your profile, and preferably stop other apps saving files in there as well. There could be other problems, but profile size is the main cause of slow logons.

 

[richclever]

Only my profile is that large, but other profiles that are very small (2Mb or less) take ages to log on. It is not on all computers anyway, some log me on with my 20Mb profile in around 30 seconds, so I don't think the problem is the profile size.

 

[Technician]

I have found that the user profile is usually corrupt. Try deleting the USER.DAT file from the profile and have the system create a new USER.DAT.

I'm guessing when you say your 20Mb profile is not a problem you're logging into the same machine? If not I have seen a problem with the computer registry file corrupt. A system had Office 2000 loaded without any errors but took forever to login. I ran SCANREG and it found no errors. Recovered registry from a day before the Office 2000 install and login time was once again normal.

Hope this helps.

Gordon Yuen

 

[richclever]

Thanks everyone

I restarted the server (should have thought of it before), and everyting started speeding back up again. During the course of the day it gradually got back to normal again. Don't know quite what was happening, as someof the clients were fine throughout!

Richard

 

[richclever]

OK, so the problem has got more bizzare now. The system slowed down again, so I decided to try the different clients individually. If turned on on their own, all clients logged on really quickly (15 seconds for a 20MB profile). However, if certain clients are turned on while other machines are logging on, then everything stops, withe machines hanging all over the place.

This only happens when two individual machines are on, all the rest seem fine. I have virus checked using the latest norton update, and there is nothing to be found, so it is not a virus. The Hub doesn't report any collisions, and the offending machines have the best free resources on the network (according to performance monitor).

This one really has me confused.

Richard

 

[jaeddy]

The two offending machines, do they have anything in common, such as a repeater or hub junction? Have you tried moving the machines' connections to different ports on the hub? I would also look at the nics themselves and see if they are chattering at the network, using extra protocols besides tcp/ip, etc. It certainly sounds as if they are generating more than their fair share of network traffic, lack of collisions not-withstanding.

 

[richclever]

OK, so now I getting collisions showing up on the hub, rather a lot of them. The whole situation seems to be getting worse and worse.

Rich

 

[jaeddy]

Either one, or both of those suspect machines is chattering at the network. Swap out the NIC on one of those with a known good one and see what you get.

 

[jrdebug]

what other network services are enabled in your setup?

 

[richclever]

I have now got to the situation where if I have any more than 3 computers turned on, the network slows down. I have run LANSURE on the system, and I am getting TCP re-transmit errors from the clients. I have changed the HUB, cables and NIC card, but still to no avail. Any help gratefully recieved.

Rich

 

[jrdebug]

as i have said, what other network services are you implementing; do you have DHCP, WINS, or even additional apps like SMS or other net management tools? have you ever tried to sniff-out transmissions? all your stations might be broadcasting in search of other stations.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Check that the clients aren't set up to become browse master. Win 9.x PCs do by default. I had a similar issue a couple of years ago - it took 6 months to find that the culprit was a Win9.x PC on a remote site with browse master enabled...

Another resolution we found at a different site having a similar issue, which also had a Novell server, was to remove 802.3 from the server and the clients. This got rid of a ton of broadcast rubbish.

Hope this helps

 

[vreiner]

CitrixEngineer, how does one set the browse master setting on Win9x systems?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Right-click Network Neighborhood, and there's a check box on one of the tabs...can't check, I'm at a UNIX shop this week. CE