Boarders slow system...

[dave.81]

Now not really sure whether this is going to be away around this or not but here goes.

When our boarders head back to their dorms at around 5pm the entire system grinds to a halt and runs really slowly, both internet and file access.

We have always had this problem although sometimes it's worse than others but our Bursar has started moaning about it so have to look into solutions.

Would moving to seperate VLANS for boarders/curriculm make any difference? At the moment it's all on one.

Backbone of the system is HP Procurve switches that we installed last year so dont think they are the problem.

Anyone have any ideas on how i can find exactly what is slowing the system or some ideas on how to solve the slow down?

Cheers

[K.C.Leblanc]

Have you started looking in the logs of your procurve switches and seeing which ports are busy? It also might be worth using something like wireshark to see what sort of trafic is bouncing round the network at a given time.

A separate VLAN will probably prevent your boarders slowing down the main network. They'll probably slowdown their own segment and they might well also stil satuated your WAN connection. But untill you find out what actualy causing the issue you can't be certain.

EDIT: Another thought, are they looping the network?

[Arcath]

A seperate vlan is definatley the way to go.

One thing that came to mind are they domained school machines? or ones that boarders bring from home?

[dave.81]

Unfortuantly they are their own personal laptops, yes i know the kinda problems this causes but thats the way it is.

I'll look at wireshark see if i can make out how to use it.

The reports on the HP dont appear to show anything out of the ordinary around the time it happens.