At TAFE we have upgraded one of the labs. Have had 20 new client workstations put in with gigabit ethernet cards (old workstations had 10/100 cards), rebuilt the Windows 2003 server machine and set up a system using TFTPD & GHOST to distribute images (SOE) to workstations allowing room to be rebuilt by teachers in under 15 minutes to meet the SLA requirements. Target reached OK.

Next moved from an old unmanaged 10/100 switch to a new $2,500 Gigabit Netgear Managed Switch. Trouble is now rebuilds have gone from 12 minutes to 24 minutes breaking the SLA requirements.

Has anyone got any suggestions for free/Open Source utility (TAFE has already blown their budget and has no money left) that would monitor the network so as to shed some light on what is causing the slowdown? Any other suggestions on possible reasons for the slowdown appreciated.

Will be doing cable testing tomorrow, but being a Mac guy I know little about Windows based utilities available.

Convince TAFE to buy macs in their next budget? Do a search of the Australian Personal Computer forums and that may help you.

How many rebuilds are you doing at the same time and what's the backbone bandwidth of the switch? Just cos it's gigabit, doesn't mean that the switch itself can handle 10 rebuilds at full gigabit speed at the same time. If the PC's are the same, the build image is the same, the servers are the same then I think the problem is the network.

I haven't worked with Netgear switches, we use Cisco stuff exclusively and most if not all of their gear lets you do SNMP monitoring so maybe look into that? It might be worth going back to Netgear themselves for some help.

You could also try changing the port settings from auto to full duplex on both the switch and the computer. That can sometimes resolve slow down issues.

Enable SNMP in the switches, set up MRTG to monitor traffic (do a google search for the site, the guides there are pretty good), look at the logs on the switches, there's bound to be something in there.

In regards to the cables, what kind of cabling is it (ie, Cat5/5e/6?), how old/worn is the cabling? What method are you planning on using to test them? I'd also look at the drivers used for the ghosting, investigating how to update those.

I really should clarify things a bit. Firstly the new switch was installed last class, last day of last term. 2 other guys in the class swapped the cabling over from the old switch, testing continuity with cable tester as they went. Problem is they aren't that good. Each time they tested continuity they got different answers. There testing showed one problem, with no signal on wallplate 18 of 24. I suspect they have made mistakes, so I am going to retest the whole network tomorrow. By the way the switch is a 24 port model, there are 20 workstations and one server with gigabit cards, one teachers workstation (only has 10/100 card) and one networked printer (10/100). Only the 20 student workstations get rebuilt regularly. Network is all CAT5e.

Second problem, teacher logged in as admin on one of the workstations and installed the Netgear switch management software. Changed the IP address of switch from its default address to a static one in the same network range as the rest of the network, etc and clicked save. Then he tried accessing the switch via his browser using its IP address but nothing loaded. However was able o PING the IP. Before I could check out what he had done wrong, class ended and even though we said we'd stay back, he said he had to leave and that he'd check out the problem during the holidays.

Anyway, we came back this week and the teacher tells us about the imaging having gone from 12 to 24 minutes. We have this class again tomorrow. I doubt he's even looked at the manuals or attempted to set up the switch properly since our last class. Also prior to the upgrade the class was re-imaging 10 workstations at a time, however since the upgrade he said rebuilding 10 machines had failed but he had tried from 1 to 4 machines at a time successfully, but hadn't attempted any more yet.

Tomorrow, I'll retest cabling and have a look at the switch manual and try and find out what the teacher has probably configuted wrong. Hopefully that should go smoothly and it will be a simple fix. If not then I thought having a few useful network monitoring/management utilities on hand would be useful. SNMP is a good idea. Any otherr suggestions welcome.