Poor performance on my AP

iron4umx · Sun Jul 15, 2007 1:12 pm

Hello, I got a Routerboard 532 enclosed in an outdoor metal box with 2 cm9 cards, each card has a 30 cm hirose to N-female pigail both pigtails have a N-male to N-male addapter each is connected to 12 Volt DC-injectors and each has amplifiers one is 1 watt and has a 12 dbi omnidirectional antenna and the other is 500 mw and has a 17dbi 90º sectorial antena, the amplifiers and the router board are 5 meters appart.

In my Routerboard here is what I did:
-I disabled connection tracking in the firewall (I am not using mangle firewall or nat)
-Ennabled rstp-bridge
-Created a bridge interface and added all of the interfaces (including the Wireless Interfaces)
-Disabled Network Discovery
-The rest of the configuration is set to default (exept for the Ip-address in my uplink interface of course)
-The settup for my wireless cards:

[admin@IXP_AP] interface wireless> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running 
 0  R name="Sectorial" mtu=1500 mac-address=00:0B:6B:09:E0:34 arp=disabled disable-running-check=no 
      interface-type=Atheros AR5213 radio-name="IXP_SEC" mode=ap-bridge ssid="IXP_2" area="" 
      frequency-mode=manual-txpower country=mexico antenna-gain=12 frequency=2437 band=2.4ghz-b scan-list=default 
      rate-set=default supported-rates-b=1Mbps,2Mbps,5.5Mbps,11Mbps 
      supported-rates-a/g=6Mbps,9Mbps,12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps,36Mbps,48Mbps,54Mbps basic-rates-b=1Mbps,2Mbps,5.5Mbps,11Mbps 
      basic-rates-a/g=6Mbps,9Mbps,12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps,36Mbps,48Mbps,54Mbps max-station-count=2007 ack-timeout=indoors 
      tx-power=24 tx-power-mode=all-rates-fixed noise-floor-threshold=default periodic-calibration=default 
      periodic-calibration-interval=60 burst-time=disabled dfs-mode=none antenna-mode=ant-a wds-mode=dynamic 
      wds-default-bridge=none wds-default-cost=100 wds-cost-range=50-150 wds-ignore-ssid=no 
      update-stats-interval=disabled default-authentication=yes default-forwarding=yes default-ap-tx-limit=0 
      default-client-tx-limit=0 proprietary-extensions=post-2.9.25 hide-ssid=no security-profile=default 
      disconnect-timeout=3s on-fail-retry-time=100ms preamble-mode=both compression=no allow-sharedkey=no 
 1  R name="Omnidireccional" mtu=1500 mac-address=00:0B:6B:09:DF:86 arp=disabled disable-running-check=no 
      interface-type=Atheros AR5213 radio-name="IXP_PRIM" mode=ap-bridge ssid="IXP_1" area="" 
      frequency-mode=manual-txpower country=mexico antenna-gain=0 frequency=2462 band=2.4ghz-b scan-list=default 
      rate-set=default supported-rates-b=1Mbps,2Mbps,5.5Mbps,11Mbps 
      supported-rates-a/g=6Mbps,9Mbps,12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps,36Mbps,48Mbps,54Mbps basic-rates-b=1Mbps,2Mbps,5.5Mbps,11Mbps 
      basic-rates-a/g=6Mbps,9Mbps,12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps,36Mbps,48Mbps,54Mbps max-station-count=2007 ack-timeout=indoors 
      tx-power=24 tx-power-mode=all-rates-fixed noise-floor-threshold=default periodic-calibration=default 
      periodic-calibration-interval=60 burst-time=disabled dfs-mode=none antenna-mode=ant-a wds-mode=dynamic 
      wds-default-bridge=none wds-default-cost=100 wds-cost-range=50-150 wds-ignore-ssid=no 
      update-stats-interval=disabled default-authentication=yes default-forwarding=yes default-ap-tx-limit=0 
      default-client-tx-limit=0 proprietary-extensions=post-2.9.25 hide-ssid=no security-profile=default 
      disconnect-timeout=3s on-fail-retry-time=100ms preamble-mode=both compression=no allow-sharedkey=no 
[admin@IXP_AP] interface wireless>

We use to have a Roamabbout R2 AP for the Ominidirectional antenna, and an Orinoco AP-500 for the sectorial antenna, we had to replace them because we needed a more powerfull AP.
Here is the problem: When we switched to the Routerboard AP we got a lower signal from the clients and the ping time response was fragmentated and sometimes spiking up to 400 ms or more They have Wet11, some YDI etherant II, USB cards and RTL8186 based CPE's.
The longest link we have is no more than 5 Km, the majority of the links are less than 2 km all of them have direct LOS.
On the other hand, we have a WRT54GS Version 2.0 with DD-WRT firmware (Latest mini version) we have a couple of clients connected to this AP and the ping is stable with a 2 ms delay, no spikes or problems what so ever.
What do you guys suggest? I have tried all kinds of configurations, but.. I can't make this AP to work like it is suposed to... I can't use any other regular AP like the WRT54GS because of the number of clients... I know there has been a lot of cases like mine, could anyone hellp me to determine what the problem is so I can Fix it??... PLEASE¿¿??.
If you guys whant me to post the full configuration of the Routerboard just ask me to, I will.
Any comments will be greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance: iron4umx

jwcn · Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:44 pm

1. Get rid of your amps. You don't need them. It's tiring to see that more and more "techs" are trying to make up for their RF technical shortcomings by pumping out excessive amounts of juice. If you really need the extra power try using an SR2 or XR2 - just make certain you are also using Atheros based clients.

2. Get a spectrum analyzer and make sure your RF spectrum is clean. If it isn't switch your polorization to Horizontal.

tully · Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:50 pm

The basic-rate should be only 1 for 11b and 6 for 11a/g. You should change this back to default and probably reset everything to default if you have played with anything else. If you change any of the more advanced radio settings, you can get no/bad connection and even burn your amplifier and ruin the radio card -- beware.

iron4umx · Sun Jul 15, 2007 9:39 pm

The basic-rate should be only 1 for 11b and 6 for 11a/g. You should change this back to default and probably reset everything to default if you have played with anything else. If you change any of the more advanced radio settings, you can get no/bad connection and even burn your amplifier and ruin the radio card -- beware.

Ok, I will try this, I can't belibe that this cards are so powerfull and sensitive that they need no amplification, Man... I just Hope the cards are not fried¡¡¡... They should not... they have a good heat dissipating enclosure.

1. Get rid of your amps. You don't need them. It's tiring to see that more and more "techs" are trying to make up for their RF technical shortcomings by pumping out excessive amounts of juice. If you really need the extra power try using an SR2 or XR2 - just make certain you are also using Atheros based clients.

2. Get a spectrum analyzer and make sure your RF spectrum is clean. If it isn't switch your polorization to Horizontal.

Ok, Let me see what happens

razvan_fzl · Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:10 am

I got the same problem can you tell me if you fixed it?

stelibg · Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:48 am

Some advices:
antenna-gain=0
basic-rates=1 for 802.11b
basic-rates=6 for 802.11 a/g
ack-timeout= dinamic (i am not sure, but do not put in indoor)

nickb · Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:24 pm

Dump the amps.

I have tried CM9's with amps and they DO NOT WORK.

I only use amplifiers with PRISM and HERMES. I have found a few PCI atheros cards that work with amps, but I really try to avoid that configuration.

I have replaced nearly all of my old Orinoco AP-1000 + 1W amp WiPOPS with ROS and SR2 or XR2, and saw a huge improvement in performance. Of course, once we hit 15-20 customers on an AP now we have huge problems with the re-association issue. The problems get particularly bad above 30 clients.

Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:32 am

Did you see the re-associations only with SR2 and XR5s? Do you have
APs with CM9s or R52s that see this problem. What was the outdoors
temp around the APs (hot, mild, cold). Were the cases enclosed boxes
that could be expected to get hot?

iron4umx · Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:45 am

Hello¡¡¡ I am really Happy to see all the posts in this tread¡¡

I did some testings and here are the results:
We have the Routerboard 532 with the two cm9 cards in the tower, the antennas are 5 meters apart and connected using LMR-400 cable, we did testings with the sectorial antena, we bypassed the DC-Injector and the amplifier and just connected it with the 5 metters or so of LMR-400 cable.
--Results:
The signal got improved¡¡¡
The ping time response got really improved¡¡¡
The speed transfer got really improved¡¡¡
Overall... IT ROCKS HARD AND STRONG¡¡¡

I got the same problem can you tell me if you fixed it?

Yes¡¡¡ pretty much it solved it, Rigth now we got to put the routerboard up close to the antennas so the performance increases eaben more¡¡¡

Dump the amps.
I have tried CM9's with amps and they DO NOT WORK.
I only use amplifiers with PRISM and HERMES. I have found a few PCI atheros cards that work with amps, but I really try to avoid that configuration.
I have replaced nearly all of my old Orinoco AP-1000 + 1W amp WiPOPS with ROS and SR2 or XR2, and saw a huge improvement in performance. Of course, once we hit 15-20 customers on an AP now we have huge problems with the re-association issue. The problems get particularly bad above 30 clients.

Dude¡¡¡ you rock¡¡¡, now I know what to do in the future¡¡¡, See.. I did not know that Atheros based equipment is so good that they do not need amplification, and now that you mention it, the AP's we had before were HERMES and PRISM based... jeje... NO WONDER¡¡¡

---Here is an example of how much improvement we got:
We have this customer and he uses a laptop with Intel movile centrino, he is located 10 meters away from the tower, the tower is 30 meters high and he is down below at ground level. When we was using the amplifiers, he would get poor signal and ping delays up to 1000 ms or more¡¡¡ this resulted in a really poor connection and really really slow internet service for him, with out the amplifiers, he gets excelent signal, near perfect ping with 2ms response time and 11Mbps¡¡¡ (this is because we are using b mode only in the AP's) now he is like... “DUDE THIS STUFF IS BLASING FAST¡¡¡” both of us are really satisfied with this

IT'S JUS AMAIZING THAT THIS CM9 ATHEROS BASED CARDS WORK BETTER WITH OUT AMPLIFIERS AND EABEN BETTER THAN OTHER CARDS WITH AMPLIFIERS.
ATHEROS DOMINATES¡¡¡
---Here is the the configuration I am using rigth now for the card on witch we did the testings:

 0  R name="Sectorial" mtu=1500 mac-address=00:0B:6B:09:E0:34 arp=disabled disable-running-check=no 
      interface-type=Atheros AR5213 radio-name="IXP_SEC" mode=ap-bridge ssid="IXP_2" area="" 
      frequency-mode=manual-txpower country=mexico antenna-gain=20 frequency=2437 band=2.4ghz-b scan-list=default 
      rate-set=default supported-rates-b=1Mbps,2Mbps,5.5Mbps,11Mbps 
      supported-rates-a/g=6Mbps,9Mbps,12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps,36Mbps,48Mbps,54Mbps basic-rates-b=1Mbps,2Mbps,5.5Mbps,11Mbps 
      basic-rates-a/g=6Mbps,9Mbps,12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps,36Mbps,48Mbps,54Mbps max-station-count=2007 ack-timeout=dynamic 
      tx-power=24 tx-power-mode=all-rates-fixed noise-floor-threshold=default periodic-calibration=default 
      periodic-calibration-interval=60 burst-time=disabled dfs-mode=none antenna-mode=ant-a wds-mode=disabled 
      wds-default-bridge=none wds-default-cost=100 wds-cost-range=50-150 wds-ignore-ssid=no 
      update-stats-interval=disabled default-authentication=yes default-forwarding=no default-ap-tx-limit=0 
      default-client-tx-limit=0 proprietary-extensions=post-2.9.25 hide-ssid=no security-profile=default 
      disconnect-timeout=3s on-fail-retry-time=100ms preamble-mode=both compression=no allow-sharedkey=no

I am going to make more tests and post the configuration for the cards as I make progress, I AM HELLBENT ON SOLVING THIS ISSUE¡¡¡

And when I finally get this Routerboard where as I feal like it's perfect, then I will post the entire configuration here.

Best regards: iron4umx

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