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Network access suddenly slowed

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by gregg s

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We use a Win 95/98 peer-to-peer network. The network access of one PC suddenly slowed to a crawl--files that normally take seconds to load now take minutes, but only on this PC--the rest of the PC's on the network are fine.

We use DSL, thus the Internet access on this PC is through the same NIC, cable, port on the hub, etc as for the network access and the Internet access seems OK--normal speed. Consequently, I do not believe that the problem is hardware based.

Other PC's on the network can acces all of the files of the PC in question, and this access speed seems normal, so the problem seems to be only "one sided".

There is one PC on the network that the slow PC cannot see, nor find. However, the "missing PC" can access the files on the slow PC.

I have checked the network protocols and have removed and re-added them to no avail.

When I noticed the severe decline in speed I had just finished changing the default E-mail service in Ineternet Explorer from Hotmail toOutlook. I have changed back to Hotmail. I don't think that this probably has any bearing, but thought I should mention it.

Needless to say, I have rebooted several times.

I am completely baffled. I will appreciate any and all suggestions.Thanks in advance.

Gregg

4 replies

by stillatit

This is a collection of things to check, some admittedly longshots, and in no particular order.

Did you download the Hotmail mailto software, and is it autostarting when you log on and having trouble finding Hotmail?

Does the slowness happen immediately when you log in, and before any programs start? (If so, you can eliminate IE, Outlook, etc. as the source of the problem.)

Is anything else running? This includes automated disk scan, defrag, etc. If you reboot the machine on Friday night and leave it on over the weekend, is it slow on Monday when whatever ran is finished?

TechRepublic has an article on all the places to look for auto-starting programs. Search for 'runonce' on TechRepublic.

Have you run a virus scan lately? If not you should, and hopefully with a recently updated virus definition list.

Check the DNS settings on the slow machine. If the first DNS address is bad, it will, on each lookup, time out the first one then use the second one.

Check the WINSsetting to make sure it is consistant with the rest of your network. Again, if it is there and wrong, there will be a delay as it tries to find it.

Check the hosts and lmhosts files on the slow machine for incorrect entries.

Use winipcfg /all to make sure that your machine has the settings you think it should have. Make sure the IP and subnet masks are both correct.

Watch the hub traffic lights as the slow machine tries to pull a file. Is it the same pattern as when another machine pulls a file, or are you seeing a bunch of collisions?

(continued in comment)

by stillatit

(continued)

This sounds stupid, but check the cables from the card to the hub, and each piece if they are separate. You could have a flakey receive pair that causes lots of retransmits.

Try replacing the NIC in the slow machine. It could be going bad.

Check the virtual memory on the slow machine. Make sure that Windows is handling it, and make sure that there is enough free space on the disk for it.

On a related point, check in the System control panel applet that the system thinks it has as much RAM as you think it has. You could have a SIMM not working, and the system is ignoring it, and running slow as a result.

With regard to the PC that the slow machine cannot find, if you put an entry for it in the slow machine's lmhost file, does that fix the problem?

Good luck.

by gregg s

The problem is solved! We discovered a VB script in the startup folder--network.vbs. When removing this file, everything worked normally. Any idea of what this file is and how it got there??

You gave a lot of good troubleshooting tips. Thankyou for your efforts!

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