Network Slow

[BigBEEF]

Hi,
I have recently been haunted by complaints about our "computers being so s..l..l..l..o...o...o..w...w...w...w!!"...I know its most likely network issue, it happens at odd times, no pattern. I administrer 18 branches which each have theyr own local domain server and one disaster recovery site and run an inhouse database, exchange email and intranet over LAN/WAN(frame relay), most documents are stored domain/file/print server local on the LAN. I cannot seem to pin point the source of the problem. The comments are very inconsistant, varying from the database being slow, emails being slow which can indicate the frame relay(WAN) being slow but then we even get complains about opening documents stored on the network which is on the LAN. I'm stuck! There is one particular branch that I cop most of the complains from, mostly about the databse being slow.

Any thoughts? Is there a network monitoring program I can download or purchase that will monitor network activity? I know this may be a hard cos there are potentially hundreds of points that are a possibility, including hardware (hubs, switches, routers, frame etc).

Any thought or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Interlaced]

Yea there would be hundreds of possibilitys and my first thoughts where hardware, maybe there is a nic somewhere on the network only operating at 10mbit who knows, i guess u just got to do some hard diagnosing.

 

[elmonomalo]

Try updating your serverbackbone to 1 gigabit or more, make sure your nic cards are 10/100 full duplex, and that the routers are 10/100 also... and cabling is cat5-5e.