Hap ax3 wifi help

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hi All,

Just got my hands on the new HaP ax3

I have been using Mikrotik routers at home for a while, but this is the first time with wifi built in.
I was using a old home mesh, but its a bit old now so thought i would treat myself :slight_smile:

Have never really played around with the Wi-Fi side on mikrotik, so am a little stuck trying to get things up and running.

I have various devices, Apple, Google and windows mainly to get to connect with the Wi-Fi.

These all use different types of connections and auth types, but all WPA2 at least.
I tried with the defaults out the box, some device will connect ok, but others will not connect to either Wi-Fi point.

I turned off WPA3 on both WIFI’s to see if that would help, but still some devices will not connect.
I turned on WPA psk and WMP2 psk as that’s what old mesh used, but still seem to have trouble getting some devices to connect.

The google chrome device (for example) connects ok gets IP address, but when streaming, it keeps pausing all the time.
Some devices don’t even see the Wi-Fi SSID’s.

Want to try and get one Wi-Fi up and running that i can use for most devices ok, and then just create a default guessed wifi with password.

Also see a lot of “wifi2 rejected, can’t find PMKSA”, although the device does go online and seem ok.

I have factory reset it again at the moment and put it aside for now, Anyone able to give me some help?

Firmware installed is 7.7 rc5, I tried it with 7.7 stable as well.
Just me doing it wrong and need to learn this Wi-Fi part of the RouterOS.

Cheers people

Chateau LTE6 ax: "wifi rejected, can't find PMKSA" error for old devices.
2

just for information, as i seem to have got it working.

Factory reset it again, changed Wifi1 to UK and then turned wifi on, had a fair few radar detected issues, left it for a hour, then was able to connect all devices ok.
did notice that most devices would disconnect when the radar detected was logged.

Just me trying to connect everything to quickly i think.
once its been on a while, its been ok all through the evening and night.

So seems stable now, may need to configure more on it, but for now, running nicely.

thanks

3

It’s expected: when AP detects radar (be it real or false positive), it has to switch off transmitter immediately (not to disturb radar operations). So AP efectively disappears for clients. Then it needs to perform search for radars (the same way it does when powering on) and if it finds channel without radars detected, it starts transmitting again. After that clients, which weren’t able to find another AP meanwhile, re-connect.
Search for radars can take very long time … depending on particular channel it may take up to 10 minutes (weather radars) and if it detects radar after say 9 minutes, it selects different channel and reception begins again (again up to 10 minutes). If AP selects channel where “only” air traffic control radars operate, wait time is 1 minute.

4

Nice one, thanks for the detailed information.

With the country, If i select UK, i can only get 250MB, but if i select US for example, just to test, I get 550mb with all the same settings.

Am using the following on Wifi1, Not using wifi2, its disabled.

/interface/wifiwave2/actual-configuration print
0 name="wifi1" mac-address=18:FD:74:FC:8B:E9 arp-timeout=auto radio-mac=18:FD:74:FC:8B:E9 
   configuration.mode=ap .ssid="SSID" .country=United Kingdom 
   security.authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk .passphrase="MyPassword"

Is there a better way to configure this to get better speeds out of it?
I can get close to 1gb speeds on LAN, no problem.

Thanks

5

Different countries have different legal limits … maximum power allowed, channels available etc. If device is set for auto selection of parameters, it sometimes selects non-optimal settings.

Having said that, run /interface/wifiwave2/monitor … and select number displayed as index number by print command. This will show actual operating parameters, like this:

/interface/wifiwave2> monitor 2
                ;;; changed intended channel to 5600/ac/eCee
             state: running
           channel: 5600/ac/eCee
  registered-peers: 2
  authorized-peers: 2
          tx-power: 25

(the output above is from my AC device). I’m sure you can see this info also using GUI but I don’t know where.

Configuration is:

/interface/wifiwave2/channel
add band=5ghz-ac frequency=5500,5580 name=5GHz-high width=20/40/80mhz

so the comment in monitor output is about frequency changed: setup says 5580 (which would support 80MHz channel in channel layout Ceee), running config is frequency 5600 and channel layout eCee … at the end of the day the 80MHz channel is spanning same range between 5570MHz and 5650MHz.

Monitor output also contains information about transmit power … which is limited by 3 numbers:

  • hardware capabilities (Tx power amplifier)
  • country regulatory limit - which includes antenna gain
  • manual setting

Value used is lowest of the 3 mentioned above.

When it comes to info about what AP knows about country regulations: in older RIS versions it was possible to see it using /interface wireless info country-info . It displays something like this:

/interface wireless info country-info "united kingdom"
  ranges: 5170-5250/a,an20,an40,ac20,ac40,ac80,ac160,ac80+80(20dBm)/passive,indoor
          5250-5330/a,an20,an40,ac20,ac40,ac80,ac160,ac80+80(23dBm)/dfs,passive
          5490-5730/a,an20,an40,ac20,ac40,ac80,ac160,ac80+80(27dBm)/dfs,passive
          5735-5835/a,an20,an40,ac20,ac40,ac80,ac160,ac80+80(20dBm)/dfs,passive,outdoor
          5735-5835/a,an20,an40,ac20,ac40,ac80,ac160,ac80+80(20dBm)/passive,indoor
          5190-5310/a-turbo(20dBm)/dfs
          5180-5300/a-turbo(20dBm)/dfs
          5520-5680/a-turbo(27dBm)/dfs,passive
          5510-5670/a-turbo(27dBm)/dfs,passive
          2402-2482/b,g,gn20,gn40(20dBm)
          2417-2457/g-turbo(20dBm)
          902-927/b,g,g-turbo,gn20,gn40(30dBm)

This info, however, can change between ROS versions. It seems that recent v7 versions have some bugs related to info commands … in v7.6 command existed (I don’t remember exactly what it was), but it printed some error mesaage instead of table. In v7.7 it doesn’t seem to exist any more (or it moved somewhere and I can’t find it). It worked fine up and including v7.5 though.

BTW, the information for my country is shorter than for UK. Limits for 5600MHz range are similar to those for UK and Tx power used (25dBm) is country limit (27dBm) less antenna gain (2dBi).

6

Hi,
Thanks again for the detailed information.

I shall have to look into this a bit more, but its running and stable.
Just the speed issue to resolve, bit more research and learning on the Wi-Fi side.

Thanks

7

Hi Sentinel,

I would like to see your output please.

Here is mine from my new hAP AX3 and I’m getting terrible speeds compared to my ISP’s router.

[admin@MikroTik] /interface/wifiwave2> monitor wifi1
state: running
channel: 5745/ax/Ceee
registered-peers: 0
authorized-peers: 0
tx-power: 28

[admin@MikroTik] /interface/wifiwave2> monitor wifi2
state: running
channel: 2437/ax/eC
registered-peers: 0
authorized-peers: 0
tx-power: 29

8

@esj

I have the same hAPax3 router…

/interface/wifiwave2> monitor 0
             state: running
           channel: 5220/ax/eeCe
  registered-peers: 3
  authorized-peers: 3
          tx-power: 16

/interface/wifiwave2> monitor 1
             state: running
           channel: 2447/ax
  registered-peers: 2
  authorized-peers: 2
          tx-power: 16

I can get 750+Mbits average speed on 5ghz, even through two walls. my 2.4ghz radio signal seems weaker than on my hAPac2 though but hoping it is a software related issue. Country is set to South Africa. I use apple devices throughout my home which can also make a difference.

9

Good info here!! I have never run up against radar detection issues, is that country specific or because the airport is like 50km away.

10

Winbox
Wireless
Select interface
Tab Status
(minus TX power, that’s not shown)

11

Country specific.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels (see section on 5GHz)

12

Thanks for the info. Will give diff settings a try at the weekend.

13

Hi Guys!
How is your progress with WiFi tunning an ax3?
I’m also struggling to set it up and have stable and fast link.
The spectrum around me should be fine, as I was able to use 5GHz 160Mhz wide link @2Gbps with my provider’s new cable modem.

Still, I prefer to stay with Mikrotik as I love the flexibility, HW power and possibility of running my PiHole in the container all in one box :slight_smile:

Here is the list of my channel experiments so far. It is handy for creating profiles and switching them on radios :slight_smile:


[@MikroTik] > interface/wifiwave2/channel/print 
Flags: X - disabled 
 0   name="ch-2ghz" frequency=2412,2432,2472 width=20/40mhz-Ce 

 1   name="ch-5ghz-auto" width=20/40/80mhz skip-dfs-channels=10min-cac 

 2   name="ch-5ghz" frequency=5180,5260,5500 width=20/40/80mhz skip-dfs-channels=10min-cac 

 3   name="ch-5ghz-ext" frequency=5500,5580,5660,5826 width=20/40/80mhz skip-dfs-channels=10min-cac 

 4   name="ch-2ghz-adj" frequency=2432,2452,2462 width=20/40mhz 

 5   name="ch-2ghz-auto" width=20/40mhz

Profiles 0 and 2 are recommended in the documentation. I’m using now #3 and #4

Radio selected 5660, previously it was 5550. The performance was similar


[admin@MikroTik] > interface/wifiwave2/monitor 0 
             state: running
           channel: 5660/ax/Ceee
  registered-peers: 4
  authorized-peers: 4
          tx-power: 23
-- [Q quit|D dump|C-z pause]

The problems are range and stability.

Range.
I can get a solid throughput: around 1Gbps on radio, only very close, like 2m, with LOS to the AP.
At my desk, around 8m with light walls, it drops to 300-500Mbps on the radio.
It would be great if I could increase it a bit. It is not critical, but it would be nice, especially when I recall 2Gbps from my cable box :frowning:

Stability.
My laptop disconnects randomly, with rejected, can’t find PMKSA, reauthenticating message. It is very annoying and it disturbs my work.

How can I debug it better and solve it?

14

Same issue here with ax3.. what works (so far):

  1. routerOS 7.8 and
  2. disable PMKID in both 2.4 and 5Ghz.
15

Looking at the AX3 WiFi performance only, I suggest staying away from it and going for a different vendor.
It is bad, and I’m afraid it will not get better :frowning:

16

OS7.8 seems to be problematic across various functions. I moved to 7.9rc2 or rc3 and saw immediate rectification of issues.

17

I have the same problem…

My laptop disconnects randomly, with rejected, can’t find PMKSA, reauthenticating message. It is very annoying and it disturbs my work.

How can I disable PMKSA? Is it PMKID in the setting?

18

Yes but cannot remember where, but according to the biased experts the default setup works well… ya right!!

19

You can disable PKMID in the security profile:

/interface wifiwave2 security
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk disable-pmkid=yes disabled=no name=common-auth wps=disable

or directly in wifi interfaces

There is a chance it will not help you :slight_smile:

What helped in my case, after upgrading to 7.9 I manually reconfigured it starting from 7.9 default config.
Performance is still average, but at least it is not locking out my clients permanently.

Unfortunately, switching from wifi2 to wifi1 after a DFS scan is disturbing Win10 clients.

20

Seams PMKSA errors are caused by WPA3, i disabled it and left only WPA2 and all errors are gone.

Wireless was working like total crap, clients constantly couldn’t connect to mostly 5ghz but sometimes also 2ghz interface and took multiple attempts sometimes to get wifi connectivity.
Logs IS full of this:
rejected, can’t find PMKSA

Tried versions from 7.4 to latest beta v7.10beta5.