Traffic Problem grinding everything to a halt

[DougP]

We have a continuing problem periodically through out the day
2-3 times. It only seems to affect some computers.
We have a 3Com 100 Base-T Network and most machines are PIII 600 or better
6 Servers.

Then after about 10 minutes or so it goes away.
Some computer experience it longer that others
Various Programs won’t rung and they seem to be different programs on different computers
We have the latest Norton Anti virus Corporate Edition and we did have the Nimda virus on two servers.

But his problem seems to have been before the Nimda came out.

Any Ideas???
DougP, MCP

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[majestrate]

I imagine the first question to pop into mind is, what is the problem? Does the network become saturated? If so, do you have a sniffer on the network, so you can see what's happening on the network? Have you been logging the problems, maybe there's a pattern in the times that they occur.

 

[andykg]

there could be a number of problems with a slow network. You need to look at event logs for possible broadcasts/elections, what protocols do you have installed on the servers? is DNS/WINS configured correctly? Does your network have bridge?

Andy

 

[Kjonnnn]

Do you have graphics department transferring files to and from a server?

We had a similar problem. I downloaded a freebie from

http://www.ndgsoftware.com.

I found out our graphics people were regularly moving stuff. The software tells your what machine and how much is being moved.

 

[ChrisBurch]

Run taskmanager on the server, and see what the cpu load is when your network slows down. If the cpu is near 100% it probably accounts for the speed problem, and you can check which running process(s) are causing it. I would be suspicious that someone might be spooling a large report. Chris

It worked yesterday.
It doesn't work today.
That's Windows!

 

[majestrate]

Just given the information in the original response, I'd have to lean towards Kjonnn on this one because it's not a problem with a server, it's a problem on the network. There could be collisions, which would account for some machines having the problem longer than others, but if it's only 2 or 3 times periodically throughout a day, I'd have to guess no on that.

You might want to check your infrastructure equipment as well, whatever you use for routing or switching could be rebooting on its own for whatever reason.

There are literally thousands of possible solutions, I could go on speculating all day. The best course of action is to sniff your network and try to determine from those logs what is taking place when there's a slow down. If you need help, post some of the info you've gathered here. There's plenty of people that wouldn't mind helping you determine what's happening.

 

[HEX1000]

check if you have additional non-essential protocols. get rid of netbuei and WINS. They generate extra traffic thats not needed.