Cisco switch upgrade turns XP performance to crap

  • Thread starter Thread starter Barb G
  • Start date Start date
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Barb G

some network upgrades have created total disaster here.
we got gigabit feeds, the network was segmented to different subnets by
floor of the building, and a new Cisco switch was installed in one of
the FDFs that services 2 Windows 2000 servers.

There are now a handful of XP client workstations that are impossible to
use. After login, it's taking >5 minutes to see the desktop. Access to
files on shared, mapped network drives (to the two servers) is taking
forever. One client double clicked on a folder, and thinking it had
simply hung up, went on to do other things. 20 minutes later, the
window with that folder opened up.

I've compared configurations between machines that work fine and the
ones that don't, and I can't see anything really obvious. The BASIC
networking configurations are the same, though the hardware is a bit
different in many cases.

All are Dell's; Dimension workstations, Poweredge servers, some have
3Com NICS, some Intel....

I'm at a loss.
 
You should consider the relationships of the handful of XP client
workstations with problems:

Are they all on the same subnet?
Are they all on the same switch or switch type?
Are the Cisco switches programmed EXACTLY alike?
Are the problems only with a particular win2K server?
 
Kent said:
You should consider the relationships of the handful of XP client
workstations with problems:

Are they all on the same subnet?
No.

Are they all on the same switch or switch type?
No.

Are the Cisco switches programmed EXACTLY alike?
Click to expand...

No idea if there are Cisco switches in each FDF (2 per floor, 2 floors).
Just know that the NEW switch is a Cisco, and it's the one that connects
their Win2k servers. However, they have problems even with workstations
on that same switch, as well as workstations on the other floor.
Are the problems only with a particular win2K server?
Click to expand...

Hard to tell, because login is so slow, but it appears to be one server,
not the other.
 
From your answers, I would focus on the server that is having the
problem. There is likely something different about its configuration
that causes this bad interaction with XP. If it is a server issue, it
may be a SMB issue. There are several incompatibilities related to SMB
and XP with 2K.

If it is network related, check the IP MTU settings on the server and on
the cisco switch. If the cisco switch is fragmenting all the SMB
transfers, that would send performance to the pits. If the server is
using some jumbo gigabit frame setting that would guarantee
fragmentation to the desktops.
 
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