Slow internet accessing purplemash

[discoveranother]

Hi all,

 

Just a question about wireless and internet speed. I know there are many factors involved, but just wanted some feedback. Have a school who access Purplemash on their laptops, only 10 laptops, Dell 3550s, which I've found to be decent laptops. It's a small school. They have 5 wireless access points as per below link in each of the 4 classrooms and hall.

 

https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/23888-ubiquiti-uap-ac-pro-5-cloud/

 

I have no clue what internet speeds the school gets via BT as the school bought into this themselves. I had the following message from the head:-

 

The laptops will log onto purple MASH if one is logging in or if they are on different access points.

When multiple laptops are logging onto the site, they all stop on the white screen. it's as though there is too much traffic and they are bottlenecking on the Wi-Fi.

Is this something that can be fixed or is it the broadband Speeds?

 

I have to dig a little deeper to find out a bit more info as I don't know the schools internet speeds and if general internet access is ok etc.

 

Thanks all

[Oaktech]

Your individual APs in itself is unlikely to be the bottleneck, however it's uplinks might be? Sticking it on a 10 or 100mb uplink might cause this.

 

Is it a 100mb switch? I had a school buy a refurb switch cheap because it had loads of POE ports but it turned out to be 100mb and the individual links were slowing the APs down.

 

If they are on different access points and your the experience improves I would certainly look into the uplink - I've also had an issue where a tech unknowingly switched an AP onto a 100mb only POE injector that was previously supplying a phone, thus limiting the uplink of the AP and it looked verrrry similar.

[discoveranother]

Your individual APs in itself is unlikely to be the bottleneck, however it's uplinks might be? Sticking it on a 10 or 100mb uplink might cause this.

 

Is it a 100mb switch? I had a school buy a refurb switch cheap because it had loads of POE ports but it turned out to be 100mb and the individual links were slowing the APs down.

 

If they are on different access points and your the experience improves I would certainly look into the uplink - I've also had an issue where a tech unknowingly switched an AP onto a 100mb only POE injector that was previously supplying a phone, thus limiting the uplink of the AP and it looked verrrry similar.

 

Thanks.

 

There is only one switch onsite, it is the following:-

 

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/service-provider/managed-switch/tl-sg3428mp/

 

Running an internet speedtest from the school on premise server showed download speed of 19.34mbps and upload of 5.52mbps !!!

 

Thanks

Edited December 5, 2023 by discoveranother

[Oaktech]

Thanks.

 

There is only one switch onsite, it is the following:-

 

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/service-provider/managed-switch/tl-sg3428mp/

 

Running an internet speedtest from the school on premise server showed download speed of 19.34mbps and upload of 5.52mbps !!!

 

Thanks

 

That would certainly cause you the issue you're seeing - none of our schools are on anything less than 80/40 and that includes our similarly sized infant school. Seems unlikely it's the switch.

 

It would still be worth a check of your internal links though - perhaps it's old cabling? I've got a link being retired shortly that negotiates at a gig but then if you try and transfer down it the switches start to show massive packet loss and you can't actually get more than about 60mbps of sustained transer out of it.