Troubleshoot Customer Reports Slow Desktop

If a customer reports a slow desktop or a poor desktop experience, follow these steps to determine the root cause and resolution.

Local User Issue

Internet Connection

This is by far the most common issue that affects performance. Bandwidth is important, but latency and packet loss is much more important. There should be no packet loss and latency should be stable.

• Test for packet loss and latency from user’s local computer and not the virtual desktop. Latency should be stable, but it depends on the user’s distance from the data center. It should be under 100 ms in continental US.

  • www.pingtest.net (requires running Java)

  • ping www.google.com -t

  • Look for dropped packets

• Test the bandwidth. For good performance, the bandwidth should be 5 Mbps (down) or more. Each concurrent user needs 0.5 to 1.0 Mbps.

  • www.speedtest.net

• If issue cannot be identified with standard tools, use ADARMon (Nerdio Private Cloud only).

  • Sign out of the user session and sign back in the desktop using PCoIP (instead of the default Blast Extreme protocol).

  • Launch ADARMon from \\nerdio.int\netlogon\Start_Adarmon.cmd.

  • Double-click the blue cloud icon in system tray.

Once issue is identified as internet connectivity, work with the customer to narrow down and resolve the issue and/or get the ISP involved.

LAN

If connectivity slowness persists, and you have eliminated the internet as the root cause (for example, plug a laptop directly into the router and it exhibits no issues), then troubleshoot the local network.

• Ping www.google.com -t (to establish a baseline that there is a connectivity problem).

• Ping the local default gateway to see if there is packet loss within the network. If so, explain to the customer what you found and that it’s a local network issue that needs to be resolved. If the customer has a vCIO package, escalate to Tier Two for further troubleshooting.

Client Device

If user is experiencing slowness problems, but others on the same network are not, then it is most likely a local device issue. Confirm this to be the case by connecting the user from another device. Work on troubleshooting the local device or its network connection.

Virtual Desktop Issue

CPU

If the CPU is pegged or highly utilized, note the process that is using the CPU the most. End the process or reboot the virtual desktop. If the problem returns, troubleshoot the offending process. If the offending process is a standard Windows component (for example, explorer.exe) and is spiking for no reason, then report a potential physical host issue to Tier Two support.

RAM

Note the name of the processes using a lot of RAM and reboot the virtual desktop.

Disk

Open the Resource Monitor and look under disk storage for the disk queue length. If it exceeds 1 or 2 consistently, then you should suspect a disk problem. Reboot the virtual desktop. If the problem returns, escalate to Tier Two support.

Hosted Service Issue

Microsoft 365

If Microsoft 365 applications (for example, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive) are only affected, direct the user to the official Microsoft M365 status website to investigate the issue.

Other Website or Service

If a particular website or online service is slow but everything else is running properly, confirm the slowness from user’s local computer or your own desktop. Explain to the user that the slowness is coming from the service provider of the hosted application/website. If it’s slow only on the virtual desktop, escalate to Tier Two support.

Physical Host Issue

If many customers are having slowness issues at the same time, escalate to Tier Two support.

Data Center Issue

If many customers are having connectivity latency at the same time, escalate to Tier Two support.