Hi All, I have a small school that needs setting up. They are a non profit school so budget will play a big part. Currently they have 15 Ncomputing dumb terminals connected to a server but are plagued by freezing and network dropouts, and are very sensitive to packet loss. I'm thinking about putting in small AM1 systems so all work is done on local computers and not on the server. They can then be backed up to the server nightly or whenever. Any other suggestions for a STABLE and problem free solution? Thanks Betty Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
I'd look at what's causing the freezing first. Is there a power issue, dodgy cabling, a dying switch? It could be that the server can't cope with the load it's getting
What we did find was that when their router was plugged in, all sessions were frozen (disconnected and couldn't reconnect). We changed the router and then it seemed to be fine for three consecutive days. No freezes at all, whereas before it would freeze anywhere between two minutes and 30 minutes. And all sessions simultaneously disconnected. The server has two gigabit NICs. Router is gigabit too. Ideally I would want the router feeding to the one serverNIC, and then the server feeds all the terminals from the other NIC, but I'm not sure how to setup the DNS and gateway parameters to keep the terminals on a separate subnet but still have internet. Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
What OS is running on the server? What's doing DHCP? What switch? Sounds like some sort of broadcast issue. I'd recommend not using the server as a gateway if at all possible, it's not a good design at all
Multipoint server 2011 8GB RAM Xeon something. Router is doing DHCP Switch is 10/100 Linksys I believe Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
In that case I'd double check you've only got 1 NIC connected on the server (as the switch can't handle aggregated links properly) and check the DCHP scope is correct on the router including all PXE options that you need.
So I should have all dumb terminals connected to switch, and then server and router both connected to switch too? Then router hands out DHCP? Router IP is 192.168.1.1 and hands out from .1 to .200 and all my terminals have static IPs in that range. Should I leave the gateway on the terminals as 192.168.1.1.? Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
Yes, one cable to everything. Yes Can I just check that it isn't a typo here? the DHCP pool should start at .2 not .1 in your CURRENT layout. If it starts at .1 that's why you're getting problems. Something is being given the same IP as the router which means it can't work. I'd recommend generally that you set a static IP on your server, say .10 and have your DHCP from .50 to .200.
Sorry saspro. That was a typo. DHCP starts at 192.168.1.2. I'll move my static ip addresses out of DHCP range. Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk
Even then it's not what I would call best practice. Your DHCP block should be clearly separate and any reservations should be reservations that are actually used. Otherwise someone might delete an unused reservation not knowing what it was for if it doesn't appear used. Almost certainly you have a static clashing with a dynamic!
I'd change the DHCP range to be much smaller, something like only a hundred addresses would be fine for a small school. 192.168.1.1 - 49 = network infrastructure inc space for future expansion like managed switches and wifi etc. 192.168.1.50 - 149 = DHCP 192.168.1.150-250 = static IP range Using something simple like that means that you've got no change of overlap between IP ranges and you can see easily how a device is configured from the IP.
