AP541N - Degrading Service

[lucas4]

We have an AP541N that has been deployed to replace a Cisco 1200 AP (B/G radio).  The 1200 functioned perfectly in our environment.  The new AP541N on the other hand seems to work fine right after a reboot but immediately starts to degrade service.  Over a short period of time, the devices bandwidth degrades to the point were the wireless network is not usable.  This happens with just one device connected.  Eventually, the device stops accepting client connections.  We are unable to get any relevant logging out of the device to help diagnose the problem.

What should be our course of action?

Lucas Budman

Cognilytics

[UMS-Orsay]

Hi Steve,

When I had this issue, I have set up a syslogd thinking that It should be more verbose than the AP embedded log page...

but even after several days of monitoring, I've never caught any other error than the ones shown in the log you've seen !

Regards

Vincent

[Steven DiStefano]

Acknowledge.

Thank You.

[sbaharaeen]

I changed the refresh rate to 0 on ours and we were still having issues yesterday.  I am attaching the log file from earlier today, but it was quiet around here so I will monitor next week and post the logs.

One interesting thing I noticed though is that one of my notebooks running Windows 7 has no issues whatsoever connecting and maintaining the connection to the AP.  Is anyone else seeing this as well?

[lucas4]

I made the change as described above and it seems like I am still getting a relatively large amount of receive errors.

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:21:29:00:7D:50 

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:82612 errors:84412 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:774824

          TX packets:125679 errors:4 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

          RX bytes:56553958 (53.9 MiB)  TX bytes:135659862 (129.3 MiB)

          Interrupt:44

Lucas

[jwalker]

Steve, this is good news.  Thank you for posting an update.

Has anyone got their hands on this update yet?  I know Steve just posted, but I also know a few of you have been working with level 2 tech support for a while now.  Has the beta firmware corrected any of your issues?

[mindmaster]

Hi,

i have 8 AP541N on an UC560 with 31 SPA525G.

None of the Phones can make calls all over the day without horrible noise during the calls. It's like talking with a mobile phone in the 1980th.

It is equal if the Phone is in the same room as the AP or in the next room. The Signal on the Phones is jumping from green to red and back without doing anything.

The PCs on the AP with external N USB Adapaters won't get more than 10-30 Mbit.

I took for testing an MSI AP200+ Powernet to WLAN Adapter for 3 Phones and this works. The signal goes 2-4 times wider then the AP541.

Nothing fixes the Problem. The latest new thing is, that the cluster doesn't change the channels. Every AP is on Channel 6.

If i can't fix the Problem this week, i think i will loose my customer.

Did the 1.90 fix this Problem, can i get the Beta Version?

Any Workarround?

Config:

UC560

GIG0/1/0 -> SRW2008P -> 4x AP541N              -> x Phones and x PCs

                                    -> 1x AP200+Powernet -> 3 Phones  (working fine)

GIG0/1/1 -> SRW2008P -> 4x AP541N              -> x Phones and x PCs

                                    -> 1x SRW208             -> 4 Phones and 4 PCs (working fine, PCs get 99,3 Mbit from SBS2003)

GiG0/1/2 -> SA520  -> 48 Port 100/1000 Switch -> SBS2003, NAS, ...

                              -> WAN Port VDSL50000 over speedport 920

                              -> Opt. WAN Port VDSL50000 over speedport 920

GIG0/1/0+GIG0/1/1 are configured as APs

GIG0/1/2 configured as Desktop Desktops

All phones are configured for cisco-Voice(vlan100) with WPA2 and TKIP (long key and non ASCI Characters)

APs are configured in Cluster like SBSC2.0 2 SSIDs, Qos, Cluster, ...

[Steven DiStefano]

Please open a case to get the beta code to save this deal.  I am not saying the new code will fix you, but we have heard problems with degrading signal i9n the FCS release....

[mindmaster]

Ok, I'll try it.

Does any one use SPA525G phones wireless?

Is it working?

Thanks

[mindmaster]

1.9.0 fixed it not, nothing changed...

[Steven DiStefano]

Clue number 1 is: "Nothing fixes the Problem. The latest new thing is, that the cluster doesn't change the channels. Every AP is on Channel 6."

If Channel Management is enabled when clustering, make sure to also statically assigns a channel on the radio page, otherwise the channels won't change.  Auto Channel Selection must be disabled to allow Channel Management to change channels automatically in a cluster.

Per the help page, "Note: The proposed channel assignment will not take effect if the Channel field on the Wireless Radio page is set to auto. The channel must be set to a static channel."

[mindmaster]

after a complete power down of all APs the channelchangings works now...

thanks

hss

[Steven DiStefano]

Great!

[psmith]

How do you get access to the 1.9.0 beta version?

I am new to the Small Business Pro stuff, but we are a Gold level partner.

My AP is just over 90 days old, so I don't think support is going to help me.

[Steven DiStefano]

Open a case and ask for the beta code.

[opresterud]

We have tried 1.9.0 beta on our 4 AP541Ns, and during yesterday evening when a number of clients was connected (this is on a football/soccer stadium), the APs seemed to stay stable. The reason I say "seems", is that we had a major problem with our internet provider so the network did not have high traffic during all the 4 hours with use. But I am quite sure some positive things have happened. During testing the evening before, we also found the throughput on a WDS bridge to have increased too. The next scheduled happening with many connected clients will happen in ~2 weeks, so hopefully we will get a real test then. Conclusion so far is good.