Updates, bandwidth, problems loading sites in IE

We have 10 machines all updating at the same time in our internal system.

I have monitored the bandwidth usage and overall it sits at about a constant
120 Kbps.

We have a leased line, 6up/downMb.
Our firewall router is a dedicated pfsense box that can easily handle
serious traffic.

Our laptops are wired through gigabit Procurve switches.

In theory, these updates should not cause major stress on our system, and
all the figures I have suggest that they are not.

HOWEVER, what I am finding is that I am having problems connecting to other
sites, any, not specific.

Multiple attempts are required to load a site, and the behaviour is sluggish.

Can anyone explain why this should be the case when we have more than enough
bandwidth to deal with all the updates??

I know we shoud stagger the update time for each machine, but that will come
later. But back to the main question, *WHy would these updates make
connecting to other websites, using IE a problem?*

All machines running XP Pro, SP2/3

Any thoughts welcome.

Regards

Argint

Argint wrote:
> We have 10 machines all updating at the same time in our internal
> system.
>
> I have monitored the bandwidth usage and overall it sits at about a
> constant 120 Kbps.
>
> We have a leased line, 6up/downMb.
> Our firewall router is a dedicated pfsense box that can easily
> handle serious traffic.
>
> Our laptops are wired through gigabit Procurve switches.
>
> In theory, these updates should not cause major stress on our
> system, and all the figures I have suggest that they are not.
>
> HOWEVER, what I am finding is that I am having problems connecting
> to other sites, any, not specific.
>
> Multiple attempts are required to load a site, and the behaviour is
> sluggish.
>
> Can anyone explain why this should be the case when we have more
> than enough bandwidth to deal with all the updates??
>
> I know we shoud stagger the update time for each machine, but that
> will come later. But back to the main question, *WHy would these
> updates make connecting to other websites, using IE a problem?*
>
> All machines running XP Pro, SP2/3

No - actually with your setup - you should have a WSUS server.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Have you confirmed it's a bandwidth issue and not a CPU issue?
If you stop the Automatic Update service on the machine where you are doing
the web broswing does the problem go away?

-Eddie