Wireless networks and large groups of laptops

[maniac]

The too many access points issue is one we're actually going to investigate this coming week. The wireless network was installed by ourselves (cost restraints) so a proper site survey wasn't done (I did it the best I could with available resources) We've basically placed an AP at every location where there was an AP on the old wireless system.

 

Obviously as technology has improved, the coverage is generally better per AP so it is likey we may have overcrowding on the airwaves in some areas. The other problem is we're on 3 floors, and I know the APs on different floors are directly below each other.

 

You know what, I havn't actually checked the AP logs, that's a damn good suggestion. Always the obvious things you overlook hey!

 

We have tested these laptops on a different make accesspoint (old buffalo 54g AP), and we got simelar results although it was slightly better, maybe due to the fact it was on its own SSID, and very close range to the laptops. Still more than 7 or 8 machines and it caused simelar results.

 

We would have a roaming access point on its own SSID to go with the laptops and be plugged in the classroom where they're being used (all our rooms have cat5 cabling to them) The problem with this is they might not all be in the same area at once, so we would need 2 or 3 of them, then there's the problems of showing teachers how to plug them in the set them up, then there's the problems of it interfereing with our existing wireless infrastructure as well.

 

@alan-d

We also get them to stagger logins at the moment, it makes it workable, normally 4 at a time we've found works well, 30 seconds or so apart seems to be enough for our system.

 

Thanks for all the comments and advice people, very good to see that the sorts of suggestions being mentioned are the sorts of things I was thinking of trying or changing anyway.

 

Mike.

[gwendes]

@ maniac

laptop 1 hey im going to conect to this AP

laptop 2 hey im connecting to this one, get your own

laptop 1 you bully

 

7 min later....

 

laptop 1 aaaahaa! found one My precious :twisted:

 

This is my exact situation atm but multiplied by 30! 7 minutes becomes over a lesson... I can't change SSID on the access points because they are all managed by the switch on a single SSID...

 

Another tech is going to learn about Aruba from Aruba soon - hopefully they will have a solution

[alan-d]

alan-d

 

200 laptops, how many of them are mobile classroom and how many are staff?

 

All 200 are mobile. We also have another 72 staff laptops and about 10 for general use and for students to sign out & take home.

 

We are using Buffalo APs but have tried others which had no effect. apeo is spending half term reconfiguring the whole school to see if it can be improved a little but we doubt this will be the case but it will keep SMT happy

[eean]

We have 3 Laptop trollys. We have DLink 2100AP all over the school and that communicate with them. Most i have seen accessing 1 point was 58 laptops and the pupils did not complain of running slow or anything.

 

We did have problems at first with slow and freezing, but redirecting ONLY My Documents and Favorites folder stopped all those problems. The appdata over wireless was killing it. I think they want more trollys, all three are always in use.

 

We had problems with freezing for the first few years. Usually, after about 20 minutes of problem free use, a couple of the computers would just freeze (usually as they wanted to save). If the computer was just left, it was fine after about 1 minute. Some programs, however, didn't like this and it crashed them. Not sure if it was new firmware or new drivers (we have dlink g650 cards, and the UK drivers stink - use the ones from tsd.dlink.com.tw), but I doesn't do it any more! We never had app data redirected but could it be that yours are still freezing but, because you don't redirect app data, you don't notice it so much?

Also, I always have them on a timer plug (it's all POE, so its easy). This way they get a good hard reset every day. I think that helps most technological appliances!

[plexer]

Also, I always have them on a timer plug (it's all POE, so its easy). This way they get a good hard reset every day. I think that helps most technological appliances!

 

Lovely non hi tech solution to that I love it.

 

I would do something with snmp or ssh to script and automated power cycle of them.

 

Ben

[maniac]

Also, I always have them on a timer plug (it's all POE, so its easy). This way they get a good hard reset every day. I think that helps most technological appliances!

 

Also that is the ultimate in securing your wireless network, physically turning it off when you're not using it, genius!

[eean]

The original reason was that water managed to get itself in the wire. It then seeped its way along the wicking, to the socket where it short circuted the POE and melting the socket and killing the poe adaptor and ap. The instillation company were very, very sorry, and replaced it all. Thought it may reduce the fire risk if they were off at night. But there are other benefits too!

[SimpleSi]

My experience is users * computers * wireless == large chance of problems

 

Used everything cheap Buffalo, Dlink, Dabs economy - I wouldn't rely on any of them to work more than about 90% of the time or 90% of a class of laptops (Max I have is 15 - 2 per pupil).

 

Just too many variables - XP/AP/wireless cards/chipsets.

 

Even matched manufacturers stuff AP/card behaves differently in different laptops (usually school buys 10 and then another 5 the next year).

 

I could believe that industrial strength kit works but I have none of that.

 

I know if I was running a business, I wouldn't entertain anything costing less than £100 because I wouldn't trust it to work reliably.

 

However, in my primaries we make do and they do work a lot of the time

 

regards

 

Simon

[kxv2020]

I have had experience with cheap designed for home Wireless Access Points and there are not a good solution in a large school or even a small one for that matter.

 

Although we haven't used industrial strength or blue socket or cisco WAP we have used Netgear PROSafe which I have found to be good value but also provide a decent amount of coverage and usability for many concurrent connections.