Slow computers

  • Thread starter Thread starter Russell DeMarco
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Russell DeMarco

Why are my W2K & WXP computers so slooooow on our NW6 network? Our W98 and
WNT computers are fine. We're using a mixture of client 4.83 sp1, sp2e, &
4.9. All are slow. Any ideas?

Thanks.
 
START with this checklist, make sure you do EVERYTHING on it, then report
back -

make sure DS is clean & healthy

make sure you are using the latest nwclient & patches
http://support.novell.com/filefinder
http://download.novell.com

make sure you have the server updated to the latest patches & oplocks level1
& 2 are set correct

SLP is setup properly on the server, & distributed properly to workstations
via dhcp (yes, you do want to set this up)

Internal DNS setup properly (yes, you do want to set this up)

that speed/duplex on *everything* is hardset, & hardset correctly

latest drivers for everything (nic/chipset/controller/etc)

check cables, make sure everything is cat5e certified, not using flat
cables/cat3/etc (ive seen it in a lot of places)

purge all volumes & turn off compression

make sure there is more than 10% free on EVERY volume

make sure bios/firmware to everything (server/raid
cards/switches/workstations/etc) up to date

run through http://www.ithowto.com/novell/clientspeed.htm
 
Thanks for the response. I've got some questions 1st if you don't mind:
What are Oplocks level 1 & 2 & how are they set? (Our volumes are NSS).
What is SLP? (We use our Firewall device (Watchguard) for DHCP). How do I
set up internal DNS? I believe the WG router does this? Finally, any idea
why MS Word loads very, very, very slow on some W2k workstations? This just
started after I patched the server w/ NLS603FT.exe and ran my 1st purge
(it's a 2 week old system). B4 this, Word loaded fine.

Thanks again.

Russ
 
SLP - service location protocol, useful even in a small 5 person office all
the way up to the largest companies around. (how many users do you have
anyways?) http://www.srvloc.org/,
http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/10014570.htm,
http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/10024591.htm. You
set this up, then push the options out via dhcp.

DNS - you want this setup internally, you can use sys:public\dnsdhcp console
(run the setup from there) or iManager for dns (& dhcp).

DHCP - you want this setup internally, because you can push out dhcp options
to clients that your WG router cannot, such as SLP.

OPLOCKS -
http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/10085899.htm youll
want to make sure server & workstation are configured.

Office slow - once you run through the list especially the last item, we
will revisit this if it is still the issue. Other things that may make it
slow is office itself isnt up to date (you do have enterprise version & roll
it out/update via AIP right?), and drive mappings to slow remote servers or
servers that no longer exist. If you are using nwclient49sp1, make sure you
rolled it out via ACU with nmas disabled (www.appdeploy.com has ACU info)

purges - btw, there are many utilities out there that allow you to do
automated purges, check out the links section under www.abend.org
 
Have this problem at work. Our problem is where a network
adapter in a users machine has both the Netware Client (in
our case 4.83 sp2) and Client for Microsoft Networks
installed. The temporary fix is to un-install Client for
Microsoft Networks on the adapter in each machine.

We have a couple of non-netware servers mapped to our
machines which are lost to the user in this process, so if
you take this option you will lose the ability to network
to non-Netware machines. In our case they are not mission
critical servers - but still a nuisance.

Currently our option is to have a fast machine without
access to some files or a slow machine :-(

Apparently this is due to Microsoft not letting Novell
have necessary code, so they do not integrate well. Our IT
department is implementing a new SAN which will do away
with the Microsoft servers "some time in Q2"
(read "December" ;-)
 
Not my job and have no access to the systems. I am a
humble user. IT dept get all uppity if I try and do
their job for them! Still, we are a very, very big
international organisation and (according to IT) have
a "hotline" to Novell who have stated that the problem is
well known and currently there is no solution.

Unless you know otherwise of course! In which case tell
Novell and get it fixed.
 
ive seen many a lazy/trapped admin blame the vendor, when the fix was more
than just a single file or single reg change, with that network optimization
list i posted i rarely ever have any issues whatsoever, small to large
networks, it just takes some effort..something lazy/trapped admins are
unwilling/unable todo.

Forward my list to them, that should help them get started:)
 
Will do that. Just out of interest, have you any idea why
disabling Client for Microsoft Networks on a particular
client connection would solve the problem? Does this
point to any particular problem area?

The IT admin guys will be more amenable to suggestions if
I can save them some work!

The "fix" that our guys currently have in hand is to
create a huge Novell based Storage Area Network at vast
expense so that they can do away with all Windows Server
gear.
 
securitywise, longterm, administration, etc, doing away with all the windows
gear would probably be best. As far as slow connections, when you have
multiple providers, protocols, etc its going to slow things down
considerably just because you have more stuff on the wire. Thats why when
nw50 came out in 1998 people moved to pureip as quick as possible. Heck, off
the cuff, even just a drive mapping to a slow server will kill local machine
performance...seen that happen more than once, especially with msoffice
products, they grind to a halt trying to query all drive mappings.

--
Thanks,
Keith V. Klenke
--------------------------------------------------
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to let you know there is a site that may be of some use. A
lot of people who work with Novell products, and are VERY good with
implementations and troubleshooting, frequent the site. You can find it at:
http://www.abend.org
 
Keith covered pretty much everything here...and then some.

I'll share my experience and what our PSE told us to do. We had the same
issue with slow performance with some of our clients, we were told to hard
code our clients and set File Caching and Opportunistic file locking to
"OFF" (in otherwords disabling it). It helped...but issues returned with
NWClient 4.9SP1 and our XP clients...

For us...the "work-around" of removing the Client for Microsoft Networks"
was absolutely not an option.

Good luck
securitywise, longterm, administration, etc, doing away with all the
windows
gear would probably be best. As far as slow connections, when you have
multiple providers, protocols, etc its going to slow things down
considerably just because you have more stuff on the wire. Thats why when
nw50 came out in 1998 people moved to pureip as quick as possible. Heck,
off
the cuff, even just a drive mapping to a slow server will kill local
machine
performance...seen that happen more than once, especially with msoffice
products, they grind to a halt trying to query all drive mappings.

--
Thanks,
Keith V. Klenke
--------------------------------------------------
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to let you know there is a site that may be of some use. A
lot of people who work with Novell products, and are VERY good with
implementations and troubleshooting, frequent the site. You can find it at:
http://www.abend.org
 
Update on this. After many complaints the IT department
did some more forensic work - to little effect.

The only fix they have is still to uninstall Client for MS
networks on the client PC. Disabling it by removing the
tick (check mark) from the box under local area connection
properties makes no difference, neither does the presence
or otherwise of mapped MS servers/drives on the PC's LAN.

The problem is only manifested on PC's running Netware
client 4.83 SP2. Those running the older client 4.83 SP1
are OK. There are no plans to move to client 4.9,
although I gather there are plans to move to Netware 6.5
when the SAN is implemented.

Strangely, "unloading" the Norton Antivirus Corporate
Edition speeds up write performance, but it still takes
around 30 seconds to read/open a file. This is regardless
of the size - 3mb or 64k, makes no difference.

Ho hum.
 
savce 801? how do they have it configured on the workstations & servers?
they have the workstations setup to scan network drives (hopefully not)?

i think they really should look into their slp, if it is "unscoped" then it
is wrong to begin with, they should set it up correctly.

--
Thanks,
Keith V. Klenke
--------------------------------------------------
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to let you know there is a site that may be of some use. A
lot of people who work with Novell products, and are VERY good with
implementations and troubleshooting, frequent the site. You can find it at:
http://www.abend.org
 
Sorted!
Apparently the Novell Client 4.83 sp2 did actually have a
number of bugs which were causing conflicts with Client
for Microsoft Networks. These were resolved with the
Service Pack 3 which came out in early Feb, about the time
I was originally writing.

A further slow down was apparently caused because in
creating their standard Win2k Pro PC image our IT
department had installed Client for MS Networks after
installing the Novell client.

The resolution was to make sure that the MS client was
installed on all machines then simply do a full re-
installation of the Novell Client 4.83 sp3 over the top of
that.

Now everything works fine. It was actually me who brought
to their attention that SP3 was out. I am not sure they
would have realised otherwise. Maybe I should get a
consultancy fee from IT!
 
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