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Client uses 2.4Ghz instead of 5Ghz

Philip91
Level 1
Level 1

Hello Community,

 

we have a branch site with heavy WiFi usage. The 2.4 Ghz band is very busy and also used by other company since it is a shared building/campus.Our 2.4 WiFi is very optimized (24Mbit mandatory) but doesn´t have enough capacity for so much clients (>20 clients on a 2.4Ghz radio + foreign interference). 2.4Ghz is in average on 4dbm by TPC.

So we try to push our clients to 5Ghz. Even with Band select the clients sticks to 2.4 Ghz. Wireless site survey is done for -65dbm in 5Ghz with max 11dbm  (12.5 mW). So 5 Ghz coverage is definitely not the problem. Also check it with a ekahau post survey.

All clients are using win7 with the Intel 7265AC.

I also checked the driver and it is quite old. After talking with Workplace department they mentioned they will not update the driver because of rolling out new hardware with windows10.

 

Is there anything i can do from network/WiFi perspective to get the clients on 5Ghz and is the only way to fix it force the Workplace department to update the client drivers and see if it helps? Does anyone see improvements when playing with the band select parameters? Atm i am using default settings. Any advice? Did anyone face similar issues?

 

Many thanks for help!!

 

Greetings

Philip

7 Replies 7

Jurgens L
Level 3
Level 3

Hi There,

The other option you can consider is to have SSID's per band. Band select is ok if you can get away with it, in your case you will need to take other measurements.
You will find devices operate better on an SSID that only allow 5GHz or 2.4GHz, in most cases, you have your primary or premium SSID on the 5GHz and then create a similar SSID adding "legacy" to it for devices that need to connect to the 2.4GHz. The legacy part normally motivates users to get their devices to support 5GHz.
This practice was also recently applied at Cisco Live in Barcelona.

 

 

<<< Please help the community by marking useful posts helpful, or accept as a solution if it resolved your issue >>>

Yeah that´s what we are thinking right now because from WiFi point of view there is no other option left. At the end client decides.

Cheers
Philip

Leo Laohoo
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

@Philip91 wrote:

All clients are using win7 with the Intel 7265AC.


I am very familiar with this wireless NIC and all I can say is if the wireless NIC doesn't get upgraded, then there is nothing that can be done. 

You can, however, select a few wireless NIC and upgrade them individually.  Once they've been upgraded, word will spread that WiFi got improved after the driver was upgraded.  You might want to keep the latest NIC driver in a thumb drive.    

Hello Leo,

 

so you have figured out same issues with this card?

 

Installed driver is:

19.10.2.1     28. Dez. 2016

 

I am testing this version on my laptop by manually installing it:

19.10.14.1   13. Nov. 2018

 

Latest version HP is offering.

 

Do you think it´s worth to manually upgrade the latops? Atm we are thinking of change the radio policy to 5Ghz only

 

Many thanks

 

Philip


@Philip91 wrote:

Latest version HP is offering.


I never go to the HP website because their drivers are woefully out-of-date.

To download Intel 7265 drivers, I go HERE.


@Philip91 wrote:

so you have figured out same issues with this card?


The first thing I will do when I get a new laptop is to upgrade the wireless NIC driver.  

The first thing I will check when troubleshooting wireless client issue(s) is the wireless NIC driver.  Most of the time I upgrade the driver and the issues go away.  

The old one is indeed a bad driver. Actually all of 2015 drivers and some of the early 2016 are bad drivers.

Philip91
Level 1
Level 1

Found a great video which addresses a lot of our issues:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RAyHNN_49Q

 

We will go with 5Ghz only for the Laptop SSID and see how it is going

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