Delayed network Browsing

[PoliMalaka]

We are having trouble on some W2K Servers, W2K Pro and WinXP pro workstations with delayed network browsing. SOmetimes up to 15 seconds before the contents are displayed. All instances of this have mapped network drives.
Typically it is manifested as a delay in the contents of My Computer being displayed. It also happens when selecting the "save in" or "look in" pull down menu during a save as or open operation in an application such as MS Word.
We have an all HP Procurve network infrastructure with a gig backbone. An NT 4.0 Domain infrastructure with 3 DCs. Wins runs on a W2K server and it seems to be running fine.
Not all workstations and servers have this problem, although we are noticing it more and more.
I don't think this is a faulty networking device as all of our switches are connected to an HP 4101 via fiber and the fact that it only affects certain workstations.
Any ideas on what to check?

 

[fuller772]

Sometimes I have ran into the same type of problem with machines that have mapped drives to servers that no longer exist on the network. Any chance you have old mapped drives on those particular systems? Or different DNS settings for the same machines? just a couple ideas.

-Fuller

 

[PoliMalaka]

DNS for 90% of our workstations is handled by the DHCP server. I was sure that browsing via the "network neighborhood" was handled by WINS.

Also, our logon batch files are very standard and do not have any out dated entries for old servers.

 

[TidyTrax]

I agree with fuller, i have seen this problem before as well, and it always relates to mapped network drives that no longer exist or that cannot be connected to - when network drives are mapped by a batch logon script, and the entry is removed from the script, unless the drive is then re-used or removed from the users profile then the drive will still appear as part of the users profile.

 

[Dollie]

I too have seen this issue quite a bit in the last month in addition to increased file saving times (up to 30 seconds to save a simple file). We have added 2 new users to our network, and I've already gone through the whole load balancing act. We've made no changes to mapped drives, and have eliminated that as an issue.

I'm back to banging my head and telling my users that the flux capacitor is rebooting and that I'm checking the hyper-drive.

Any ideas other than mapped drives?

 

[TidyTrax]

Possible DNS problems?????? Network issues?!?!? Whats the ping statistics like across the network???? Try pinging a host name internal and external, then try on just ip address. Might start to lead you in the right direction

 

[PoliMalaka]

The network is screaming along at a gig with 100MB to the desktop with very few collisions, so i was able to rule that out from the begining.
I think outdated mapped network drives are the cause.
I did some testing with one workstation and was able to clear up the problem after removing some old entries.
We have recently removed some older NT 4 servers which were used for applications etc no longer being used.