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Help an Old Dog with a network problem

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by shiny_topadm 1 view

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We are transitioning to some Web-based applications, I am from a traditional client-server environment; and I am the network admin [AIX & Windows]. I'm concerned that this recent problem could cause a serious customer-interaction problem in the future and I would like to learn what to do!

Two days ago we were having some ISP-related connection problems and 3 users out of 25 had special trouble: They said "the internet is very slow". My observation was that their computers were very slow: (all desktops w/ WinXP and IE 7, but different hardware configs) with more than 1 tab active and msn.com in one tab, the 3 systems were so slow as if to be unusable. It was like something wouldn't load in the msn window and it caused the page file usage to peak, which seemed to cause cpu usage to max, too.

I compared configs, checked for missing or improperly applied updates, different browser add-ins, scanned for malware, adware, virii, etc. and spent several hours to come to the conclusion that I couldn't find anything wrong (but the symptoms were still there and repeatable). Other systems were working normally during this time. The next morning, with no further changes on my part, everything was completly normal on every system.

My question: can anyone point me somewhere to learn how to tell what I missed? My network hardware (firewall, router, switch) is currently under review; would a "managed" switch have been able to give me any more info to show where the trouble might be?

Thanks for any help you can give.

10 replies

by thumbsup2

... reboot overnight? Since this will often clear any maxed out page file issues, I'm just curious if you tried rebooting during your troubleshooting?

by shiny_topadm

The three computers in question did not reboot overnight and I had done that earlier in the day (with no change in performance). Thanks for the suggestion, though.

by oh smeg

I know it shouldn't cause this to happen but it sometimes does.

Col

by shiny_topadm

Network traffic was probably very heavy, too. We had been completely without internet access for about 2 hours, all users had seen "enter network password" windows pop up (in Outlook) and various other "Unable to locate URL"-type errors as you would expect. Local ISP had resolved their problem and all came back to "normal" except for those three (and anyone who had entered a wrong password in those Outlook dialog boxes!).

by oh smeg

Sometimes large Downloads take precedence over small Packet lots and they just get lost in the mix.

I've seen that happen previously but as soon as the Load decreases they return to normal well at least what is supposed to be normal. :)

Col

by sue t

task manager to see what was using the cpu and to see what all programs and services were running?

by shiny_topadm

were running, nothing that didn't belong, and iexplore.exe was the highest cpu percentage. I should point out that when I first went to each PC, the system was so slow and bogged down that it took about 4-5 minutes (not exaggerating) to get "task manager" to display.

by sue t

HP printer software do this. To fix that I uninstall any of it I do not need and still be able to print. Also, download and run autoruns from Microsoft to see what all is actually running, you might be surprised to see alot of things that start automatically that you can stop and that may help. Also you might try process explorer from MS to see exactly which program is using what as that may give you some clues. Have you tried running system file checker so if some system file has gone bad it will be replaced? How about rebuilding the tcp stack? It might just be faster to save the person's data and reimage the computers. That way if you still have the problem you can be fairly sure it is hardware causing the problem. Are these computers on the same switch as other computers that aren't having a problem? You might also try connecting them on the switch in a port a good computer is using to see if ports are going bad and try different ethernet cables. Just some ideas.

by shiny_topadm

Thank you to all who cared to read and make a comment. All the suggestions were good, and were the things I knew to try and/or check. I will include this incident in the discussions with vendors re. networking hardware and monitoring software. I'll also keep digging for ways to know "whats going on!"

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