Hello all,
I am currently setting up wireless access across the entire school so staff can use the connections from their rooms. I have however run into many problems. The APs all sem to be set up correctly.
But instead of going through what I've done again i will post the link to a previous forum i used earlier.
wifi planet
Any help would be great.
Some people wont be able to read it because of their schools web filtering. Also it helps when searching for stuff later if all the information is in the post.But instead of going through what I've done again i will post the link to a previous forum i used earlier.
Anyway:
Do the AP's keep a log? If they do, you might want to have a look and see if there are any errors. You could also try disabling settings and see if that helps. I've had AP's have broken encryption support that took them out after awhile. Another thing that occurs is that they might be overheating? Are they sited somewhere with decent ventilation?Hello all,
I am currently installing a wireless network in a school using PoE and dlink access points. These are DWL-2100+ (APs) and DWL-P100 (PoEs). There are around 18 APs at the moment.
The layout is like this...
There are two buildings, East and West.
East is L-Shaped with the longest part having three floors.
West is three floors high for a majority of its coverage.
The problem i am having is with the coverage for these buildngs. East sems to be stable at the moment but i won't hold my breath...West on the other hand is a nightmare.
The APs seem fine but for unknown reasons just fail and cease to respond to anything even the web interface.Its not just the odd one however. There are around 6-7. A Dlink consultant came in to do a site survey and suggested around 11 to cover both buildings and also said that the PoEs would be fine for these APs. There are also no new firmwares for my APs from what i can gather from their website.
At the moment i am running basic WEP (will be upping security once it is up and running properly). All APs are set to same SSID and each floor has usually two to three APs as the corridors are long.
There can be up to around 11 members of Staff using the one AP at any one time maybe more..it depends on who connects to what AP. The channels are all set as far apart as possible to avoid confrontation. I have also tried to pull back the signal broadcast strength as to avoid further interference but they still overlap from floor to floor i.e. according to WZC top floor APs can still be seen.
All i need help on is to figure out why the APs keep failing as this creates large gaps in the wireless network because as i said before the corridors are long.
I've had so many dissapointments with D-Link APs' I've vowed never to use them again.
Ever.
Hello Geoff,
I have outlined the problems below.
The problem that we are having is the following. The access points have been implemented and are powering through POE and the locations are around two per corridor in the West Building and 2 on the first corridor providing coverage for the lower floors and to some extent the upper floors. They are situated above the suspended ceiling.
The issues we are seeing are the access points suddenly become unavailable to the clients. The WAPs are configured to different SSIDs to differentiate which WAPs can be seen on each floor. The WAPs are also set to different channels. They are not necessarily the three that are better used for the WAPs as we have a different collaborated school that have implemented their own WAPs and have used CH7. To avoid any interference I have used alternative channels. The Encryption at the moment is set to WEP but only until I can stop the WAPs crashing.
The logs have also been set up but once the WAP is power-cycled the logs are lost. Syslog is set up but doesn’t really tell me much about whats going on.
I have also tried to configure SNMP but have yet been of any use until configured properly (which I am unsure of how to do).
I have used NetStumbler to determine any noise that can be seen but it registers as having no noise. I have pulled back the signal strength to avoid any issues with interference from other WAPs in the surrounding area.
The WAPs do not respond to pinging or client connection attempts or even connection to the Web manager, and need to be power-cycled to get back online.
This more or less covers whats been going on.
I never thought about the overheating issue. I will check this out.
Not the best APs in D-links range. I have a few of those still knocking around and yes they too just fall off the network. Restart them and they come back online again... for a while.
On the other hand the DWL-3200APs with inbuilt PoE are in my experience rock solid, but then they do cost 3 times as much.
A couple of things stick out.
1. You really should use the same SSID everywhere. I know setting ones based on location help when your sorting things out but it breaks roaming and confuses Windows XP ZWC.
2. You should set the AP's to different channels. Nearby channels interfere with each other. You should set AP's to either channel 1, 6 or 11 and keep AP's with the same channel numbers as far away from each other as possible. Some planning will be required to workout the best scheme.
3. Your basic problem does sound like either a firmware bug or overheating. I suspect its the first. I suggest you bother dlink about it. If that comes to nothing I suggest you get your money back. We can make some recommendations as to alternative systems to buy.
It's great to hear someone else say that they are a bit flakey. I thought i was doing something wrong.
I also forgot to mention that i have also upgraded the firmware to the latest version. 2.12 and have set the IPs to Static and out of the DHCP scope range. So there are no ip conflicts.
The cards i use top connect to them are also D-link G650+ with which i disabled the Util as it kept starting and stopping, and sometimes not even finding its own card installed. Couldn't see any firmware updates for these.
I also use some Sweex cards (by the way both types are 11g) and these seem to be solid. Don't recall any problems with these aprt from two not working at all.
and finally PDAs and some Acer laptops both using 11b.
Thats more or less all the wireless stuff we use.
Same here, DLINK AP's just dissapear until you reset them. Very Odd.
Hello all,
Thanks for the replies.
Its good to know other people have had the same problems. No one has been able to pin point the problem though?
We have 18 in total implemented so it is going to be a problem replacing them all (cost-wise) and theres more of them in the cupboard but these arent opened yet.
I think we have pinpointed the problem. DLink suck.
Problem solved then.
I was just hoping for a resolution that wouldn't leave me with 18 bricks with poles sticking out of them.
I have a D-Link consultant coming back in (he came out to do the site survey) and he will be trying to find a solution, I hope.
I will post what he says. He's not in until June though...
I hope he does. It's just a shame you hadn't posted before you purchased the equipment. You might of avoided all this hassle.
Indeed!!
Although the survey was only done last October (i've been trying to get my head around it for this long until i decided it can't be anything i'm doing wrong surely?) the equipment recommended to us was the DWL-2000+, which to me is odd after browsing their site, its not even in the list under the educational section and is now discontinued...
We can only wait and see.
Thanks for your inputs anyway.
I hear plenty of bad stories about these 2100 APs but.... I have about 8 of them dotted around running of a POE adaptor and I have never had any problems. I must have just got lucky for once.
The only thing I will say about them though is to update the firmware immediately as the firmware that ships with them is very bad.
I had one of the 7 D-Link 2100 APs at my last job which regularly locked up for no reason.
The D-Link gear sucks.
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