Many schools report that they are having issues logging classes in and out on netbooks. The following is a guide to some of the reasons this may happen and what a school can do to help improve the speed of their netbooks.
Why are the oldest netbooks the slowest?
This is to be expected. The original NB200 models are now up to 5 years old. Netbooks do not have the same life span as a laptop and speed issues will be noticed earlier when using older netbooks. e.g. The NB200 model only has 1Gb of RAM.
Solution:
Use the some of the schools replacement allocation to replace the old netbooks with new devices. (Laptops will be faster and last longer than netbooks)
When I log a class on it takes forever?
Cause1: Are you close to a WiFi aerial?
The WiFi signal which is closest will be shared between all of the devices which are trying to log in. If you are on the edge of the signal, speed will be reduced significantly.
Solution:
There is a project to provide all schools with full classroom coverage in the meantime please ensure that any aerials that you do have are located where the heaviest netbook traffic is likely to be encountered.
Cause2: When were the devices last logged in?
When devices have been in a trolley or cupboard and have not been used for several weeks they will have updates, e.g. Anti Virus, that need to be installed before they connect to the network. The longer they have been offline the larger these updates will be and the slower your netbooks will be.
Solution:
Rotate the use of your netbooks so that none are unused for an extended period of time. A report run this week shows that of the 5811 Education Devices on the network 1400 Devices (24%) have not connected to the network for over 2 months. When these devices are eventually used they will have updates to do and will cause speed issues.
or/ If you are aware that the devices have been off the network for some time connect them via a cable before logging in for the first time.
