Technical Checklist for Mass Online Exams: Power & Network

The three things that most often derail a mass online exam session are not the exam application — they are three technical variables on the ground: not enough power to charge hundreds of units at once, a network that drops mid-session, and no spare unit ready when a laptop suddenly dies. This checklist breaks all three down concretely — how many watts and outlets you need per desk row, when to use Wi-Fi versus wired LAN, how many spares is ideal and what that costs in rupiah, and a prep timeline from D-7 to exam day — so your committee can audit the venue before signing, not after the power goes out mid-session.

This checklist is drawn from Arental's CBT exam laptop rental packages — PPDB admissions, BNSP/LSP certification, campus exams, and multi-location CPNS tests. The focus is purely technical: whether units you already rented can be used in full through the session, not spec selection or pricing (covered on the pillar page).

The Power Checklist: How Many Watts and Outlets Do You Actually Need?

Committees rarely calculate the power load before exam day — and that is the single most common cause of a session stalling. A business-class laptop charger (the ThinkPad/EliteBook/Latitude class typically used for CBT) draws roughly 45-65 watts at full charge. Multiply that by your unit count and the number climbs fast:

That "70% load" figure matters — never push a power strip to its theoretical maximum, because it risks tripping or overheating during hours of continuous use. The safe practice is a maximum of 20-22 units per 6-outlet strip, not the theoretical 33 units the raw math would suggest.

The real bottleneck is usually not the power strip — it is the venue's own electrical installation. A school or hall commonly used for public events often has only 2-4 wall outlets per room, fed by a circuit breaker (MCB) not guaranteed to handle an extra 13,000 watts. That is why an electrical site survey is mandatory before the contract is signed, not a technical detail handled later:

• Count outlet points per desk row, not per room — a point far from the back row means an extra extension cable and a trip hazard.
• Check MCB circuit capacity with the building manager — if unsure, bring the venue's electrician along for the survey.
• A healthy 6+ hour battery is a safety net, not the primary plan — Arental's CBT units keep battery State of Health above 80%, enough to ride out a full session if venue power flickers.
• For a lab that stays put for months, consider a fixed-mounted desktop PC or mini PC instead — its electrical setup is configured once and does not need recalculating every session the way laptops moving between venues do.

Wi-Fi or Wired LAN: Which Is Safer for a Long Exam Session?

A network that drops on question 40 of 100 is more dangerous than a low battery, because an unsaved answer can be lost and a candidate panics in front of the invigilator. The network choice is not about which is "more advanced" — it is about which is most stable for your venue conditions:

For PCs or mini PCs that stay put in a lab, nearly every desktop and AIO unit Arental deploys already has a built-in Gigabit Ethernet port — once the per-desk LAN cable is run, the connection does not need re-setup every session the way Wi-Fi sometimes needs a manual reconnect. For a temporary venue forced onto Wi-Fi, run a real load test at D-1 (not just checking signal bars on a phone) by powering on every unit and opening the exam portal at once — the only way to find out whether the access point can hold the real load.

How Many Access Points Do You Need for 200 Units in One Room?

A consumer-grade access point realistically holds up for only 30-50 active devices before connection quality degrades sharply for a real-time app like CBT with proctoring. For 200 units in one large room, you ideally need at least 4-5 business-class access points meshed on non-overlapping channels — not one home router forced to carry the whole load. If the venue cannot provide that, wired LAN is far more realistic at this volume.

How Many Spare Units Is Ideal — and What Does That Cost?

The spare-unit formula Arental's CBT packages use is 4% of active units, minimum 1 spare per 25 units — a ratio proven sufficient across hundreds of exam sessions without inflating the budget. But 4% is abstract until it is worked into real rupiah. Here is a simulation for a 250-unit standard-tier package over a 4-day exam:

That Rp 2 million figure is small against a Rp 50 million contract, but the number is not the point — the consequence of having no spare pool is. One unit dying with no on-site spare means one candidate loses their session and the committee has to reschedule, usually far more expensive and messier than the Rp 2 million spare-pool cost itself — especially for a formal exam like CPNS or BNSP certification, which cannot casually be rescheduled.

How Many Spares Are Enough for a 4-Hour Non-Stop Session?

For a long single session (intensive video proctoring, an international exam), raise the spare ratio from 4% to 5-6%, because hours of continuous camera+audio streaming raises the odds of a unit overheating or hanging. For 250 units, that means 13-15 spares instead of 10 — a marginal cost increase (if priced separately) of roughly Rp 900,000-1,500,000 over 4 days, reasonable against the risk of one candidate failing to complete a critical session.

What Should You Do If the Power Goes Out or the Network Drops Mid-Session?

Contingencies need to be set on paper before exam day, not improvised when they happen. The minimum SOP that belongs on the invigilator briefing sheet:

• Partial power outage in the room. A healthy laptop battery keeps the session running uninterrupted until power returns — candidates stay calm and keep working, no restarting the unit.
• Full venue power outage. The invigilator logs the outage and restore times and reports to the central committee for a session-extension decision — not an individual call on the floor.
• Network drops on just 1-2 units. Swap immediately to a spare unit already imaged identically — the on-site replacement SLA is under 15 minutes so other candidates are not disturbed.
• Mass network drop (the venue's access point goes down). Activate the backup mobile hotspot for priority units, while the committee war-room contacts building management to troubleshoot the primary access point.
• The exam application hangs on one unit. Restart the application first (not the whole Windows session), per the one-page SOP from the invigilator briefing — many incidents resolve here with no unit swap needed at all.

Every one of these events — the incident time, the unit swapped, the disruption duration — should be logged and folded into the BAST handover certificate or the exam-day audit report, so the committee has an official record on hand for candidate complaints or questions from management or an auditor about how the exam actually ran.

Technical Checklist Timeline: D-7 to Exam Day

The three variables above — power, network, spares — need to be checked at different points in time, not all at once on the last day. Here is how the work maps out:

The point first-time committees skip most often is the D-1 full load test — many check just one or two units powering on normally, when power and network problems actually surface only when EVERY unit is powered on at once, exactly the exam-day condition. That simulation equals the technical rehearsal that is a standard part of Arental's CBT deployment workflow before any unit reaches a candidate.

The same power and network protection pattern applies to a broader event context — registration desks and media centers at large-scale events, covered in our guide to laptop rental for events in Jakarta. If your venue is outside core Jakarta, check the Greater Jakarta service coverage guide first so your site-survey lead time is set correctly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is responsible for calculating power needs — the committee or the laptop vendor?

Ideally both, together, during the D-7 site survey. The committee knows the venue best (outlet count, any history of power flickering), while the vendor knows the real load of charging hundreds of units at once. On Arental's CBT packages, the electrical site survey is part of the standard workflow, not an optional paid add-on.

Is a UPS mandatory for a mass online exam?

Not for laptops — a healthy 6+ hour battery already acts as a natural safety net during a brief power flicker. A UPS is more relevant for a PC/mini PC that stays put in a lab, since a desktop has no internal battery and shuts down instantly the moment power fails.

How long before exam day should a full network load test be run?

At D-1, during the technical rehearsal. A test at D-7 or D-3 is not representative, since not every unit is usually installed in its final position yet — a valid test has to mirror exam-day conditions exactly: every unit powered on, every unit logging into the portal at once.

If the venue doesn't have enough outlets, what's the fix beyond adding power strips?

A few options: (1) ask building management for a temporary dedicated circuit for exam day (needs D-14 coordination minimum), (2) split the session into smaller waves so simultaneous power load is lower, or (3) move some units to a room with better electrical capacity. The D-7 site survey is the point to decide which is realistic — not a call made on the fly on exam day.

Does the 4% spare ratio apply to every type of exam?

Not always — 4% is a safe baseline for a standard web-based CBT (PPDB, semester exams). For exams with intensive video proctoring and a single session lasting hours (CPNS BKN, international certification), a more realistic ratio is 5-6%, since the streaming load raises the risk of a unit hanging mid-session.

Lock the Technical Checklist In Before You Sign the Contract

Don't wait until exam day to discover your venue is short on outlets or its access point cannot hold 200 devices at once. Send a WhatsApp message to +62 821-4777-2100 with your venue details (whatever power capacity you know, the internet connection type available) and your unit count — the Arental team schedules a technical site survey as part of the quotation process, not after signing, so the power, network, and spare-unit checklist is clear before the first candidate sits down.