We have a single file server in a single domain on our network. However, when department heads and the CEO try to save files from word and excel over their VPN connection, they are very slow. It is so slow the program comes up as not responding, and appears to crash. When we were test saving files on the file server we see the same problem with word and excel documents. We only see the problem when we save a document that has been updated, but not when saving a new document. When we follow the exact same steps on other servers we do not see any speed problems.
The only difference I have found between the servers is that the file server has an intel network team using the two onboard intel nics. Our other server that we tested with has a broadcom network team using two onboard broadcom nics. I do not have another server with an intel network team setup that I can use to test. One strange thing we have found is that running a packet sniffer while saving the files on the file server and the test server, the file server seems to be listing all of the files in several directories during the test of "open, modify, save."
File server and test server.
Windows 2003 server.
Domain member.
Symantec Antivirus corporate 10.
Until now, our network manager had been working on this, and I just got brought into it. To be honest, I do not even know where I should start looking for the actual cause of the problem.
Best Answer
Turn off any scanning of "network drives" that the Symantec Antivirus software on the client computer allows. I've had some situations where I've seen the SAV 10 client generates gratuitous traffic when talking to a file server that didn't have SAV installed, because the option to scan "network drives" when the server didn't have SAV installed was enabled.
Sniffing the traffic is probably your best place to start, at this point. You might want to run Process Monitor on the client, as well, to see what it "thinks" it's doing.