The Northwest internet server is back up and running after a 24-hour shut down due to an overflow of individual servers such as phones, tablets and music players taking up space in the school WiFi. Sixty new laptops were ordered and delivered to NWHS when Brian Latta, site technology specialist, noticed that none of the laptops would connect to the server.

“I couldn’t set any of the new laptops up because we were all out of wireless IP addresses,” Latta said.

As laptops failed to connect to the server and Latta looked in numerous places to get to the bottom of the situation, Latta soon went to check the server. There are 952 total servers at Northwest, meaning there are 952 devices that can connect to one source of internet. At the time of the problematic situations, 906 wireless servers were connected to the NWHS internet.

“By the time I checked everything I came to the server and noticed there was one percent of wireless servers available,” Latta said. “Once [server] gets to a certain percent, even though there are some available, it just shuts off, so no more devices could connect.”

By the time summer comes around, the Wichita school district will give Northwest about 600-700 more available servers to prevent these problems.