gwendes

They are Uniwill 259 chassis from Novatech. Other laptops around the site don't seem to have the same problem - much as I would like to blame ms. Rebooting doesn't help, you need to connect the laptop with a patch cable or admin with cached credentials needs to log in wirelessly and reattach the laptop to the domain. Then it's ok for a random amount of time.

mmm, that's what I'm not 100% on. It's not a system that I've setup or used - just inherited and the tech that knows the most about this is out today. He has said that the blame must lie with these laptops (Uniwill) - PDAs and other laptops in the school (Toshiba and Dell mainly) don't seem to have this problem. As I cannot pin it down to hardware or software in any way then I am inclined to borrow some power tools from technology and... well... massacre is a word that springs to mind! Wish that this wasn't one of those intermittant, unrepeatable problems. I'd love to blame the switch or access point over here and get Aruba in to sort it out but once a machine has dropped it fails to establish a connection with any of the other switches in the main building. All the way through this I've been convinced it's a Windows bug that prevents the laptop from even looking for a connection if it fails a certain number of times or the load is too high on the AP...

I've done that - there wasn't an existing wireless policy in place. I noticed that there weren't any settings for WPA/TKIP PEAP so I've just removed the tick from WEP. Is this right?

As I haven't got access to the PoE switch until Monday I'd like to try the machine authentication option. Is that done on the DC? I've never set that up before, can you point me in the right direction?

In just one room. That room has an AP and there are another 3 or 4 that computers in that room can connect to. Before changing the cards I kept a log of which computers failed and it seemed to reoccur on the same laptops. The laptops all use WZC and WPA/TKIP PEAP The settings are fine as I can login (with cached creds) and the connection is established wirelessly with no issues. Only a user that has not been 'seen' by the DC will have a issue - until connection with a patch cable.

This is an ongoing problem that is about to drive me to insanity. I work in a training centre where we have 30 wireless laptops. Since I started working here in July there has always been the problem that some laptops just drop the connection and cannot find a domain controller. The only solution, albeit temporary, is to reconnect the laptop to the domain with a patch and reattach to the domain. I have recently upgraded every wireless card from Ralink 2500 chipset to the Intel 2200BG which has improved things slightly. This week, back feeling positive after xmas, I find we have eight laptops not connecting. I had started reattaching them this afternoon but if I have to keep doing this every couple of weeks I think early retirement might be the only option We connect to the main school site over a 1.2Gbps fibre - thinking that 30 laptops logging on together was too much for the DC at the other end I installed a DC into the switch here. We have an Aruba wireless switch and above 5 access points in the building.

UltraVNC - never had any problems

I really hope you have a backup! That's the way that I'd do it. I'd still be trying to steer away from anything to do with the network when you've got huge files. It's slow for everyone.

thanks steve - I've passed on details of MyMaths - it looks just about what they needed. Anything seen an equiv. English site?

The chap I spoke to in sales said that it wouldn't be worth it for so few students - hence the search I've started for an equivlent.

Problem is that the trainers are only working with this small group of kids at this site - they would need to pay for a whole school license to use for only 15 kids

Problem with Sam is the cost - we want something similar but as it's only required by very few pupils who are not actually registered at the school they have a much tighter budget. Just flicked through the Sam Learning website before giving them a call - VLE is the closest thing that I could compare it too - I understand that it doesn't come close to things like moodle.

I work at the Training Centre on The City Of Portsmouth Girls' site. On Thursdays and Fridays we have a group of 'less advantaged' students that come in as part of a scheme to achieve a GCSE in Maths and English. One of the trainers suggested that I research Sam Learning but this is a bit overkill for a maximum of 15 pupils over two days - and all we need is maths and english. Up until now they have been taught using a combination of 'normal' teaching and websites like BBC Bitesize and Maths Is Fun but these miss a vital element and it would be excellent if anyone can advise of a free or cheap way of offering similar resources AND tracking time spent and/or progress. Has anyone come across anything like this?

How many computers is this affecting?

Can they not store to the local machine? Or have a dedicated computer? It will be much quicker for the teachers - particularly dumping camcorder video. I would imagine that getting all that data across your network was slowing everything up. With the other teachers your should ask them to clean up - no one needs 5gb of work. You'll probably find a bunch of music

It's the Windows update. You need to shutdown which will install the updates then you will be able to restart.