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compsol1993

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Two Identical HP Servers, One Has Very Slow Network Speeds

Hello,

We are running two HP Windows 2003 Server Standard Editions.  We backup both over the gigabit network from a third master server, a slightly newer Dell server.

Server_1 is identical to Server_2 except Server_1 has 2 GB of ram, Server_2 only has 1 GB.

Server_1 is backing up at a rate of 2 MB/min.
Server_2 is backing up at a rate of 350MB/min.

As you can see, Server_1 is running much slower over the network.  Here is what we have done so far:
-Rebooted servers and all network hardware.
-Swapped network cable on Server_1 and Server_2.
-Connected Server_1 to a different network switch
-Replaced network card on Server_1
-Stopped all Antivirus/disabled firewall on Server_1

None of these factors has changed the performance of Server_1.  Looking back at our logs, this has been a consistent problem since November 2006, possibly further back.  

We have looked over the process lists, and do not see anything different between the two servers except for some proprietary software we are running.  Stopping this software does not affect performance.

So, does anyone have any ideas on what we should look for as the problem.  We feel pretty confident it is not a malware problem, but are willing to consider it if someone has any advice.  Several virus/spyware/rootkit scans have determined the computer is clean.  We are not seeing any typical signs of a malware infestation.

Also, when we copy a 900 MB file to that server, over the network it flucuates in the time it will take to complete.  Such as:
5 minutes remaining ...  50 minutes remaining ... 10 minutes remaining ... 67 minutes remaining
Copying the same file off of the machine seems to yield a rate of at least 200 MB/min, so the problem appears to only be related to incoming traffic.

Thanks for any advice.
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natoka
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compsol1993

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I will investigate this more tomorrow, but right now I checked both servers, and both show that the network card is operating at 1000 Full Duplex.  The switch is not managed and the teaming function is not enabled in the HP system tray.
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If they are truly identical you can seperate the hardware from the software by swapping the disks from one to the other, there will be tempoary MAC address problems and Windows licensing may detect the hardware swap but it may shake it enough to expose something that is at fault. Of course it may all slow down after that but that would help isolate the problem even more.
There does not appear to be any abnormal network traffic from Server_1.  I also checked Server_2 just to see, the traffic levels are about the same.  I tried the Sysinternals tool, would the others show something different?

As for the identical hardware, the hard drive configuration in each unit is a scsi raid array.  I'm reluctant to move that configuration, but I agree, that would be a good test.  
Well, we put all of the servers on a single gigabit switch, and now the speeds seem to be back to normal.