BenShortland Posted February 9, 2012 Posted February 9, 2012 (edited) We currently have 30 Samsung N150 Plus Netbooks of which take 15 - 20 minutes to authenticate against the domain and log on. Currently running 802.11g on 3 channels. All other laptops log on instantly. There are no errors in the logs and we have tried the following to try and find the source of the issue... Checked Logs - No issues Booted them up in a different area of the site which is known working on wireless Cleared all profiles Changed o/s (from XP Pro to 7 Ent) Checked the managed wireless switch logs Next step is to look for updated drivers and try on ethernet. Will post results Anyone have any ideas on the matter? Edited February 9, 2012 by BenShortland
BenShortland Posted February 21, 2012 Author Posted February 21, 2012 Ethernet is alot quicker (4 minutes) and when a single N150 Plus is attempting to authenticate it's fine, but any more than 10 and it causes the slow login. After looking further into this the Wireless Module doesn't support A (of which our switches are set to use A and G due to load). I am looking further into this. Samsung also recommend using the manufacturer software (atheros in this case) opposed to Zero Conf and the default Windows Wireless Manager due to issues. I am also going to try a Wireless G dongle in the netbook to see if that will cause the same results.
accura2000 Posted February 21, 2012 Posted February 21, 2012 Our netbooks here we very similar, Samsung NB30's. Had major trouble getting logon times down so gave up with logging them onto the domain. They now all have local group policy settings, and children log on with limited accounts. On this occasion every child in the year group has their own netbook so individual user names and passwords that match the domain usernames and passwords were set up and each netbook labelled individually. Logon scripts and group policy setup shares, printer, default homepages, remove access to windows damaging places such a command prompts, control panel etc. For the odd half dozen here and there, all the netbooks have identical pupil login names and passwords that again match the domain details, same group policy settings, share, printers etc. Because the local username and passwords match the domain username and passwords match, we do not get authentication problems, and the netbooks logon within a minute usually after the first ever logon. This system has been in place for well over 6 months now, no problems, everything works fine and the teachers are very happy at not waste half the ICT lessons on logging on. 1
cneilson6 Posted February 21, 2012 Posted February 21, 2012 Hi You say all other laptops logon ok, are these staff or student laptops? do you have other netbook/laptop carts (assuming its a cart with size) or is this your only one? We have a number of laptop carts 1 of them being full of n150 + 's they log in fine when there is only a few of them but when you have a surge of logins from a full class we are seeing some of the netbooks not login, if they wait until other laptops are in and then try again they get in ok. we are also using standard windows 7 drivers. We believe it to be a problem with a wireless rather than the laptops themselves as this is happening with all of the carts. 1
BenShortland Posted February 21, 2012 Author Posted February 21, 2012 All the laptops are in a lapsafe trolly aprox 60. I am 90% sure its the modules in the netbooks but bar from replacing all the modules in them I can't see where to go from here. The netbooks are pupil clients and when a class of 10 -30 boots them all attempt to log in it takes an extremely log time to log in. No unusal activity on the AP or switch either.
Brpilot99 Posted February 21, 2012 Posted February 21, 2012 4 minutes to logon down a wire seems like a long time to me .... do you have roaming profiles? maybe its a general problem with logging in from these machines rather than just wireless .. How long do other wired machines take to login? 1
BenShortland Posted February 21, 2012 Author Posted February 21, 2012 Generally logon time is normally quicker ( on this instance I was using an account which hadn't logged onto the netbook before.Pupils have mandatory profiles. All I am saying is that via wireless they take a lot longer than wired.I have tried the netbooks in a different block and same issue. In reponce to the local option being a solution it isn't viable as whe have 1200 different users (pupils) using the netbooks all with their own logins.
Brpilot99 Posted February 21, 2012 Posted February 21, 2012 OK then its a wireless issue if wired works ok ... Try getting a netbook that works OK and install insidder on it and also install insidder on one of the bad ones .. set the program running on both and see if there is a difference in the signal strength of any access points detected and as reported by both pc's ... This is a simple comparison excersise and might show if the bad pc has issues around the wireless driver etc. 1
cneilson6 Posted February 22, 2012 Posted February 22, 2012 Hi Ben Have you tried putting up another ap in the area? also have you checked your ap for the allowed amount of active connection we found that ours was set very low and the problem was eased by increasing this no.? 1
BenShortland Posted February 22, 2012 Author Posted February 22, 2012 We have had a full site audit with regards to the wireless and yes it does show alot of areas for improvement. However a Lenovo R60 Laptop boots and goes striaght in, even with 30 netbooks also in the room trying to log in at the same time. There are no issues with any of the other laptops in the block. Everything else works like a dream (well as good as they can be being R60 Lenovo's and being old). The point i am trying to make is that if it was a problem with the infrastructure it would happen to all wireless hardware not just the netbook's. If it was a traffic issue a lenovo would have the same issue logging in if 30 netbooks beside it were also trying to log in (except if the other laptops were using A, becuase the netbook's wireless adapter doesnt support A however I have looked how many laptops are connecting using A and they are next to none).Thus eliminating infrastructure and pointing to only the netbook hardware. Updated drivers do not work, neither does a different os.No event log errors. To be honest I have been in Networking / Hardware for 12 years, and I would like to think I know what I am doing, I rule it down to the hardware not being adiquate for the domain ( as netbooks arnt made for an enterprise) but I am struggling to find the reason why and if it can be corrected.
wpjon Posted February 22, 2012 Posted February 22, 2012 Have you tried swapping the network cards between a Lenovo and one of the netbooks and installing the relevant drivers? If the Lenovo suddenly slows and the netbook speeds up this would point to the issue being with the wireless cards in the netbooks. If there's no change you can rule out an issue with the network cards. Could the issue be due to cheaper components in the netbooks which operate slower such as having a slower bus speed therefore slowing the data transfer between internal components? 1
BenShortland Posted February 27, 2012 Author Posted February 27, 2012 I have ripped apart the netbook and sourced another mini pci-ex wireless/bluetooth for it. It is on order and we will wait and see what happens. Thank you all for your help. Ben
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