Time for a managed switch: storm control/vlans

[BBrian]

Hi,

 

I've had some issues in a school where individual computers have crashed and flooded the networking, bringing it down on everyone. Symptoms would be webpages failing to load and no icons on their desktop (i.e. no connection to the file-server/redirected profile). Once the offending computer is disconnected from the network, everything returns to normal.

 

This has happened with two computers in the past year, one having crashed leaving a black screen and one crash as Windows was booting (applying computer settings). I've updated their BIOS and re-installed Windows and everything has been working since. Unfortunately we have ~35 of these computers so I expect the problem will strike again.

 

Our network is all unmanaged switches. One central one with our servers, broadband and other switches plugged into it. The other switches are 3 gigabit and 3 100 Mbit 24 port switches with a wireless AP plugged into each of the Gb switches.

 

I need a solution that will handle the next time something like this happens without all student, teacher and admin computers going offline. I've never managed a managed switch before but at first glance, it seems Storm Control on each port another switch is connected to might handle it. It was also suggested to me to use v-lans (that I should already be using them!) but, again, it's a bit beyond my experience. I guess I'd give our (Windows) DHCP server as many IPs as there are v-lans but I'm not sure what we'd do with our gateway, which is controlled by the department of education (Ireland) though we can request setting be changed.

 

Any tips would be appreciated, or any reading that sounds about my level!

[win]

I can offer 3 tips.

 

- It sounds like a virus that is flooding your network so make sure you have a good AV, even the MS ones are good enough

 

- Could be a faulty network card so make sure your NIC drivers are up to date.

 

- Get a managed switch and enable Spanning tree Protocol. It is possible you have a loop that is bringing your network down, STP will eliminate this.

[Muz]

Possibly a driver issue with a laptop on standby. Get switches with STP support as quick as possible..