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When a slow link is detected, Group Policy processing changes from its default behavior--namely, certain Client Side Extensions (CSEs) will not process when a slow link is detected. The table below lists the default state of each CSE around slow link detection:

By default, the slow link threshold is set to 500Kb/s. This is the speed of the link between a computer that is processing Group Policy and the domain controller that is providing the policy. You can change this threshold by modifying the following two Administrative Template policy:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy\Group Policy slow link detection

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy\Group Policy Slow link detection

Note that slow-link detection is performed per-computer and per-user. The process by which Windows uses to determine the link speed is the following:

A computer will ICMP ping the domain controller that is providing it policy with three pairs of pings. Within each pair, the first ping is of 0 bytes of data while the second contains some amount of data (usually 2048 bytes). The difference in response time between the first and second ping of each pair is averaged and, based on the amount of data that is sent, a link speed is derived. Note that if any ping returns in less than 10ms (milliseconds), then a fast link is automatically assumed.

Note that if you disable ICMP on your network, then Group Policy processing will fail unless you disable slow link detection by setting the two Administrative Template policies to 0 above.