Windows 2003 issues

[everton4europe]

Sorry this is a long one!!

I have a windows 2003 server (standard) on the latest up dates etc. It was working perfectly until 3 weeks ago. Since then all the connecting workstations have been hanging (about 57 workstation's). they will work fine for about 20 mins then they will all start hanging and only way to get them back is to restart the pc. There is no pattern to which ones hang. There is nothing showing up in the event log etc.

We have changed out av from trend to grisoft network edition. but i have 5 other sites on the same setup and non of these have experienced problems of this.

We have replaced all switches from dlink to netgear which helped the problem but it came back within a couple of days. also the server's network card has been replaced and the same happened. We have removed terminal services as we used to run these on some old pc's thinking for some strange reason it was a licence issue (as we only had 15 ts licences). This did not help. We have disabled the av and the problem of hanging workstation's still accurs.

Myself and a external company both agree that the problem is server based, but neither of us can find what the problem is. All hardware is working fine.

As far as both of us are concerned we have covered all eventualities, and next week we are taking the server out and doing a complete reset up of the server.

Has anyone got any suggestions which we might try to try and avoid this work!!!

[Quackers]

You say the client PC's "hang", what exactly do you mean by "hang" ? Can you say still press "ctrl+alt+del" to login but get no response? or they completly freeze? and no keys will work?

[ChrisH]

Best tools to start with are dcdiag and netdiag which you will have to download from microsoft. See if these tell you anything interesting.
I know you said you have replaced your switches but that doesnt mean there might not be another bad device on the network maybe causing broadcast storms. Do you see any erratic activity on your switches? Might be worth running a network analser like wireshark (Ethereal) as well to see if you can pick anything out.

[Dos_Box]

DNS, I'll bet its DNS.

[DMcCoy]

Try removing the AV rather than just disabling it.

[richard]

DNS, I'll bet its DNS.

I have to agree with you there.

[k-strider]

it sounds DNS'ish to me too... have you changed anything since it started breaking??

on the workstaions if you do ipconfig /all are the DNS servers listed your servers in AD that hodl the DNS?? Do you use DHCP ? if so is that correct so that it distributes the DNS servers as your AD DNS servers rather than say your Internet ISP DNS servers..

in DNS on the AD DNS servers does everthing look right.. look in the _mtds (yellow folder) or what ever it is.. (not at work cant check) do all the SRV records (or all records to be honest) point to your AD servers.

Do you use folder redirection GPO settings?
in taskmanager what is hoggin the CPU time if anythign when the freeze??

Please give us as much info as possible we are more likely to be able to point you in the right direction... also some one earlier suggested u rin dc and net diag.. let us know if it fails any off it...

[everton4europe]

DNS, I'll bet its DNS.

It is not DNS as the dns is doing it's job right!

Also there is no erratic activity on the switches.

When they hang you are unable to do a ctrl alt del

[Geoff]

Sounds like DNS. The hang is probably caused by GPO's failing to apply correctly. Again pointing at a DNS/replication problem.

[Dos_Box]

What do the event logs show? GPO problems?

[PiqueABoo]

Get the system to yourself for an hour, switch the server off, switch the workstations on and if any of them hang then it's probably not the server.

[everton4europe]

What do the event logs show? GPO problems?

no gpo problems either

[djm968]

Could be looped network points causing a broadcast storm.

[everton4europe]

Finnally solved it. the cpu in the server had died. what was happening we put load on the server then the cpu went mad then all the clients fell over! Replaced cpu and everything fine

[k-strider]

how on earth did you work that one out!!!!