Windows Server 2008 R2 refusing connections

[XA04]

I've set up a server at home using Windows Server 2008 R2 (Enterprise edition). Before you start calling me a pirate, it's genuine.. got it for free via my uni MSDN account

Anyway, an odd problem.. after around 24 hours of use, I can't connect to it using remote desktop. The network shares won't connect either (something about insufficient resources?) however, I can ping the machine fine and if I plug in a physical monitor,keyboard and mouse... everything appears fine but I can't browse the web on the machine..

Things running in the background are BitTorrent, usual antivirus and such. It's mainly just a file server though.

Could it be anything to do with CAL's? Don't know much about them but could BitTorrent be causing too many connections and causing the server to refuse any more?.. only a physical restart seems to fix this whole problem!

Thanks in advance.

[madman045]

I would say there is a very good chance it's the torrent client, try running the server without the torrent client running for a few days to see if it improves.

[XA04]

I would say there is a very good chance it's the torrent client, try running the server without the torrent client running for a few days to see if it improves.

Certainly gonna do that if that fixes the issue then what should I do?

I'm pretty certain it's not because BitTorrent is clogging the connection down, because I've told the scheduler not to download between 4pm and midnight, so the connection would be fine when I try to connect via RDP..

[Splash]

Insufficient resources was often down to a memory leak when I last saw that error. Which would have been on NT server...

What are the specs of the machine, and what apps do you have running? Which specific BT client client are you running? Any specific errors in the eventlog? Which antivirus?

[XA04]

Insufficient resources was often down to a memory leak when I last saw that error. Which would have been on NT server...

What are the specs of the machine, and what apps do you have running? Which specific BT client client are you running? Any specific errors in the eventlog? Which antivirus?

Sorry I should have made that error clearer. This is what happens when I try to connect to the mapped network drive on the client. Definitely no memory issues on the client side.

Specs of machine:
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo2
RAM: 1gb (not a lot, but enough)
Various HDD's
Processor: AMD Athlon 64, 3500+ (I think,.. off the top of my head)
Graphics: Old school 8mb card, mainly for diagnostics... use over RDP so can't tell anyway.

Antivirus is Nod32.

Will have a look at the event log, I assume this is under admin tools?

[Splash]

Sorry I should have made that error clearer. This is what happens when I try to connect to the mapped network drive on the client. Definitely no memory issues on the client side.

aye, that was how it used to present itself in my example too. If you open Task Manager (or even better install Process Explorer from Sysinternals and use that) what's the memory use like when you experience the problem?

Antivirus is Nod32

Is it possible that this could be the cause? I've never used their server products so I have no idea what they're like.

Will have a look at the event log, I assume this is under admin tools?

Type "eventvwr" (no quotes) in the search box and allow the UAC prompt.

[Splash]

Hmmm... I'm thinking potentially AV

Host-based Intrusion Prevention System – ESET delivers host-based intrusion protection through a combination of capabilities including self-defense, advanced heuristics, web access protection and protocol filtering. In particular, advanced heuristics stops potentially malicious code by analyzing their behavior and disabling them before they can do damage. ESET's self-defense prevents malware from disabling our software and weakening the security of the user's system.

Not sure how configurable this part is, but might be worth taking a peek at the config.

[XA04]

aye, that was how it used to present itself in my example too. If you open Task Manager (or even better install Process Explorer from Sysinternals and use that) what's the memory use like when you experience the problem?



Is it possible that this could be the cause? I've never used their server products so I have no idea what they're like.



Type "eventvwr" (no quotes) in the search box and allow the UAC prompt.

Oh right, fair enough. I'l have to let you know with the memory usage tomorrow as I already rebooted and is fine at the moment. Although at the moment the highest is the AV at 50mb and others well below it. However I've used this same copy of antivirus for an old system and it was absolutely fine (although that was the 32bit version, maybe the 64-bit version has a bug... but it's up to date...)

The only errors I can see are from Google update (will be for Chrome). But I don't even keep that open in the background.. I guess it's another memory leak to look for though.

Theres also a few for terminal services... mainly printers (none connected though). Terminal services are related to file shares and RDP though are they not?

Hmmm... I'm thinking potentially AV



Not sure how configurable this part is, but might be worth taking a peek at the config.

Will have a look at that now. Thanks.

Edit: I can find various settings as mentioned in your quote above.. but it just looks like standard antivirus scan settings... not really a melt down evacuation procedure haha.

[lodore]

Hello,
have you set the reccomended exclusions for nod32 for windows server?
I cant seem to find them atm.
Btw you can get other free goodies from microsoft from being a student by signing up to dreamspark.

[XA04]

Hello,
have you set the reccomended exclusions for nod32 for windows server?
I cant seem to find them atm.
Btw you can get other free goodies from microsoft from being a student by signing up to dreamspark.

Could you explain that in a bit more detail? What am I supposed to be excluding exactly?

Cool, will look into that! Edit: Looks like everything on there I get via MSDN anyway

[lodore]

Could you explain that in a bit more detail? What am I supposed to be excluding exactly?

Cool, will look into that! Edit: Looks like everything on there I get via MSDN anyway

reccomended settings for running nod32 on server OS

[XA04]

reccomended settings for running nod32 on server OS

Thats great, thanks. Have followed that so will see how it goes when I try to connect tomorrow!

[madman045]

From my own experience with BT clients on my own PC (Vista X64), even with the torrent client closed, it still hammers the network connection, basically flooded the TCP/IP stack and without a reboot, I couldnt even surf the net.

[XA04]

Well I've left bit torrent closed over night and it's not letting me connect again. So definitely doesn't seem like uTorrent

any other ideas?

[MaddAussie]

is anything showing up in the eventlogs of either machine? Windows firewall turned off?

[madman045]

What other background applications do you have running on the machine? I assume when you left BT off over night, you stopped it from running all together and rebooted the machine so that it has not run at all?

Have you turned the powersave option off on the network card itself?