VERY slow performane on BL465c after inst. af W2K3 SP2.

[Drago Jankovic]

Hello all,

I having a performance problems, on BL465c SP2. servers after I have installed W2k3..
I have a mix of HP BL465c servers and Dell PowerEdge servers with no session limits set.
They are set up exactly the same. I am using Citrix Presentation Server 3.0 on Win2k3 R2.
Here's the twist.
I am having an issue with graphics and images in documents (PowerPoint, Word, Adobe, etc.). When scrolling through documents with images (pictures, screen shots, etc.) it takes a long time to display fully on the screen. It is extremely slow - almost unusable.
The problem only occurs on the HP blade servers running ICA, not on the Dells.
There are no problems when scrolling documents with images over RDP connections.
Thanks for any comments anyone may be able to contribute to this subject.
Thanks,
Drago

[Drago Jankovic]

The problem first occurred after installing SP2. When running W2K3 with SP1 the BL465c servers perform fine. The problem is SP2 related.

[HEM_2]

Drago:

SP2 installs the Microsoft Scalable Networking Pack (SNP) which enables TOE on the NC373i NICs. There have been some performance related issues with TOE. Ensure your NC373i NICs are at the latest versions. If still having problems, as a workaround disable TOE from the NIC settings and see if the problem goes away.

[HEM_2 · Accepted solution]

btw TOE is TCP Offload Engine and can be disabled within the HP Network Configuration Utility by going to the prperties of the NIC and under Advanced Settings, disabling TCP Offload Engine

[aboerup]

HEM hit this one on the head. I have had nothing but problems with the Scalable Networking Pack installed in SP2.
In addition to unchecking the "TCP/IP Offload Engine" I have also made it a habit of unchecking anything else that says offload on it as well as Receive Side Scaling"
In addition, for x86 servers there is a hotfix that will help correct other issues related to the Scalable Networking Pack. You can find that here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;936594

Best of luck!

[Drago Jankovic]

Hello Aboerup and HEM.

Thank you for replying on my thread. I have disabled TCP Offload Engine and it now feels like hitting a performance boost button when working with graphics and images in documents.

Thanks once again!
Your help is much appreciated.
Best Regards,
Drago Jankovic