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Extremely slow workstations/server down

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by kfin

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Our school has four servers running Novell (3 on 5.0, one on 4.11) The one that has 4.11 on it is across the street from the main building. About 2 weeks ago one of the labs in that building became extremely slow when the computers start up. We werechanging the sign in to one of the servers across the street. It was about this time that we realized that one of the hard drives in the server was dead. The hard drive with the SYS volume is still running. Now the internet in that building is almost crawling. Could this server be causing this? All of the other buildings are running just fine. The one lab is the only place that takes a while for the computers to boot up, but the internet is crawling in the entire building. The check status on network connection show that we are still at 100 mb. Any help will be appreciated. We are going to delete the server since it was only used to keep the login information for that building. Do you think this will fix the problem?

7 replies

by maniskid

I might have a similar problem at home. Some of the network cables are not crimped properly (or streched) and cannot handle 100mb connections properly. The connection is still existent and some data gets through but on closer inspection there are more error packects that recieved packets.

To solve this (until I get hold of a crimper) I run at 10mb).

(probably not what you need to know but worth a try)

by pierrejamme

When you say one of the hard drives may be bad, is it part of the SYS volume? As in Mirrored drives. If it is having problems re-mirroring or synchronizing that is a sign of a drive going bad and will definitely cause login problems.

If it is a another volume, it should have no effect on login, because SYS handles all that.
How much space do you have on SYS, and can you do a purge to make more space?

If it is another volume, can you mount the other volume at the console, as in "Mount VOL1" for example?

What do you see when you type "Configure" at the console? Are your protocols bound to your network card (NIC)? Perhaps you NIC is dying, it happens! If you have IP bound try a ping from a workstation to see if it responds quickly

You probably shouldn't sign into a server, but the TREE, unless you have license restrictions. I didn't think schools had any.

Many, many other things could be causing the problem, do some detecting and report back.

by tbragsda

I would guess the speed has nothing to do with the NW server. You said that the drive was bad, but not when it went bad. Finding this drive is incidental to the speed problem.

Got access to a sniffer, or Fluke? You should look at the network, not the servers (unless your routing through this server). My guess would be a bad card on a workstation. This can cause much trouble. You can download SnifferPro or other like apps for demo, and look at the traffic. See what's happening. If youdon't have the skills on site to annualize this, get a consultant.

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