XP-Pro 'pauses' 20+ seconds intermittently when accessing network. 2

[techydude]

I posted this question a couple of weeks ago, but the 1 reply didn't help (thanks anyway 'bcastner'!). Any other ideas?

I have a 6-month-old Dell Dimension 2200 PC (Celeron 1.3GHz) running WinXP-Pro (no SP initially).

It was initially connected to a WinNT4 Domain Server. It is the only WinXP-Pro workstation connecting to the domain (all others are Win95/98/NT4/2K).

However intermittently and unpredictably and virtually immediately after commissioning, when accessing almost any kind of network resource, XP-Pro would "pause" for approximately 20-30 seconds. All other apps on the PC were fine - I could even have a ping of the NT4-Server running in a DOS box the whole time, never skipping a beat even though the app accessing the network was frozen for 20-30 seconds.

The NT4-Server has now been replaced by a new Win2K AD domain controller, and this troublesome Dell PC had WinXP-Pro+SP1 reinstalled (formatted hdd first). But the problem remains.

This troublesome Dell (and all other workstations) access the internet via a Netgear RM356 56K Modem-Router, and they all have their DNS IPs set to that of our ISP, not that of the domain controller.

Any ideas what might be causing the 20-30 second pauses?
I am at my witts end and ready to throw XP out & revert to Win2K just to work around the problem, but not happy in having to do so obviously!
Thanks & regards,
Anthony.

 

[bcastner]

If the XP workstation clients have SP1 installed, then on a Win2k domain pausing problems are almost always due to one or a combination of:

1. Autosensing failure between switch and workstation NIC; you can use this matrix for some hints as to how to force the workstation & switch settings:
[tt]
Workstation Switch Result

Forced Half Forced Half Works
Forced Full Forced Full Works
Auto Auto Maybe
Forced Full Auto NO
Auto Forced Full NO
Forced Half Forced Full NO
Forced Full Forced Half NO
[/tt]

2. DNS resolution issues.

Slow logons from XP to a win2000 domain usually indicate a DNS misconfiguration issue. While the following is not a fix-all for all AD-domain problems, it is an absolute requirement that DNS is set up correctly before it will work properly. If your DNS is not set up like this, then you will experience problems like you describe. XP differs from previous versions of windows in that it uses DNS as it's primary name resolution method for finding domain controllers: How Domain Controllers Are Located in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314861>

If DNS is misconfigured, XP will spend a lot of time waiting for it to timeout before it tries using legacy NT4 sytle NetBIOS. (Which may or may not work.)

1. Ensure that the XP clients are all configured to point to the local DNS server which hosts the AD domain. That will probably be the win2k server itself. They should NOT be pointing an an ISP's DNS server. An 'ipconfig /all' on the XP box should reveal ONLY the domain's DNS server. You should use the DHCP server to push out the local DNS server address.

2. Ensure DNS server on win2k is configured to permit dynamic updates. Ensure the win2k server points to itself as a DNS server.

3. For external (internet) name resolution, specify your ISP's DNS server not on the clients, but in the forwarders tab of the local win2k DNS server. On the DNS server, if you cannot access the 'Forwarders' and 'Root Hints' tabs because they are greyed out, that is because there is a root zone (".&quot present on the DNS server. You MUST delete this root zone to permit the server to forward unresolved queries to yout ISP or the root servers. Accept any nags etc, and let it delete any corresponding reverse lookuop zones if it asks.

The following articles may assist you in setting up DNS correctly: Setting Up the Domain Name System for Active Directory <

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;237675>

HOW TO: Configure DNS for Internet Access in Windows 2000 <

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300202>

 

[imasystemsanalyst]

I'm not sure if you're dealing with the same issue I was or not, but disabling the Webclient service seemed to help me.

My issue was anytime I'd access a shared drive (i.e. try to open My Computer or click on a drop-down box in Word to save to a certain location), the system would take about 15-30 seconds before displaying my drives.

I disabled the Webclient service, and the problem went away (and doesn't seem to have affected anything else).

Hope this helps!

Scott

 

[techydude]

To 'bcastner' & 'imasystemsanalyst/Scott',

Thankyou both very much for your helpful posts. The symptoms I described have now been almost entirely eliminated.

'bcastner', I did have DNS, DHCP & WINS configured correctly as far as I know and as you and the documents you quoted suggested, however my missing link was knowing that XP used DNS in preference to NetBIOS and thus realising that WinXP-Pro client PCs need the server's IP (ie DNS's IP) instead of the ISP's. Changing that alleviated many of the long pauses in accessing network resources.

The one drawback I can see to this new scheme is that previous Windows client's could still access internet and email (assuming email is stored on local drive) even if the server is down if the ISPs DNS are set rather than server's. This is now no longer an available feature :-(. But better to have this (and future PCs) working correctly than not at all!

After this change, I was still experiencing some pauses in network resource access - just nowhere near as many, and they seemed to be of a shorter duration.

Scott, your suggestion to turn off the WebClient service, whilst it suggests I still have a problem in name resolution somewhere, does seem to have eliminated the remaining pauses. I shall pursue my DNS configuration further .

Again, thankyou both for your help - it has been of very significant value to me, and in appreciation I will make a financial contribution to to Tek-Tips very shortly.

Anthony.

 

[bcastner]

Amfony,

Google for &quot;microsoft netsh syntax&quot; and you should find several articles by Microsoft in which you can write either scripts or simple batch files to restore TCP/IP profiles quickly.

First &quot;Dump&quot; your existing profile to a file. Set up a workstation so that it used your old way of pointing at the external IPs of the DNS servers from your ISP, and then &quot;Dump&quot; that profile to a disk file.

Whenever you have the situation that your local DNS/Wind 2k server is unavailable, just use the saved profiles to restore your settings to point to the external DNS servers. By putting the profile changes into a batch file or script you could easily flip between the two profile settings. There are good examples in the Microsoft articles on the Web for using Netsh to do all sorts of tricks.