HodgeHi Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 Hello, after reading through this: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-server-2008/17259-any-problems-server-2008-a.html t prompted me to start this thread. My windows domain was rebuilt last year and everything re-installed. When it was fresh it was zippy as hell and the clients too. But nearly a year on and it all seems very trudgy now. Networked apps seem slow. Users logging on seems slow. A few things have changed since then but nothing major. It isn't really under a lot of stress from users. They mainly use the internet but saying that it is the only DC for 50-60 machines maximum. Any ideas what could cause this slow down over such a short period. What could i do to resolve it?
Ryan Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 How often is it rebooted? How many services (Exchange, IIS, etc) is it running? What kind of profiles are you using?
bizzel Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 I'd try giving your DC the standard checks we use to tune up our servers: Reboot Check if real-time antivirus is enabled. We settle for a scheduled scan of important areas nightly because it's quite a performance hit. Ensure DNS scavenging is enabled, old records can build up over time Search for and disable user accounts that haven't logged on in 90 days Run the disk cleanup wizard and remove temporary files Run a full chkdsk on the server's drives Defrag all server drives, especially user profile areas If you have roaming profiles, disable cookie uploads as they really slow down logons Give it a full virus scan to be on the safe side Check you've got unneeded features turned off, like Previous Versions if you don't want that as they have a disk overhead Remove any old, unused group policies from AD Just a few ideas there to get you started, it can be hard to trace general slowness.
zag Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 [*]If you have roaming profiles, disable cookie uploads as they really slow down logons Some good stuff in there, how do you disable cookie uploads? I've noticed they are building up on our profiles.
HodgeHi Posted June 2, 2008 Author Posted June 2, 2008 Thanks for responding. I was in a meeting so couldn't reply earlier. @Ryan. I try to leave the server as long as possible before restarts but it has been rebooted in the last 2 weeks and yet still seems quite slow. The server is the only DC in the forest which has DHCP, DNS, AD, SAV (Symantec), App server, User homes, User shares, print server and RIS. Nothing else springs to mind at the moment. I have a second member server that runs the SIMS. net backend and also hosts a secondary DNS. The Server specs are Intel Xeon 3.0 Ghz Quad core with 2GB RAM. and 1Gb network connection. @Bizzel Reboot (check) Realtime AV (will Check) Ensure DNS Scavanging is enabled (Check, no re-fresh 3 days, refresh 4 days) Search for User accounts (will Check) Run Disk Cleanup (wil Check) Run Full Check Disk (will Check) Defrag (will Check, i meant to do this over the last half term actually) Roaming Profiles (Half-Check, use mandatory and staff roaming). Give full Virus scan (will Check) Unneeded features (will Check) Remove old Unneeded GPOs (will Check) Thanks for the extensive list of checks. Will do each one and monitor the server.:-)
zag Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 Depending on the size of your establishment its always a good idea to seperate the domain controller from the file server. This will speed up the network a lot and also provide much more redundancy in the event of a critical failure.
bizzel Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 A few more things that popped into my head... If you're putting all those roles onto one server, and there's no reason why you can't, I'd pop some more ram in it just to give it some headroom. How much free memory is showing in task manager right now? What's the network link to the server? 100mb, 1gbit? If your server has dual NICs you might be able to team them and almost double the traffic you can handle during peak times.
HodgeHi Posted June 2, 2008 Author Posted June 2, 2008 Depending on the size of your establishment its always a good idea to seperate the domain controller from the file server. This will speed up the network a lot and also provide much more redundancy in the event of a critical failure. I will be looking to get the Profiles and other shares (except the Apps) onto our XRAID at some point. That should speed up the disk access a little. A few more things that popped into my head... If you're putting all those roles onto one server, and there's no reason why you can't, I'd pop some more ram in it just to give it some headroom. How much free memory is showing in task manager right now? What's the network link to the server? 100mb, 1gbit? If your server has dual NICs you might be able to team them and almost double the traffic you can handle during peak times. We have a new server arriving shortly so i will be looking to migrate the server 2003 over to 2003 R2 to see if it helps any. I will also be looking at the total amount of RAm that we have in there but we have ordered 2 so it may be able to get a secondary DC on the go to ease the strain a little. The new servers have 2 network sockets and so hopefully i can get the NICs joined and working together. I have purchased the Switches to do this already as i was going to do the same on the Xserves. Just need to work out the best way to do this. Anyone know how to configure link aggregation on a Linksys SRW2048?
mullet_man Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 Some good stuff in there, how do you disable cookie uploads? I've noticed they are building up on our profiles. I would also like to know
stephenwelch Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 Sounds normal for Windows! Do all the checks on the server but it is probably the xp clients. You could also try pagefile defrag on the server and win xp. Use the sysinternals tool. Other stuff you could try is netdiag and dsdiag (i think). Also check the order of the services provided by your network card - network connections and advanced tab. Good luck. S
HodgeHi Posted June 2, 2008 Author Posted June 2, 2008 Thanks for the responses. I too would like to know how to disable cookie uploads for future reference.
bizzel Posted June 2, 2008 Posted June 2, 2008 I don't know how to do that on a vanilla network, I'm afraid. CC3 gives you an option in the management console so there must be a GPO setting somewhere or an ADM template for it.
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