hAP S AX has a different WiFi driver and all new quirks?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Picked up a hAP s AX to see if I could build a network with Mikrotik that covers all the parts I use in Ruckus or Cambium.

I finally have caps-man working well with wAP AX. I can keep devices connected and roam about with fast Transmission.

So lets grab a hAP s AX to be the on wall AP that I use under desks.

Can’t get it to go to caps-man using the reset button… whatever. Plug in and log in using the provided password (This take a lot more time at sites now as I need to not only log into each Access Point I need to document passwords). I go to packages and it tells me I need an update. Then I notice that instead of qualcom drivers it is looking for MediaTek. Ohh great.

Load it up and get it joined to my caps-man config. Once setting the channel width to 80 and matching it to where I had a wAP AX sitting… things start to connect. Sort of.

I start to notice things not passing traffic. Like the old as crap camera in my garage. It works for about 5 minutes then shows as connected to caps-man with no traffic. Sure enough the units GUI is not reachable. (Shades of the AC hand rolled driver issues). Shut off the 2.4 radio for several minutes then bring it back up. Camera works… for a few minutes then does the same thing.

Moving on. walking around the house my phone no longer wants to roam to the wAP AX on the other side of the house. Instead it moves to the 2.4 radio of the hAP. Then won’t leave the 2.4 no matter where I go. (Well if I leave the house, it drops).

The 2.4 speedtests are way slower than the same test on the same channel in the same spot run on the wAP AX.

Sonos app on my phone didn’t find my system for several minutes. Then when it did it wouldn’t play back music. Tried to play something, I got an error. Changed a few tracks then it started playing.

Unplugged the hAP s AX and put the wAP AX back in and problems vanished…

(Well the new problems vanished… That is not to say that caps-man is working as well as Cambium or Ruckus)

Here we go again!!!

1 Like
2

Hi,

Long story but is there any question to answer to or to be asked?

3

Well… consider it fair warning.

“Here are the problems I have tripped over.”

@BartoszP If Mikrotik could make a 48 port switch that didn’t shut down ports and useable wifi… my life would be SO MUCH EASIER!

4

Thanks for sharing. :+1:

5

And IMHO it should be mentioned somehow in eg. topic title.
Lots of users feel lost even with the straight simple written texts on that forum so your post starts another set of "unknowns" like: "I've heard sayings that ..... blah, blah. blah "
The better topic could be classified, the less "unknowns" is to be discovered.

6

Can confirm that the hAP ax S has major wifi issues (due to the new mediatek wifi). My Pixel 9 Pro (with a Broadcom wifi) disconnects or behaves like the traffic is blocked just after a few seconds from connecting. And I got burned by buying 3 units (I was hoping to do a 3 floor AP mesh).

7

After years of dealing with Mikrotik… I always expect anything I get from them to be broken and unusable for at least a few firmware revisions.

Never buying more than one and testing it at home for weeks, EXPECTING it not to work.