Re: Clients hanging, file share browsing slows, logins take minute


"cjhaugen" <cjhaugen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:F975BE34-6100-442C-8878-C758CA8D7768@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm sorry to say we had another incident this morning.
It manifests itself a little differently every time, always with the same
result as client computers become unresponsive, file shares stop working (at
different times for different people.) It seems to take 40 minutes to an
hour between when I first hear of an issue from someone to it hitting
everyone equally. This time when people tried to open Word files on the
network they got a "Downloading file..." message and the file would never
open. I've never seen it just impact a particular file type before.
Eventually it impacted everything.

Any other things you would suggest checking?


Hmm, unfortunate to hear.

See if the following about the TCP Chimney may be the cause.
======================================================================================================
Slow file transfer and connectivity with Windows 2003 SP2, Windows 2008, SBS 2003 SP2 and SBS 2008, and Vista
System Error 64
System Error 53
Shares disconnect after a server has been running for a period of time such as a couple of weeks and a restart fixes it temporarily.


This may be due to the new RSS TCP Chimney Offload feature enabled on 2003 SP2 and newer servers.

TCP Chimney Offload overview:

TCP Chimney Offload is a networking technology that helps transfer the workload from the CPU to a network adapter during network data transfer. In Windows Server 2008, TCP Chimney Offload enables the Windows networking subsystem to offload the processing of a TCP/IP connection to a network adapter that includes special support for TCP/IP offload processing.

TCP Chimney Offload is available in all versions of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. Both TCP/IPv4 connections and TCP/IPv6 connections can be offloaded if the network adapter supports this feature.

Two ways to handle it.
1. Disable RSS using the netsh command (preferred)
2. Disable RSS in the registry

1. Disable RSS using the netsh command:
(From http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951037)

netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled
netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
Reboot the server

2. Disable RSS in the Registry
(From http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927695):

Add a DWORD registry key value for
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\EnableRSS
and setting it to 0. A reboot is required to make the value go in to effect.
Set DisableTaskOffload in the Registry
Use the steps in KB 904946 to create a DWORD value for
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DisableTaskOffload
and set it to 1.
A reboot is required to make this value go in to effect.


More info on the subject...

Information about the TCP Chimney Offload, Receive Side Scaling, and Network Direct Memory Access features in Windows Server 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951037

You cannot host TCP connections when Receive Side Scaling is enabled in Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=927695

Vista slow after SP2 installed on Windows 2003 Server (SBS or non-SBS) or using Windows 2008?
http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/04/04/vista-slow-after-sp2-installed.aspx

Windows 2003 service pack 2 known issues on Small Business Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555912/en-us

Susan Bradley: Vista slow after SP2 installed?
http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/04/04/vista-slow-after-sp2-installed.aspx

You experience intermittent communication failure between computers that are running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=904946

Common Networking Issues After Applying Windows Server 2003 SP2 on SBS:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2007/04/24/common-networking-issues-after-applying-windows-server-2003-sp2-on-sbs.aspx
======================================================================================================

Ace


.

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