Administrators canceled their test installation of a powerful network tracking system in two dorms after glitches stranded about 350 students from their Internet on Monday morning.

Students in 1835 Hinman and Jones Residential College woke up Monday to find they couldn’t check e-mail, chat on AOL Instant Messenger or browse the Web.

“It was really annoying,” said Rachel Feldman, a Medill freshman and Hinman resident. “I woke up this morning and couldn’t see if my mother had e-mailed me.”

The snafu occurred when Information Technology workers tried to install Network Registration, or NetReg, on computers in the dorms. The system, which eventually will be installed in all dorms, is designed to give Northwestern more information about students using the school’s network, giving administrators a greater ability to regulate file sharing and computer viruses.

To install the system, NUIT workers had to put all the computers in a “temporary state” on the network early Monday until the students registered for NetReg, said Tom Board, director of technology support services. Putting so many computers in that state clogged the system and few students could log on to NetReg’s registration site, effectively locking them out of the network.

When students tried to log on Monday morning, their Internet browser displayed error messages.

At about 2:30 p.m., workers gave up and put all the computers back online.

“We struggled with it for about six or seven hours, then we decided it was not working out and we wanted to make sure the students got access,” Board said.

NUIT is trying to figure out a way around the problem, and Board said he expects to try installing the system again within the next few weeks.

“We’re going to drop back 15 yards, huddle up … and give it another try,” he said.

The failure could turn out to be beneficial in the long run. NUIT was using Jones and 1835 Hinman as a trial run before moving on to the entire campus.

“This is what a trial run is for,” Board said. “We found out there’s a problem without subjecting everyone on campus to (the shutdown).”

Officials have said they would not use NetReg to monitor file sharing. The system also could help students if their Internet is shut off, allowing technicians to pinpoint the computer port and reactivate it in just a day instead of the six to seven days it takes now, they said.