OverWorked

Simon, I've just read your post again. Better understood it this time. We're a secondary with lots of laptops so there's always wireless traffic whizzing about. I suppose that would help produce something on the graphs. I always used Chanalyser with the wireless card in and Inssider going at the same time. PS - I'd recommend Inssider to anyone as it doesn't need the WiSpy and is downloadable from MetaGeek. (I don't know if the license requires purchase of a WiSpy though - would need to check).

Simon, I found that to get a good image you have to leave it for 30 mins. MetaGeek recommend 24 hours but I haven't done that as it means leaving it unattended. I know what you mean about the graphs not looking the samples they provide. But then I have seen different models of AP producing different forms. 3Com are strong square shapes (just like the samples), D-Link are more rounded and spread out (nothing like the samples). I have seen bursts of apparently strong signal on Chanalyser for 30 seconds or so at apparently random times when it does look more like the samples provided. That's without me jiggling the antenna or touching the laptop at all. I can't explain that. Anyway, despite this drawback it did help fix my problems. I found the sources of interference very quickly, and could re-assign channels to avoid it. Let me know if you have any probs. Lee.

Hello, I'll be doing a small office setup in Liverpool soon (possibly tomorrow morning) and won't know what I need until I get there. Can anyone recommend a good supplier with a trade counter close to Liverpool city centre? They need to be open Saturdays. Last time I worked there, out of desperation I ended up going to Curries to buy patch leads at £15 each, and PC World for 5-port switches at £40 each. Thanks.

Simon, Glad you got it. Just when thought I wouldn't need it any more, one of my private clients phoned last night wanting an office wireless network set up. Could I have some rep/thanks? Ta.

I think this is a better idea in the long run.

Just security marked it. I'll put it in the post today and PM you with the details for the cheque when I know the postage. It's nearly a mile to our Post Office!

We have a low-spec PC and decent Promethean IWB in our DT room. The PC is driving the CNC machine which cuts MDF most of the day, and is right next to it. We put them in there a couple of years ago thinking there would be problems with dust, but haven't had any.

Sorry - I've been away from EduGeek for a while. I hadn't forgot about it. OK then, as an experiment you can have my WiSpy at £5 per week (min 2 weeks) plus cost of postage to you. You can hang on to it until someone else wants it, upto a max of 6 weeks. If no one else wants it in that time, I'd like it back. But then if I pay for the postage, that would negate the £5 I'd got from renting it out. Would it be fair on you if you paid the postage back to me - maybe not? That's why I wanted to set a higher minimum charge and renting period - £10 for two weeks. Half my original asking price! I don't want to go lower than £10 total. I enjoy helping techs in other schools, but want to get some ROI for my school. (We're in desperate dire straights financially). One of my concerns about this system is things going missing if as people change jobs. Items get stuck in cupboards and their successor won't know that it belongs to someone else. That's my thoughts on the matter.

You and me both. I've got Ubuntu LAMP Server running on a VM. My goal is to get Moodle running on it so I can experiment with it. Right now I'm just staring at a flashing prompt wondering where to start. There's a lot out there if you can spend time searching for it, but it's not in one convenient place. There's quite a few people here who would help.

Yes but this way, the schools get the money. Regarding transport - the WiSpy is ideal for postage as it's light and comes in a tough CD case.

Simon, I'll do it, but £10 a week still seems a bit small. How about £20 a fortnight? If no one else wants it, you'll have it for longer anyway at no extra cost, or until I need it back.

Or just don't let them have any more unless they pay for it! (Maybe not - not in the spirit of EduGeek). I like your idea - I think it could work. I didn't know it was you. I was over the other side of the room. My suggestion was to use the unused resources that a lot of us already in schools, rather than having EduGeek invest in a central resource. I've finished with my £200 WiSpy now, and our school is strapped for cash.

Well, the schools would pay. I wasn't suggesting that techs would use their own money. Charges would be advertised. Schools could just raise cheques to each other. Insurance is a more difficult problem. I don't know about that. It's just a suggestion!

At the conference, someone suggested that EduGeek have a central resource of hardware for rent. The MetaGeek Wi-Spy was used as an example. How about a network of members willing to rent out hardware to each other in their locality, advertised through EduGeek? This would save EduGeek from having to invest in hardware for rental. I do have a Wi-Spy if anyone's interested, and I'm looking for a cat6 cable tester.

Thanks. I hadn't thought of this. I'd just assumed that because it worked at 100Mbps it was a good cable. That's the next thing to try. I'll get a desktop PC with a gigabit NIC and try that.

Spent several hours on it and still never did find the correct solution. The problem occurs even though both switches are reporting 1000Mbps full duplex for the link. In the end I just moved the cable from the 1000Mbps port to a 100Mbps port on another switch in the main cabinet. It's not ideal, but at least the link is a lot faster now at 100Mbps, than it was at 1000Mbps [sic]. It's just one of those problems I'll have to fudge, having spent too much time on. It'll probably keep me awake for weeks.

It seemed like a good idea when I heard Bossman suggest it, but I can just imagine classes full of kids furiously winding their laptops for 10 minutes at the start of each lesson.

I won MS Office Ultimate 2007. It goes for about £200 on Ebay. It's still sitting on my desk with seals intact. Not wishing to appear ungrateful, but that's a lot for an office suite I wouldn't use. I use OOo and am happy with it. I'm still thinking about what to do with it. I fancied the printer myself - was it mono or colour laser?

I second all of the above. I had a great time. Got useful info on wireless (the bane of my life), and policies (I really need to get some). The best part was meeting people from here in the flesh. John, Lasercat, Bossman and Webman plus many others to numerous to mention. Bossman, you really should do a short talk next time on customer service (or: keeping the b******s on your side). Thanks to Smoothwall for the advice and paying for my dinner. Great goody bag and raffle. Just great.

@john - We had a power outage this morning, so that forced a full powercycle. The problem has gone away for now - I can send files in both directions at around 40 - 80 Mbps again. @Michael - It's definitely not the clients. I'm using a laptop to test. It worked fine plugged into any other switch. It just had the problem (as did everything else) plugged into that particular switch. @meastaugh1 - I suspect you're right. I'm working on that theory now. But I'll probably have to see if the problem comes back first. @Oops_my_bad - No we're not using VLANs. The problem's gone away for now, but I suspect it'll be back. Thanks everyone.

Thanks. I've pinged in both directions and get the same speed in both directions. 12ms for 65000 bit (or is it bytes?) packet size. This makes it more mysterious. The problem occurs when students with large profiles log on in this room, or there's a large software deployment, or I just try to copy large folders with Windows Explorer from the server to the client. It doesn't happen if I plug straight into the Gb cable, so it's definitely related to the switch. I can't find anything configurable for jumbo frames or anything gigabit related. I'm tempted just to replace the switch, rather than spend hours on it.

Hello, I have a Netgear FS726TP switch serving one room, linked via a cat6 cable and a 1Gb port to the main cab. Copying files from the server to a client through the switch is really slow (0.5Mbps). Copying files from client to server is much better upto 80Mbps. 24 x 100Mb ports to clients in the room 1 x 1Gb port to the main cab I've tested the cat6 cable by plugging a laptop straight into it and get good speed in both directions. This only occurs with traffic through the switch. I've tried using the other Gb port on the switch (it has two) it makes no difference. Logging onto the switch's web interface reveals nothing - it reports that the Gb ports are running at 1000Mbps. Any ideas? Thanks.

That's good. Book me in for the meal on the 29th.

What time is the meal likely to be again? I'll attend if it's early - I'll need to get home at a reasonable time.

When mine arrived, I spent a couple of days surveying the school with it. I found the source of the interference in just a couple of hours. An anonymous grey box in a corridor (part of the fire alarm system I think), is emitting a great big spike between channels 8 and 9, effectively blocking out anything above channel 6 in half the school. I would never have found it without the Wi-spy. I recommend one of these to anyone who's having trouble with wireless networking. £200 well invested.