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We started with simply RDP using RDC v6 on Windows XP Pro workstations that have dual monitors. (We spanned the monitors for larger desktop area) (Res is 1024X768 for both monitors)

Our issue is that we get these sporadic slowdowns where it appears the server is hung and is not responsive. These last about 1-5 minutes sometimes longer.

Odd thing is, one user might be hung, or even get disconnected briefly, and another user working on the same server is moving along just fine! So it does not appear to be resource related. The load is very low on these server. Perfmon was run for many weeks and the load was averaged around 4%.

We thought it could be due to RDP not being able to handle the resolutions, so we moved to ICA. We are still experiencing the issue and with ICA, we actually see the clients disconnect, then autoconnect immediately.

We have a simple setup of all pc’s/workstations going into 4 Netgear 10/100 switches, and all servers into our backbone switch (GB Catalyst 2960G).

We have tried removing Symantec AV from the Citrix servers, replacing Cisco switch, moving to Citrix from RDP, upgrading the ram on the client pc’s. All to no avail.

I can understand when sessions disconnect over a WAN, but on the LAN side I have never seen this be an issue and we are at a loss. (Over 8 months know with this issue)

Anyone have any suggestions??

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the tip. We ran wireshark on the server and found some bad checksums in RDP packets. It actually referenced TCP Offloading. We have the notorious Broadcom NICs on here. We have disabled Receive side scaling, and both TOE options. We’ll see if this does it. It seems like I have been screw$d many many times by TOE. It’s very good at being hard to detect when there is a problem. Thanks again and I’ll let you know how it goes.