Slow Performance

[Hamins]

Hi,

We have a Windows 2003 sever (Xeon 3ghz, 1GB DDR-RAM, 72GB SCSI), that acts as a Domain Controller, file/print server, DHCP, DNS, authentication etc.. Basically its the only server around, and handles everything. We have around 35 workstations, and all the data (Approx 20GB.) is centrally located on the server. The users are complaining of a slow network ? I'd like to know whether the sever is being over-loaded. What would be the best way to monitor the load on the server/network, and check the performance ? All the workstations are 2.6Ghz or above with 512MB RAM. Could this be a DNS issue ? How does one improve performance ?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[cluberti]

What specifically are the complaints, and when do these periods of "slow" performance occur? I'd say using perfmon to monitor the server load (download perfwiz and follow the wizard prompts to create a perfmon log the easy way ), as well as trying to determine if it's all clients at once, some clients some of the time, and what times of day they see this issue. You need to find out what "slow" means first (very important, as users generally define "slow" differently than an administrator), and exactly how "slow" it is compared to "normal" usage - if it's only a few seconds slower to do things, is that really something you need to troubleshoot? If it's minutes or hours, then yes, you have a problem .

Another thing I like to tell people to do when file servers become "slow" is to uninstall the antivirus software from the file server AND the client machine, and see if that clears it up as well. I/O contention can be a real pain, and antivirus filter drivers are the cause of most I/O problems you'll come across.