Thanks for the reply.  I've been out for a few days and just now saw it.  That gives me something else to check and test.  IE on the browser??

The last run here at our location I changed as many as possible to hard wire and it was better but still a few hung up at random.  Some that locked up were wireless and some were hard wire.  Tomorrow I'm going to try all hard wire with a smaller class (but large enough to know if there's a problem) and I'm going to unplug the wireless router to make sure none of the computers are picking it up.  I wonder if there is a conflict between the two routers although the guy I use for IT when it gets over my head says it's set up right along with all of the networks.  Our hard wire network in the office is through the Comcast box/router and our wireless is fed from the Comcast box and only servers these lab computers for the students.  The hard wire network cannot see the wireless network and no one from the wireless can see my office system by design.

I feel pretty good about our host and his server because they log on and do quizzes remotly and no one has any trouble.  He also says none of his other customers are having trouble and he has checked and says he can't see anything from the server end.  I can't say they all log on at the same time in the evening but I've seen a large group logged on at several times.

I'll repost about how the hard wire test goes.   

1000 simultaneous users! Are you sure. I for one have never seem any Moodle system be able to take that many users at one time
100mb per user is common place when undertaking quizzes. That means you would have to have at least 100GB of ram
We have two web servers with 4 cores and 12gb ram each and it will handle about 100 simultaneous users on a quiz

I know this isnt a solution to your problem but I am really not sure about those figures

Well it is a little hard to give advice without a little more information from Mark about his setup.  

I mean Tim's ability to handle 1000 simultaneous quizzers probably has a lot to do with a great hardware setup and the ability to configure all aspects of the Moodle installation.

I was assuming Mark is on a shared host, without the ability to do a whole lot more than configure his Moodle installation. On a shared host the installed PHP version can actually limit what version of Moodle you install also.

So perhaps Mark could tell us if it is shared hosting. If it is a VPS /standalone server what are the specifications? Is APC running? ...

(regarding adaptive quizzes, if 12 students hitting "start" on a quiz locks it up, 12 students hitting "check" on an adaptive question will lock it up too. Thats all. It is more about balancing a heavily loaded server than about adaptive questions.)

As you can see from the replies to this thread, there really are a lot of things to consider. As Visvanath says, you should try a few tests to narrow down on the issue.

You seem pretty sure it is network related. So I would see if YouTube loads up and plays movies on 15 pcs at the same time ok. How about hammering a quiz on  http://school.demo.moodle.net ?  If you get similar slowdowns and lockouts, then that should tell you it is network (or browser) related. If not well that would indicate a server issue.

Justin

Visvanath,

Much of the problem with the basics is that I don’t understand the topic of internet speed.  My background is not in IT and the biggest part of what I know about computers comes from the school of hard knocks.  

Here’s what I do know:

Our Moodle/Respondus system worked fine (but slow) on the old DSL service at 3-5 Mbps up and 1-2 Mbps down.

Our Moodle/Respondus system currently works fine at the hotel where most of our students stay during training at a whopping wireless speed of .75 Mbps down and .25 Mbps up.  The only thing is it’s hard to get 12 – 15 users on at the same time.  

When I changed to my ISP to a cable internet the problem started immediately.  This is a new service area for them and they just installed the lines and hardware.

We reused the same wireless router and password that we had for a year or two.

My host that I use had recently upgraded his servers to what he said would be way faster but he was switching his clients over a few at a time so he could work out any bugs.  I don’t know if it was a hardware or software upgrade or both.  My problem started while I was on the old server that worked, but he said if you’re having trouble I’ll switch you over to the new server.  We experienced a few firewall issues with too many wrong user name/passwords while introducing a new group of students to Moodle.  (We use the default password setting of a capitol letter, small letter and a character).  The new server firewall blocked our IP address and the hotels IP address the same day so he manually set these sites as OK/safe.

I replaced the router as previously mentioned but saw almost no improvement.  Replacing it was easier than hard wiring the classroom.

I moved some of these laptops to hard wire and the problem got better but still had locked ups.  We reduced the number to 10-12 and it works fine.

I moved all of them (15 in this class) to hard wire and they got through a practice quiz but took a while to load pages at times.  I’m sure 10-12 will work fine.

It would be a ton of trouble to load Chrome on all the laptops and try that.  I only get two chances a week to run these computers at our facility.  Not much time to mess with them and try new things.  I don’t understand how Respondus could work well with a few and not with a bunch.  I wouldn’t be surprised if another browser lightened the load and caused a group of computers ran better but that wouldn’t solve the problem.

The cable company has been out two times and says everything is ok.  They checked the incoming service and notified the area service team of a potential problem in the area.  I haven’t heard anything from them and doubt I will.

My IT guy has been out two times and can’t see anything.

The web host has checked the system more than once and can’t see anything.

I’m trying to understand internet speed and what I’m being told makes no sense.  I’m told that “bandwidth = speed” which I think is incorrect.  I understand they can be related but it seems to me that bandwidth is better defined as capacity which seems to be my problem because with a few computers running, the system works well.  On the other hand, I don’t understand why the 5 / 1.5 DSL worked better and certainly don’t understand why the .75 / .25 system works better.

Thanks,

Mark

Justin,

Just saw your post.  Yes we tried that about you tube and they played but at times they stalled out.