We have a Windows 2000 SP4 server that processes files for a energy program. This server was P2V'd back on February 3rd and since then we have noticed a 25% degradation in performance. We were troubleshooting this morning and were running ping tests from the server against it's loopback. We noted that the ping reply times were averaging 10ms. We have 2 other Windows 2000 virtual servers in our environment and when we pinged each servers loopback they also returned 10ms replies. One of these is just a print server and the other a legacy application server with practically zero traffic. However when you do this same test from a Windows 2003, 2008, XP, Vista, or 7 the reply is 1ms. In my 10+ years in IT I have never noticed this or thought to pay attention to it. So it begs the question, is a 10ms reply on a Windows 2000 an expected ping response?

No 10ms is not expected on Windows 2000 or any other OS. Pinging the loopback or the servers local IP should never leave the NIC (you can successfully ping 127.0.0.1 without a cable attached).

As far as its concerned, the 10ms reply should have never come across.The replies that goes more than 1ms shows that there could be some issue of connectivity between the server and the NIC,that is the most probable reason and ultimately the best reason why this has happened in most of the places as well.Try changing the NIC and do a loopback test again.If the test results comes back as 1ms, voila! Problem solved :) - Still a Learner :) -