XP Workstations running S-L-O-W

OK, I'm at my wits end and tried just about everything
suggested in the Knowledge base. 5 Windows XP
workstations take between 8 and 15 seconds to open Word
and Excel documents, which all other machines open near-
instantaneously. The docs were created in Office 97 and
all machines are now running Office XP, and the NT/2000
machines are fine, just the 5 new XP CAD stations. I've
disabled Oplocks, I've installed SP's and hot fixes,
disabled kernal mode filter driver for Backup Exec and
McAfee, lots of re-boots and no difference.

Performance profiling shows that the workstation is 99%
idle, no network traffic, just waiting for the server to
respond.

Server: Intel Vero Beach, Dual Xeon HT, 1024 GB, 1Gbit
backbone, raid.

Workstations: Tyan Thunder, Dual Athlon 2400, 2048MB, 3Com
10/100, Quadro FX, uSCSI. All latest drivers and
patches. The users of these stations are all local
administrators, and I've even tried upping them to domain
admins.

HELP!!!!

John Bilton

Richard
Thu Nov 27 05:20:48 CST 2003

what speed are the network cards set to on the slow XP machines?

There is some advice on setting them to 100Mb full duplex and not
auto-sense. However when I tried this I had the symptoms you are showing and
my switches had collision errors. I changed them back to autosense and the
problem disappeared.

Richard




"John Bilton" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:07bd01c3b4d4$c678ae50$a501280a@phx.gbl...
> OK, I'm at my wits end and tried just about everything
> suggested in the Knowledge base. 5 Windows XP
> workstations take between 8 and 15 seconds to open Word
> and Excel documents, which all other machines open near-
> instantaneously. The docs were created in Office 97 and
> all machines are now running Office XP, and the NT/2000
> machines are fine, just the 5 new XP CAD stations. I've
> disabled Oplocks, I've installed SP's and hot fixes,
> disabled kernal mode filter driver for Backup Exec and
> McAfee, lots of re-boots and no difference.
>
> Performance profiling shows that the workstation is 99%
> idle, no network traffic, just waiting for the server to
> respond.
>
> Server: Intel Vero Beach, Dual Xeon HT, 1024 GB, 1Gbit
> backbone, raid.
>
> Workstations: Tyan Thunder, Dual Athlon 2400, 2048MB, 3Com
> 10/100, Quadro FX, uSCSI. All latest drivers and
> patches. The users of these stations are all local
> administrators, and I've even tried upping them to domain
> admins.
>
> HELP!!!!
>
> John Bilton

anonymous
Thu Nov 27 06:54:40 CST 2003

I'll give that a whirl. They are set to autosense *I
think*, but...

John Bilton
>-----Original Message-----
>what speed are the network cards set to on the slow XP
machines?
>
>There is some advice on setting them to 100Mb full duplex
and not
>auto-sense. However when I tried this I had the symptoms
you are showing and
>my switches had collision errors. I changed them back to
autosense and the
>problem disappeared.
>
>Richard
>
>
>
>
>"John Bilton" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
in message
>news:07bd01c3b4d4$c678ae50$a501280a@phx.gbl...
>> OK, I'm at my wits end and tried just about everything
>> suggested in the Knowledge base. 5 Windows XP
>> workstations take between 8 and 15 seconds to open Word
>> and Excel documents, which all other machines open near-
>> instantaneously. The docs were created in Office 97 and
>> all machines are now running Office XP, and the NT/2000
>> machines are fine, just the 5 new XP CAD stations. I've
>> disabled Oplocks, I've installed SP's and hot fixes,
>> disabled kernal mode filter driver for Backup Exec and
>> McAfee, lots of re-boots and no difference.
>>
>> Performance profiling shows that the workstation is 99%
>> idle, no network traffic, just waiting for the server to
>> respond.
>>
>> Server: Intel Vero Beach, Dual Xeon HT, 1024 GB, 1Gbit
>> backbone, raid.
>>
>> Workstations: Tyan Thunder, Dual Athlon 2400, 2048MB,
3Com
>> 10/100, Quadro FX, uSCSI. All latest drivers and
>> patches. The users of these stations are all local
>> administrators, and I've even tried upping them to
domain
>> admins.
>>
>> HELP!!!!
>>
>> John Bilton
>
>
>.
>

Javier
Thu Nov 27 08:10:51 CST 2003

AFAIK-> The advice moslty given here is to run them on half or full
duplex... just get them off autosense. So, if you are having problems with
full duplex (because your switch doesn't work well with it), change it to
half duplex.

I think that if you know that they don't work well in full duplex... then
more reason to change them to half duplex permanently.

--
-Javier

<< SBS ROCKS !!! >>

<anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0aff01c3b4e5$9f2a3600$a301280a@phx.gbl...
> I'll give that a whirl. They are set to autosense *I
> think*, but...
>
> John Bilton
> >-----Original Message-----
> >what speed are the network cards set to on the slow XP
> machines?
> >
> >There is some advice on setting them to 100Mb full duplex
> and not
> >auto-sense. However when I tried this I had the symptoms
> you are showing and
> >my switches had collision errors. I changed them back to
> autosense and the
> >problem disappeared.
> >
> >Richard
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >"John Bilton" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
> in message
> >news:07bd01c3b4d4$c678ae50$a501280a@phx.gbl...
> >> OK, I'm at my wits end and tried just about everything
> >> suggested in the Knowledge base. 5 Windows XP
> >> workstations take between 8 and 15 seconds to open Word
> >> and Excel documents, which all other machines open near-
> >> instantaneously. The docs were created in Office 97 and
> >> all machines are now running Office XP, and the NT/2000
> >> machines are fine, just the 5 new XP CAD stations. I've
> >> disabled Oplocks, I've installed SP's and hot fixes,
> >> disabled kernal mode filter driver for Backup Exec and
> >> McAfee, lots of re-boots and no difference.
> >>
> >> Performance profiling shows that the workstation is 99%
> >> idle, no network traffic, just waiting for the server to
> >> respond.
> >>
> >> Server: Intel Vero Beach, Dual Xeon HT, 1024 GB, 1Gbit
> >> backbone, raid.
> >>
> >> Workstations: Tyan Thunder, Dual Athlon 2400, 2048MB,
> 3Com
> >> 10/100, Quadro FX, uSCSI. All latest drivers and
> >> patches. The users of these stations are all local
> >> administrators, and I've even tried upping them to
> domain
> >> admins.
> >>
> >> HELP!!!!
> >>
> >> John Bilton
> >
> >
> >.
> >

Chad
Thu Nov 27 23:57:03 CST 2003

Hi John -

Are you also experiencing slow logons with these XPs? Veirfy that they are
correctly configured for DNS. They should be pointing to your SBS (and only
your SBS, not your ISP) for DNS.

--
Chad A. Gross [SBS-MVP]

SBS ROCKS!!!

"John Bilton" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:07bd01c3b4d4$c678ae50$a501280a@phx.gbl...
> OK, I'm at my wits end and tried just about everything
> suggested in the Knowledge base. 5 Windows XP
> workstations take between 8 and 15 seconds to open Word
> and Excel documents, which all other machines open near-
> instantaneously. The docs were created in Office 97 and
> all machines are now running Office XP, and the NT/2000
> machines are fine, just the 5 new XP CAD stations. I've
> disabled Oplocks, I've installed SP's and hot fixes,
> disabled kernal mode filter driver for Backup Exec and
> McAfee, lots of re-boots and no difference.
>
> Performance profiling shows that the workstation is 99%
> idle, no network traffic, just waiting for the server to
> respond.
>
> Server: Intel Vero Beach, Dual Xeon HT, 1024 GB, 1Gbit
> backbone, raid.
>
> Workstations: Tyan Thunder, Dual Athlon 2400, 2048MB, 3Com
> 10/100, Quadro FX, uSCSI. All latest drivers and
> patches. The users of these stations are all local
> administrators, and I've even tried upping them to domain
> admins.
>
> HELP!!!!
>
> John Bilton

Scott
Sun Nov 30 15:13:11 CST 2003

Hello John,

Are your XP machines running SP1?

if so the problem maybe due to a hitch with SMB signing. This can be turned
off on the server

Scott.


"Chad A Gross [SBS-MVP]" <chad.gross@laytonflower.nospam.com> wrote in
message news:OM99URXtDHA.2392@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Hi John -
>
> Are you also experiencing slow logons with these XPs? Veirfy that they
are
> correctly configured for DNS. They should be pointing to your SBS (and
only
> your SBS, not your ISP) for DNS.
>
> --
> Chad A. Gross [SBS-MVP]
>
> SBS ROCKS!!!
>
> "John Bilton" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:07bd01c3b4d4$c678ae50$a501280a@phx.gbl...
> > OK, I'm at my wits end and tried just about everything
> > suggested in the Knowledge base. 5 Windows XP
> > workstations take between 8 and 15 seconds to open Word
> > and Excel documents, which all other machines open near-
> > instantaneously. The docs were created in Office 97 and
> > all machines are now running Office XP, and the NT/2000
> > machines are fine, just the 5 new XP CAD stations. I've
> > disabled Oplocks, I've installed SP's and hot fixes,
> > disabled kernal mode filter driver for Backup Exec and
> > McAfee, lots of re-boots and no difference.
> >
> > Performance profiling shows that the workstation is 99%
> > idle, no network traffic, just waiting for the server to
> > respond.
> >
> > Server: Intel Vero Beach, Dual Xeon HT, 1024 GB, 1Gbit
> > backbone, raid.
> >
> > Workstations: Tyan Thunder, Dual Athlon 2400, 2048MB, 3Com
> > 10/100, Quadro FX, uSCSI. All latest drivers and
> > patches. The users of these stations are all local
> > administrators, and I've even tried upping them to domain
> > admins.
> >
> > HELP!!!!
> >
> > John Bilton
>
>