hAP be lite performance issues

Hardware
1

I just recently bought 2 hAP be lite to act as a simple AP to replace my 2 Unifi U6 PROs (because they have that stupid bug where clients randomly lose connectivity in multi-AP setup).

And boy, I was not really happy. I tried literally every configuration possible - standalone/CAPsMAN, with/without MLO, with/without 802.11k/v/r, wpa2/wpa3 settings, superchannel test, ether1 or other ethernet ports, Netinstall 7.24.1...

But one thing persisted, I simply couldn't get anything more than ~600mbps download on wifi7 nor wifi6 clients (the CPU went to 100%) with our without MLO. The upload peaked at about 874Mb/s (CPU 66%).

There is also a problem with other clients. Same config (Tx power, channel, bandwidth...) and position as my u6 PRO, I couldn't get more than ~320Mb/s on my 5GHz clients literally 1.5m from the device (and this number constantly changes up and down, while the CPU is around 35-40%), while U6 PRO provided stable ~490Mb/s. 2.4GHz 802.11n clients in some places where U6 PRO gave stable 70-80Mb/s, hAP be lite barely gets ~10Mb/s (which also oscillates a lot)

Does anyone else have these performance problems with this device? Is there some specific fix, or are my 2 units simply from some bad batch? A friend of mine bought this same WiFi chip (MT7991) on a m.2 slot, and was able to get phenomenal performance with anything connected to it.

Here is a sample config, but don't take this config as a current setup, as I tried literally to change everything in here:

# 2026-08-31 12:56:04 by RouterOS 7.24.1
/interface bridge
add name=bridge1
/interface ethernet
set [ find default-name=ether1 ] l2mtu=2048
set [ find default-name=ether2 ] l2mtu=2026
set [ find default-name=ether3 ] l2mtu=2026
set [ find default-name=ether4 ] l2mtu=2026
/interface wifi channel
add band=2ghz-be name=ch-2g width=20/40mhz
add band=5ghz-be frequency=5180-5320,5500-5640 name=ch-5g width=\
    20/40/80/160mhz
/interface wifi datapath
add bridge=bridge1 disabled=no name=DpLocal
/interface wifi security
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk disabled=no ft=no ft-over-ds=no \
    name=sec-roam
/interface wifi steering
add 2g-probe-delay=yes disabled=no name=steer-roam neighbor-group=\
    dynamic-XXXXXXX-abc77de7 rrm=yes wnm=yes
/interface wifi configuration
add channel=ch-2g country=Superchannel datapath=DpLocal disabled=no \
    interworking.realms-raw="" mode=ap name=cfg-2g security=sec-roam ssid=\
    XXXXXXX steering=steer-roam
add channel=ch-5g country=Superchannel datapath=DpLocal disabled=no \
    interworking.realms-raw="" mode=ap name=cfg-5g security=sec-roam ssid=\
    XXXXXXX steering=steer-roam
/interface wifi
add configuration=cfg-5g configuration.mode=ap interworking.realms-raw="" \
    mld-name=mld-d0ea11c8d9b6 name=mld1 \
    steering.neighbor-group=dynamic-XXXXXXX-abc77de7
# managed by CAPsMAN YY:YY:YY:YY:YY:YY%bridge1, traffic processing on CAP
# mode: AP, SSID: XXXXXXX, channel: 2437/be/eC
set [ find default-name=wifi1 ] configuration=cfg-2g configuration.manager=\
    capsman .mode=ap disabled=no interworking.realms-raw="" mld-interface=\
    mld1
# managed by CAPsMAN YY:YY:YY:YY:YY:YY%bridge1, traffic processing on CAP
# mode: AP, SSID: XXXXXXX, channel: 5320/be/eeeeeeeC
set [ find default-name=wifi2 ] channel.frequency=5180-5320,5500-5640 \
    configuration=cfg-5g configuration.manager=capsman .mode=ap disabled=no \
    interworking.realms-raw="" mld-interface=mld1
/interface bridge port
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether1
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether2
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether3
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether4
add bridge=bridge1 interface=wifi1
add bridge=bridge1 interface=wifi2
add bridge=bridge1 interface=dynamic
/interface wifi cap
set discovery-interfaces=bridge1 enabled=yes
/ip dhcp-client
add default-route-tables=main interface=bridge1 name=client1
/system clock
set time-zone-name=Europe/Zagreb
/system identity
set name=hAP_BE_lite_1
2

At least make sure there are no "" set, like in /interface wifi.

interworking reals-raw="" is caused by using Winbox 3.

3

I see roughly the same performance on my be lite with 7.24.1.
In the rc versions 7.24rc3 and 7.24rc4, performance was better with around 800mbit/s download, sometimes peaking higher.
I hope performance will be increased with future software updates. At least it is stable with 7.24.1 - earlier versions of router OS had issues with sporadic kernel crashes and subsequent device reboots.

4

Yes, but this doesn't really make any difference. I did this final config yesterday around midnight, and simply didn't clean it up.

There are also some other things wrong, for example I can't access anything via layer 2, for some reason my printer connects to the wifi and gets an IP address via DHCP, but I can't access it.

Hopefully future updates will bring this device to its potential.

5

If wifi cannot exceed gigabit speed, the 2.5G port is kind of useless.

6

You could exceed 1g by using wifi+wired clients in parallel. I tried that, and achieved something slightly over 1gbit/s in total. The problem is that high wifi load leads to high cpu load, which has an impact on throuput of wired devices as well.
So yes, in current status of routerOS performance, the 2.5gbit/s port seems pretty useless. It only really has an effect when multiple wired clients need the full 1gbit/s performance in parallel, while wifi is not too loaded such that there are enough cpu ressources. Sounds like a rather theoretical benefit...