SSLLLOOOWWWW Network Performance with XP

[dgeesaman]

We have a network of XP workstations and desktop clients, probably around 50 devices on the subnet. 100-base-T.


We've been fighting very slow throughput when retrieving files from a network server. It's intermittent - when it's slow, it's very slow (3-10% network utilization according to Task Manager), and when it's working right it's quite fast (30-40% net. util.). So an assembly that is around 25MB, 100 files, takes 30s to load normally, and about 6min when the network is dogging. Right now we're running Wildfire3.


We've gone round and round trying to find a pattern or source, but it seems unrelated to network traffic, client, anti-virus, backup events, and all other usual suspects.


If anyone here has fought and won this kind of battle, I'd like to know how you won.


Dave

 

[looslib]

Are you using a PDM system or just native filing?

 

[dgeesaman]

Ben,

It's just native filing. Speed is one major reason we aren't using a full PDM system.

The problem also appears when downloading a group of files in windows explorer, but the problem disappears when a laptop is plugged into the place of my workstation.

Dave


Edited by: dgeesaman

 

[slashct]

Dave,
Almost sounds like one of your systems is whacking out the network. Without looking at your network here is where I would start.
First my guess is that there is a workstation or device that is creating havoc on your network. If you have network statistics look for the IP address that is using the most server/network resources, or if you have access to the switches and hubs look there as well to see the area it is coming from. This is vague because I do not know any of the hardware you have or network layout. Once you find the culprit than it can be many things, my guess is spyware or virus broadcasting.
What I have had to do before is actually unplug all of the systems, than one by one put them on, each time seeing what happens. In the end I had found that one of the network main lines was chewed by a mouse and for some reason was creating nasty collisions clogging the network.
I have also seen bad network cards bring down a network.

Jason

 

[dgeesaman]

We were testing to see if it was the network lines by plugging a laptop in where my workstation is. The laptop did not have the same problem. (I've also changed workstations in the last few months, and I've had and not had the problem with each computer). The netstat -s report gave little indication of trouble.

I'm beginning to think it's an interaction in the MS TCP/IP causing timeouts like the known delayed ack issue or something similar with SMB.

Dave

 

[slashct]

Dave,

Try putting a different network card in the workstation and disable the one that is in it. Could also be a bad card. Also see if there are protocols loaded that do not, what you can do is in the network settings un-check them, or in the windows setup un install them.


Jason

 

[damormino]

We also saw speed issues with Pro/E on Windows XP using the native Windows file system. We switched to Pro/E on Linux using NFS, and haven't had the problems since.

 

[mutrax]

Welll, that one kept me busy for a few hours last week. We use a Windows 2000-ish domain controller and it curses with the "webdav" funcioality of XP....





Disabling & stopping the "webclient" service on our clients did the trick...


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832161/en-us

 

[dross]

Since the problem only happens with some computers and not others (like the laptop), it's most likely a network configuration setup within each individual computer. Check and see if NetBios is being used. It sped up our system significantly when used.

 

[dgeesaman]

Thanks for the ideas.


Our sysadmins have informed me that the server in question is a Windows 2003 Server and it also functions as a PDC.


I tried disabling webclient, and it didn't affect things. I also enabled Netbios over TCP/IP (was set to use setting passed by DHCP) and it also had no effect.


The strange thing to me is that two of us are experiencing the problem, and when we got new workstations a couple months ago it was fine for a few weeks. Then one day it went to going slow again for both of us at the same exact time. It seems unlikely that if it's a setting or conflict, that it got changed for both of us at the same time.


We're keeping on it, and I'll post the results, if any.


Dave

 

[dgeesaman]

We found the answer, and it's different than our performance problems from this past fall. In our case it was a problem with the out-of-the-box version of our anti-virus software. Our sysadmin downloaded an incremental update and installed it and now things are flying again.


I guess I overlooked that since disabling and reconfiguring the anti-virus had no effect on the problem on our old workstations.


Dave

 

[dh138]

i had a problem similar to this last week. turned out it was the network card needing to be forced to full duplex.

 

[peturco]

hi,


most probably it's to late and i hope you have solved yourproblem. maybe it's not the same,but i hope it will help to somebody else at least. we had the same problem while retrieving files from net. using more search paths it was worse and worse.it took sometimes 20-40mins. we were trying allkinds of net tricks with no success.


finally wechanged this in config.pro:


use_temp_dir_for_inst yes


now retrieving of top assemblies takes less than 3min (14x less).


peter


p.s. it's so simply thing with huge problem. now we know that all this was because we use read only access for archive pro/files with our own data management. (w/o windchill,prolink etc)
Edited by: peturco