Start up Speed

M

martytoo

New Member
Hi I'm in charge of a small network running 11 PC's (10 with XP Pro 1 with Vista Business) on Client Server system the server is an IBM with 2GB of RAM and a P4 running at 2.8 GHz and Windows 2003. The issue is that I am getting complaints about is that the computers are too slow, the main complaint is that it takes about 5 minutes for a client to start up and log on.

The network is in a local Community Centre where everything is run by volunteers including myself. I have a considerable knowledge of PC matters and have built more than one computer, my knowledge of networking is relatively limited but growing through experience!

I would welcome any suggestions that would help speed things up somewhat, particularly if they won't cost anything (or very little).
 
take it everyone tries to log-on at the same time?

hows it set-up

all computers and the server to a single switch?

you may need to upgrade the network card on the server

p.s
are the computers new and operating systems been been freshley installed?
 
In my experience slow startup was caused by slow IDE hard drives. See what speed they are running and consider upgrading them to faster hard drives.
 
djy said:
take it everyone tries to log-on at the same time?

hows it set-up

all computers and the server to a single switch?

you may need to upgrade the network card on the server

p.s
are the computers new and operating systems been been freshley installed?
Click to expand...

It makes no difference whether 1 or 11 log on together they're still slow
Yes to Single Switch
I'll look into the network card issue
PC's are fairly new mostly Acer Aspire 1000's small form factor models about 2 years old with 512 MB RAM
Minimal Software onboard Office 2007 Photoshop Elements 5 and Oxford Dictionary and CD Burning software
One Acer Power 1000 has 2Gb RAM and assorted other software for special project work etc.
 
yeah.. the biggest issue is if your using either a network hub, or a network switch... and hub sends all the packets at once to all ports, then looks for the MAC address it was sent to. if you have a lot of computers hitting the hub all at once it can cause a lot of traffic... a switch learns and know what computers are where... so make sure you have at least a 100mbps switch.. make sure your using at least cat5 cable... it probably wouldn't hurt to defrag the server... use JK defrag... its a good piece of software...
 
ukulele_ninja said:
In my experience slow startup was caused by slow IDE hard drives. See what speed they are running and consider upgrading them to faster hard drives.
Click to expand...

Difficult most machines areUltra small form factor and a nightmare to try and upgrade, given a few thousand pounds I'd replace them all! :)
 
7angofragger said:
yeah.. the biggest issue is if your using either a network hub, or a network switch... and hub sends all the packets at once to all ports, then looks for the MAC address it was sent to. if you have a lot of computers hitting the hub all at once it can cause a lot of traffic... a switch learns and know what computers are where... so make sure you have at least a 100mbps switch.. make sure your using at least cat5 cable... it probably wouldn't hurt to defrag the server... use JK defrag... its a good piece of software...
Click to expand...

I'll give JK a shot to see if it improves things won't be till next week at the earliest though.
 
could make sure the computers dont have any the programs loading on start up?

might make a small difference
 
djy said:
could make sure the computers dont have any the programs loading on start up?

might make a small difference
Click to expand...

Apart from the usual plethora of Windows files I think the only start up prog is Photoshop Elements background monitor.
 
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