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Alan B
Asked: 2012-11-17 06:29:31 +0800 CST

Diagnosing Server 2008 and Windows 7 LAN Speed

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I have a customer with Server 2008 in a VM, and maybe 15 Windows 7 clients. They are experiencing slowness when using an ERP system whose data resides on the server. The database in question is a load of shared files, as opposed to on a database server.

The network is gigabit throughout. I am told that the cabling is CAT5e or CAT6, there is some chance it may not be.

The switch is a 3Com 4200G, which is a managed device.

Initially I have used a tool called PathTest to examine raw LAN throughput. It's similar to iperf.

I ran a test between server and workstation, for 10 seconds, bidirectional. The results are:

enter image description here

Firstly from client to server I'm seeing what strikes me as a low-ish Mbps number, and what strikes me as a very low number from server to client. The numbers are consistent over the 10 or so times I ran the test.

Am I right in thinking they're low and if they are, where do I start looking ?

windows-server-2008

1 Answers

  1. Okay, the fix in this case was:

    1. Installed Server 2008 Service Pack 2 on the Windows Server 2008 in question.
    2. Re-enabled SMB2 on that server. It was possibly disabled originally to circumvent a known bug that caused file corruption with certain products when using Server 2008 or later with Windows Vista or later.
    3. Installed hotfix Windows6.0-KB2635024-x86 on the server to address another file corruption bug in SMB2.
    4. On each Windows 7 workstation, updated network drivers to most current version where needed (some were 5 years old).
    5. On each Windows 7 workstation, configured network card to disable interrupt moderation, and force to 1Gbps full duplex.
    6. On each Windows 7 workstation, installed hotfix Windows6.1-KB2618096-x86 to address a file corruption issue in SMB2.
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