How do you monitor Bandwidth across large network?

[zynizen]

Hi,

I'm managing an office here, with about 15 to 20 computers, but the network load is overwhelming. I have a dual wan connection, but its only 10/100 mbit, seems the employees lately say its slow, and connections accessing server folders are slow between all of them.

My question is, how can I manage or view how much bandwidth is coming from certain locations to see where the bottlenecks are coming from?

Aswell, is there anything I can do to "speed" things up? I will be getting a cable installer in to re-wire the office with gigabit ethernet, but that won't be until summer, possibly june.

I need some sort of LAN load manager or some sort of program or network device physical or virtual or something. How do I know how much bandwidth is coming in/out

Thanks for any advice you can provide!

 

[tipstir]

1. When last did you reboot the servers?
2. Defragmentation on Server Drivers over Shared Network
3. Whois using more bandwith within this small company of 15-20 PCs
4. Try this http://www.paessler.com/prtg/download
5. What are your CISCO 24-port switches set to 10 or 100TX Full?
6. Each client PCs are they set to Auto Sense or 100TX Full?

 

[zynizen]

rebooted the server (singular) about 2 weeks ago. Just did it today, because computers werent logging in properly.

you suggest defragmentation on shared drives? that could take days from the amount of data on here.

who is using more bandwidth? the server, and the lab is the most critical. about 6 computers.

netgear switch (singular) 24-port gigabit.

each pc is set to 100tx

 

[halo71]

This may be of no help, but I am in a similiar sized office. And when our network slows down it is usually due to someone on the internet downloading something or another, NOT work related. You may want to check on that as well. Just a thought.....

 

[zynizen]

I have been. and It seems one user had uTorrent installed. BUT, that was one user, with very minimal downloads, this could be an issue related, but I removed the software, and we have a Hotbrick Dual WAN router, with dual 8mbps down / 1mbps up and 3mbps up/down connections.

I tried that bandwidth monitor out, and im analyzing network traffic right now, but its monitoring the router. is there anyway to monitor or set it up to show all LAN connections, everytime i try to connect it to a PC on the LAN it just says cannot connect.

After rebooting the server again for another update everything seems to be working fine now.

One user also had an issue with CA security software firewall and still cannot get it to remove properly. says Error: 9039 cannot uninstall software.