hAP ax3 wireless problem

RouterOS Wireless Networking
101

Yes but it’s possible I powered it up before I plugged into network. Running of it’s own PoE adapter. But the CAPsMAN of the controller was a much later version. I’m currently going through the firmware upgrade cycle 6.47.9->6.49.13->7.12.1->7.14.1. That’s three reboots. Hmm, still say UniFi is quicker. and overall simpler. Less powerful for sure but 99% of use cases are pretty simple: private LAN with access points with maybe a guest network.

If I reset to default configuration, should this resort to CAPsMAN?

102

Reset to caps mode.

103

I like how this thread devolved from focused discussion of the hAP ax³ into a weird thing were nobody can seemingly figure out how to enter caps mode.

If you need to upgrade multiple routers from some old version of ROS6 to the latest version of RouterOS, you can use netinstall to do so. If there aren’t at least several routers for you to upgrade, I daresay three reboots ain’t terrible. Considering one of them is a major OS update and another is a major wi-fi package architecture change. You also won’t need this for newer devices.

To reset the device and load the default CAPs mode configuration onto it (one where all ports are bridged and the router is configured to wait for a CAPsMAN controller to activate wifi interfaces), simply disconnect the power, hold the reset button, plug the power in (this can be any source of power, PoE, standard jack, you name it), and wait until an LED first starts flashing and then turns solid, and when it does turn solid, release the reset button.

If you need to configure dozens of routers at a time, there is an option in netinstall that lets you choose a ‘configure script’, which will supposedly run after the first boot and make the router automatically configured, provided you give it a working script that configures it. Now, I hadn’t had any success with it myself, mostly because I didn’t need to, but I am quite sure that, with any luck, you will be able to make it work.

104

Now that this is addressed, I am pleased to announce that I’ve ordered an hAP ax³. You all made me do it. I swear, buying MikroTik gear is not an addiction, I can stop whenever I want to. (I really don’t need it, I’ll probably resell it) Anyways, I should be able to test it in a week or so. I have also found a neat “export” button in WiFi Analyzer, which seems to do some interesting magic stuff, so, in a week’s time, I should be able to come back here with some… Should I say… Very. Detailed. Testing. Probably with two or three Android devices as well. And after that… Does anybody need an hAP ax³?

105

Everyone still having issues with ax3, can you please go into System > RouterBOARD, take note of the firmware version and post it here? If you’ve upgraded the firmware since you last had issues, please post the version you had issues on.

With ax3, there apparently were reports that having a USB 3.0 device plugged in would bring down 2.4 GHz WiFi, to the point where devices couldn’t even connect to it, and apparently it was fixed by a firmware upgrade. (Which is separate from a system update and must be performed manually in said RouterBOARD menu)

106

That’s a generic problem for a LOT of brands and highly depends on the quality of the used USB device.
Same with bluetooth.
It all operates in the same 2 - 2.5 GHz-range, you see.

No way a firmware upgrade can fix that. That’s a physical problem.

107

JFYI:
http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/wifi-connection-deteriorated-with-usb-device-attached/172822/1

108

Thanks. I tried googling before posting, but it brought up pretty much nothing.


I don’t know. This guy seems to be sure that it did, for some reason. I’m not exactly familiar with USB, neither with the protocol nor with how the PHY layer is done… but maybe you can attempt to somehow fix the clock or data rate with a firmware update? So that it operates more like at 2-2.3 GHz and doesn’t interfere with WiFi as much. I would presume that not all flash drives support this, as this technically wouldn’t be in the spec, so that would explain why it is still possible for issues to persist after a firmware upgrade. Please forgive me if I’m talking nonsense, again, I’m far from an expert.

109

From what I understand the interferences are directly related to the speed of data transfer, while it Is possible that a firmware version may work better than another, the only possible way to reduce interferences Is to reduce - substantially - the speed of the data transfer, which essentially happens in shorter or longer “bursts” that range to up to 4 GHz.
I seem to remember that some other hardware manufacturer (possibly ASUS?) have a setting to limit the Speed to USB 2, i.e. a lot slower.
You can have the same results using a USB 2 extension cable.
The “right” approach Is to shield the device or replace It with another better shielded one.
Using a USB 3 cable to move the device from near the router needs a cable that Is VERY well shielded, as otherwise It may act as an antenna and vanify the experiment.
Double and triple shielded" USB 3 extension cables exists, but how much effective they are has to be seen.
Like most of issues where RF Is involved It Is - I believe - largely a hit and miss game.

110

Yup, that’s kind of what I was suggesting. Either bring down the clock for USB 3.0, so that the interference stays consistently under 2.4 GHz, if that’s possible, or make sure USB transfer only happens when radio isn’t active, so that no collisions happen at least when AP is transmitting. Maybe you’d still have problems with receive side. But that 802.11 is probably built to account for anyway.


Well, RF is only a mysterious and complex subject because it’s not as easy to observe as some of other things in life. As such, diagnosing any issues requires knowledge and proficiency with specialized instruments needed to observe high-frequency electromagnetic radiation.

If you actually spend time to consider all the aspects of designing a cable that would emit minimal EMI, you will probably be able to judge any random extension cable’s effectiveness at emitting minimal EMI based on information about it structure and about how it was produced.

The only problem is that the information that would help you determine the effectiveness of a cable [at anything, really] is rarely shared with you beforehand:

“It’s superspeedy, can do 99,9A@120000kV, supports USB PD 55.0 and will definitely not disintegrate into shreds of plastic the first time you plug it in, what else do you need to know? BUY IT NOW, or else…”

“Oh, what? It disintegrated into shreds of plastic the first time you plugged it in? Well, must have been a voltage spike. It can’t handle 100A@120000,001kV, you see. What? You plugged it into a completely powered down device with no batteries to speak of? Must have been some caps leaking”

111

I have received my hAP ax3, originally with a RouterOS version of 7.8. The firmware version was the same. I have since updated it with both in-built updater and netinstall, and have observed no differences between installation methods or OS/firmware versions.

My preliminary findings so far is that hAP ax3 seems to disregard country/tx-power/antenna-gain settings in some cases.

Here’s what I did. I fixed the frequency at 5745 MHz. Antenna-gain was set to 0, tx-power was set to 30. Channel width was explicitly set to 20/40/80 MHz, band was explicitly set to 5GHz-AX. All other settings were left unchanged.

Here’s what I then observed in the Status tab.

If country was set to United States or Brazil, the TX power would be set to 28. As it should be, as 28 dBm is the maximum TX power that hAP ax3 can achieve, with US and Brazil both allowing 30 dBm TX power on 5745/Ceee frequencies. 30-0=30, but 28 is absolute max, so 28 it is.

If country was set to China or Argentina, the TX power would be set to 24. This is interesting, as 24 dBm is not, in fact, the maximum TX power that hAP ax3 can achieve. And while some weird argument can be made for hAP ax3 working this way for Argentina (Argentina allows a maximum of 30 dBm in 5745/Ceee, real antenna gain for hAP ax3 is 6 dBi rounded up, 30-6=24 dBm, which is observed here), it cannot be made for China, as it allows blasting at 33 dBm in 5745/Ceee. Even 33-6 is 27 dBm, which is more than 24 dBm as far as I’m aware.

And then the weirdest case yet is Russia.and Ukraine. Which, despite being at war in the real world, come together to agree that 8 dBm is enough for all their needs in Mikrotik’s world. Russia allows 30 dBm and Ukraine 24 dBm in 5745/Ceee.

My measurements in WiFi Analyzer also show that the difference between Russia and Ukraine and China and Argentina aren’t phantom. The signal observably increases ~17 dBm when changing from Ukraine to China, from around -41 dBm to around -26 dBm, with a Galaxy A54 5G lying on a cardboard box approximately 15 cm in height, approximately 45 cm away from one of the antennae and approximately 50 cm away from the other.

Data shall be gathered and bug report shall be filed, but for now, if you want the maximum out of your hAP ax3, at least with 5735-5835 frequency range, it seems you should consider setting the country to Brazil or US, setting antenna-gain to 0, and then just setting tx power manually to limit your router’s power according to your local regulations. Remember that you will need to subtract 5-6 dBm from your target tx power to account for antenna gain. Otherwise, experiment with the country settings to find the one that performs optimally.

Addendum: I don’t remember which countries this is true for, but in my testing hAP ax3 seemed to really love 5500/Ceee when frequency was unset. Which, funnily enough, my phone can’t even detect, probably because FCC ain’t allowing it.

112

Also, this is only anecdotal evidence, especially seeing as I currently have ax3 and ac3 in different positions with different antennae orientations and on slightly different channels, and it should be treated as such…

But I’m currently at the location where I have my hAP ac3 (which it turns out has grown to be somewhat of a critical infrastructure thing, so I can’t really touch it), and hAP ax3, with country set to Brazil and the power settings adjusted so that it has 30 dBm of effective output power, seems to be doing as well as or better than hAP ac3, which is set to the same 30 dBm of effective output power.

Soo, I don’t there’s anything wrong with ax3 per se, at least not with mine in particular.

113

Can confirm this true on wifi-qcom-ac, country Austria as well (Chateau LTE12, cap ac)

114

According to the specs the ax3 shouldn’t be able to transmit higher than 27dbm.

“5470-5725 MHz / 27 dBm”
https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=150601820#:~:text=5470-5725%20MHz%20/%2027%20dBm

115

Interesting. According to product page, it can do 28 (at least in 5GHz):
https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ax3 (see “Wireless specifications” lower on the page)

116

By the way, can anyone with an ax3 please try and reproduce my little experiment above with country values?

Just to see whether or not I’m going insane and/or whether or not this is an isolated incident. You won’t need anything but winbox/webfig and a little bit of free time.

117

Meanwhile, I’ve gone through the tab auto-completion list and tested countries that allow broadcasting in 5735-5835 MHz range. All settings the same. For 5180/Ceee frequency was obviously changed to 5180. It seems like 28 dBm is max power for 5745/Ceee and 23 dBm is max power for 5180/Ceee.

Antenna-gain value of 0 seems to be ignored in some cases for some countries, despite no min-antenna-gain value being present in /interface/wifi/radio/print detail. Choosing some countries results in application of European regulatory rules, but not necessarily for all frequencies. Overall, pretty confusing.

Edit: It seems that I’m somewhat late to the party. This problem has already been discussed here.
hAPax3_countries.pdf (53.5 KB)

118

Mine is set to US because the signal utterly sucks if I choose my EU country.

My first neighbor is 50 meters away. I don’t live in a building with dozens of flats and two dozen wifi networks.

I also have an Audience in the living room set to superchannel / no_country_set. That allows me to go to my back yard and sit by the pond and have good 2.4 GHz signal.

EU regulations probably exist for a reason, but they are not for me.

And yes, 5500 was The Chosen One for EU, I remember that vividly.

119

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: Remove word “EU” and it says what you actually mean: “regulations probably exist for a reason, but they are not for me”

120

Well they’re not, what can I say :slight_smile: It’s not the same when I have basically no neighbors, and someone lives in a huge socialist building. Of course I’m going to boost my wifi signal so I also have it in my basement and next to my garden pond.