Slow network utilisation - please help
Hi all, I have 2 identical Dell poweredge 2950 rack mounted servers.(Windows server 2003 - SP2) I can copy a 20Mb file from a client machine to server1 in less than 1 second. The other server (Server2) takes about 11mins to copy..!!! When I check task manager\network utilisation during the file copy process I have the following. server1 networkutilisation reaches a max of 45% which is great server2 networkutilisation reaches a max of 0.33% (less than 1%) which is VERY bad. Both servers have 3 NICs, 2 are broadcom and one is intel. I have tried all 3 NICS. I thought I found the problem when , on Server2 the broadcom NICs had TOE (TCP offload engine) set to 83%. Where as server1 had nothing set.. However changing this setting caused the broadcom NICS to remove themselves from Device manager. I then tried just using the Intel NIC which had nothing to do with TOE but still the same issue.. Have now tried the following also with no luck.. Changed Network cable from server2 to switch. Changed switch that server2 connected too. Tried using the Intel NIC Installed SP2 for windows server 2003 Tried safe mode (with networking) still very low network utilisation.. Does anyone have any ideas ? Thx, Ray..
July 7th, 2010 6:33pm

Hello Ray, Could you please make a local file copy and check the performance, just to see if the issue is network related. If you experience slow network performance, please see this article: An update to turn off default SNP features is available for Windows Server 2003-based and Small Business Server 2003-based computers http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948496/en-us Best regards, HarryThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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July 7th, 2010 9:02pm

Check the NIC settings. Verify the NIC is not set to 100Mbs and compare all settings against other NIC settings. Check the switch to see what speed the NIC is connecting at....do not use a windows utility or third party utility. The switch should report 1Gbs. Verify the switch ports settings match the NIC settings. (ie Auto on both NIC and Switch, or 1Gbs on both, etc). Non-matching settings should be changed to match. After that use Network Monitor during a file transfer. Run the re-transmit wizard to see if you have high restransmits, or use netstat -s every 5 secs during a copy to check for any errors or network re-transmits. Isoloate both servers on a single switch and re-run the tests. This elimiates the network configuration/topology as an issue, allowing you to focus on just the servers involved. Don't focus on Utilization, compare time it takes to copy file. If you can do it from server A to wks X in 20sec, then use the same wks and test copies to Server B until it copies in 20secs. If you verify all of this and are still having any issues, post back any information you discover.
July 7th, 2010 10:01pm

Hiy Guys, Thx so much for your help.. I finally got it sorted. When you mentioned " verify NIC is not set to 100Mbs".. Well the NICs are connected to a 100Mbps switch...So I though, I'll connect it to a 1Gbps switch. When I did I was STILL connect at 100mbs. Checked advanced settings on the NIC in device manager..speed & duplex option was set to 100 Mbps full.. I changed this to auto and bang! file copy is really fast. I then connected back to 100Mbps swith and voilla !! still fast. So changing the advanced option (in device manager speed & duplex) from 100Mbps Full to AUTO has sorted it...All 3 NICs had their Duplex set to 100Mbps Full... I have now set these to AUTO Strange thing is that the server that I have had NO issues with also had 100mpbs Full set on each adapter and yet this server was fine ? I have now set these NICs also to AUTO.. Thx so much for your help !! Ray..
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July 8th, 2010 1:12pm

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