RB3011 for the Internet connection (PPPoE) and running CAPSMAN
2x CAP ACs, 1 for each floor in the house
The ISP is providing a speedtest site in its network so I am using that for my throughput tests. My subscription has 500 Mbps.
The laptop connected directly in one of the RB3011 ports gets at 500 Mbps in the tests (multiple times) so the ISP is providing the bandwidth and the router is reaching that with no sweat.
The CAPS are connected directly in the router and I have the following results:
a) CAPSMAN forwarding - max is 150 Mbps, seen on both CAP ACs (very dissapointed, using local forwarding)
b) Local forwarding - max is 275 Mbps, seen on both CAP ACs
The laptop connects to the CAPs on both AC chains, 866 Mbps, 3m away from the caps, no other 5Ghz network in range.
My question - is this the max throughput expected of these CAP ACs? No matter what I do, I cannot seem to get past that 275 Mbps. During the tests the CAP CPU stays at 10% max so I guess the limitation is in the Wifi side? The ethernet throughput values provided by the datasheet exceeds 1 Gbps.
I hoped the 275 Mbps might be per client so I tested with 2 laptops and they each kind of get half of that so overall the max throughtput never gets above 275-280 Mbps.
The Wifi setup is very simple, no filters, most stuff on auto, 2 SSIDs ( 1 for 2.4 and 1 for 5Ghz).
What values are you guys getting?
hAP AC2 + cAP AC, running ROS 6.46.1 on both packages and routerboard, ISP 800mbps/200mbps. Both devices can go up to 410mbps in CAPsMAN local forwarding mode, average is about 380mbps, sometimes 200mbps+. Client is iPhone 11 Pro Max.
I found 2 setting that makes speed different, one is the rates setting, I use 12Mbps for basic and 12Mbps~54Mbps as supported rate. Second is band, I found my speed will be slightly lower if I set to 5ghz-onlyac, so I use 5ghz-a/n/ac and 2ghz-g/n, maybe it takes resources power to make sure client match for 5ghz-onlyac.
Also, I don’t use Multicast helper as it will slow my speed down, I have no problem leaving it off. Hw. retries “4”, Distance/Installation "Indoor’
Last thing is tx power, I always use 2dBm lower than the maximum power, it will be much stable than running at maximum power. For example, I use US as regulatory-domain which do 30dBm for both radio, cAP AC can do 26dBm for both band and after minus the antenna gain is about 23dBm for 5ghz and 24dBm for 2.4ghz, I will set antenna gain to 9 for 5ghz (21+3 = 24dBm) and 8 for 2.4ghz (22+2 = 24dBm) to get the actual tx power I want. As a result, much stable and consistent speed, while almost no noticeable reduce on coverage.
Good news is MikroTik finally added default antenna gain for routerboard, now we can just set the tx power that we want in CAPsMAN’s channel tab (eg. 24).
Hi!
Thanks for your reply.
I played around with manual rate settings and allowed radio protocols (n,ac,a,g) and I did some tests:
manually choosing the rates did help the 5Ghz a little, I see a small increase in throughput, maybe 5%, now i may reach 300Mbps but not always.
the same manual settings made the 2Ghz network worse so I left everything on auto there.
I have no idea what settings to put and where related to gain, tx power and so on, everything is left on auto
There are so many options related to Wifi that it will take too much time to test them all. One thing I constantly see is that the upstream towards the AP is much more stable and has higher throughput than the downstream, no idea why.
I’ll try to do more tests and share the results, maybe it will help other users.