Win2k Advanced Server and a few little problems

[Gollo]

Ok well I have a friend who is having a few problems with his network. (Keep in mind that I'm a third party and do not want to touch anything in his network because I have no idea how the guy that set it up set it up. Did that make any sense?)

Background:

He owns an autobody shop and has an office managment software that uses a database on the server and a special software for submitting information and billing request to insurance companies. This also runs off of the server. Both systems integrate so that they can track cars as they move through the shop. Anyways he just (within the last couple of months) upgraded the server from nt to 2k advanced he also upgraded the network hub (only ran at 10mb) to a 10/100 hub (I told him he got screwed here cause his computer guy should have gotten him a switch). All IP's are issued from the firewall/router issued by his ISP (all ips are private 10.10.10.xxx). All systems in the office are xp pro with the exception of his which runs win2k pro.

Problem(s):

His problems are that for starters when he logs into the network from his win2k system it literaly takes 5-10 minutes AFTER he inputs his username and password to get into windows. I wasn't able to test on any of the xp systems to see if this was the same but one can only imagine. Network speed isn't an issue because I did a crude test of bandwith by copying 200+MB of data from the server to his system and it ran about 4-5 minutes. In my experiance that is ok. His profile in Documents and settings is only 86mb which is large but not huge.

Also when he opens up IE it takes about 30 seconds before it will display the first page. After he gets browsing it seems "normal" but if you close IE and then go back into it you'll have to wait another 30 seconds. I tried to ping the server (named "server") from the command prompt and I got a "can't find it" error.

Also the business managment software and the autobody software are very slow as well. The autobody software stores several pictures of the cars damage with the customers info, insurance info, etc. This is all stored on the server. He demonstrated to me the software and it took close to a minute for it to open the entry that contained only 5 images (even at 1mb an image (which they are not) this is really slow for ANY network).

Solutions:

I have never touched 2k server so I'm not even gonna pretend I know what I'm doing but what do you guys think is the problem and how would I go about letting my friend know what to tell his computer guy?

Server specs are roughly what follows:

CPU: Celeron (at least that's what the sticker said on the front of the gateway box) 1+ghz
Memory: 128mb (at least that's what I think it was. 2k server had it in bytes not in MB when I went to system properties). I told him he should get more memory.
HD: Enough
NIC: Intel pro series.

Thanks guys.

[Low_Level_Owl]

We had similar problems with Windows 2000 Professional taking anywhere between 20-30 minutes to log a user in to their computer. The problem we had was the domain controller we had the client computers joined to. Are they using Active Directory? Are the computers in the AD?

[Gollo]

Originally posted by Low_Level_Owl
We had similar problems with Windows 2000 Professional taking anywhere between 20-30 minutes to log a user in to their computer. The problem we had was the domain controller we had the client computers joined to. Are they using Active Directory? Are the computers in the AD?

I do not believe they are using AD. The lan consists of only 8-12 computers. I'm not exactly sure about anything other than what I posted because I only looked at it for like 15 minutes. Thanks for the advice though.

[NooNoo]

Sounds like a few problems with dhcp and dns on the 2k server.

[Ya_know]

Originally posted by NooNoo
Sounds like a few problems with dhcp and dns on the 2k server.

Although, if they aren’t using Active Directory, and DHCP is handled by the router…none of this is handled by the server…right? But DNS could be the issue...

[Gollo]

Originally posted by Ya_know
Although, if they aren’t using Active Directory, and DHCP is handled by the router…none of this is handled by the server…right? But DNS could be the issue...

Correct. I do not believe that the server is issuing ips because of the way the router is connected to the network (it's a pretty cheesy setup if you ask me).

[bbtech6650]

sounds like the DNS has issues...as the 2k and xp boxes use it to find an entry for dc's on the network

[silencio]

@echo
DNS is usually the culprit
@echo off

[Gollo]

Originally posted by silencio
@echo
DNS is usually the culprit
@echo off

Ok and where do you go about turning that off? Thanks.

[Low_Level_Owl]

Actually, you would want to turn it on.

[Gollo]

Originally posted by Low_Level_Owl
Actually, you would want to turn it on.

Ok and how would I go about turning it ON then?

[NooNoo]

A little bedtime reading for you

Dns is under Networking and Communications.

[Gollo]

Originally posted by NooNoo
A little bedtime reading for you

Dns is under Networking and Communications.

Thanks noo. I'll do a little research and then let the guy know whay he needs his computer guy to do (I would do it but I don't want to step on any toes).

What I don't get is why get dumped his nt server for 2k. Shoot he could have even used linux running samba and it would have been cheaper. I don't see the need to update the server to 2k but hey that's just me.