Duane_Dibbley Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 Howdy, Having a few problems with our wireless system. Essentially, in certain places in the school, we get very good signal strength, but the bandwidth varies from 65mps to 6mps (laptop is wireless N capable). It seems to continuously drop and increase, and as we redirect documents etc it makes a big difference to the usability of the laptop. We have had quite a few issues with our wireless (requires resetting every so often or the whole thing grinds to a halt). We have 6 access points in school, 3 upstairs 3 downstairs and you are never further than 15 metres from one. Everybody seems to rave about the ruckus system which leads me to believe there is something wrong with ours... Any suggestions?
localzuk Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 These sort of issues scream of interference and the like to me. What sort of construction is the school? ie. large slabs of steel? Did you do a site survey before installation to see what sort of interference there would be on the wifi frequencies? 1
Duane_Dibbley Posted October 1, 2010 Author Posted October 1, 2010 I wasn't at the school when it was intalled. I gather that a site survey was done, and we were told there wouldn't be anywhere in the school that wouldn't be able to use the wireless. This is not true...there are places above the access points which can't get signal, but I would expect that anyway as the AP's broadcast down. The school walls are generally thick and brick, some concrete, i think it was built as a hospital in the 30's. Just seemed strange that can get excellent signal strength, but the bandwidth is so low and changeable. No doubt you are right and it is interference, just wondering if there are any settings that can be changed to improve it. The room in question is ~10metres from the access point in the corridor, but in a straight line there are 2 walls in between. I used to be based in that room, and used a laptop with wireless G which didn't seem to have many problems. This particular one is on Wireless N and the bandwidth jumps from 6-65mps and everything in between constantly. I tried with a wireless G laptop today as well and it simply wouldn't connect - signal strength was very good but wouldn't receive an ip.
localzuk Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 What have you got running the underlying network? ie. your switches. Anything special like vlans? 1
Duane_Dibbley Posted October 1, 2010 Author Posted October 1, 2010 nope nothing special. All switches are 10/100 at the mo, but we have purchased gigabit replacements - waiting till half term to put them in. That should help with overall throughput, as the zonedirector is downstairs, and the servers upstairs - all wireless traffic upstairs has to go downstairs to zonedirector, then back upstairs to servers etc, with upstairs and downstairs connected by a single cat5e cable. The cabling etc in the school isn't exactly mapped out brilliantly and sometime in the future i'm looking to ask the head to see if we can reorganise...but tbh I doubt he will go for it. With regards to the signal in the room in question, I now base myself in a similar room at the other end of the school. To all intents and purposes it is a mirror image of the other room, and so I would expect similar problems in here but I have none. I get perfect signal, and a constant 65mps throughput.
localzuk Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 Traffic doesn't route via the zone director as far as I know - it goes straight to the destination, the zone director simply keeps the AP's in check, and deals with connection traffic (ie. things like cell handoffs and the like). On the AP issue - have you tried swapping the seemingly working AP with the seemingly not working AP? ie. see if it is the AP that's doing it?
Chris_Cook Posted October 1, 2010 Posted October 1, 2010 (edited) Have you checked on the zone director for any obvious problems (like the AP being in mesh mode for example)? Also, do you have many other wifi networks nearby? perhaps check with insidder on a laptop - http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider Edited October 1, 2010 by Chris_Cook
cbrasga Posted October 2, 2010 Posted October 2, 2010 The Ruckus APs only go to the zone director for authentication and config, all other data traffic would be direct. Are they all "gateway APs" (cabled to the network) or are some of them meshing to get to a gateway AP? Run inSSIDer or netstumbler real quick to check the channels and for other APs. Otherwise, are there any other wireless devices, phones, or even microwaves ovens in the area?
leco Posted October 2, 2010 Posted October 2, 2010 I think maybe what Chris_Cook was suggesting was checking in the Ruckus admin console, sorry not at work so can't remember the proper name of it, but I guess the OP has already done that.
Duane_Dibbley Posted October 5, 2010 Author Posted October 5, 2010 Right, sorry for not replying earlier. Just managed to track down the ZoneDirector login info - not logged into it before. Have you checked on the zone director for any obvious problems (like the AP being in mesh mode for example) Mesh mode is disabled. What code is your zonedirector running? Absolutely no idea, where would I find this info? Thanks for all your suggestions. You may have noticed wireless networking is not one of my strong points (tbh I dont have many strong points). As far as I am aware, the AP's are cabled in. I think the setup was a pretty default one, DHCP is off etc. The only thing I have done with it is reset it every ~1month, as it seems to "clog up". Gets to the point where a class of kids using 15 laptops take 10-30 minutes just to log in, and then its virtually impossible to save to network drives etc. A reset seems to cure that. This is however the first time I have logged in to the ZD, so maybe I can do something with it :S
INeedAUsername Posted October 5, 2010 Posted October 5, 2010 Funnily enough ours is doing the exact same - we have about 28 points around school and either the speed drops or there are issues connecting I have been meaning to contact stuart and the guys at Net Ctrl who are brill at fixing this but not had a chance - will do tomorrow hopefully! Ours is set up the same as the OP with no VLANS but running on a mixture of 100mbs and 1Gb switchs
mattpant Posted October 5, 2010 Posted October 5, 2010 This is weird... we have been having the exact same problems, been happening for many many months in a certain part of the school, I've spent 2 hours after school tonight trying all sorts of things, moving access points about, connecting them to different switches etc etc. I am now running the latest Firmware that was put on the Ruckus Website in the last few days, our Wireless Clients are Interl WiFi 5100 AGN cards, again running the latest Drivers. We use Wireless Projectors and causes major problems with disconnections. Any pointers would be great cos I'm stumped! Thanks Matt
White_Fi Posted October 6, 2010 Posted October 6, 2010 You can tell what version is running under the Sytem overview on the dashboard. @mattpant - what version are you running? 8.2.2 build 7? I have a 5100AGN card in my laptop and have been having problems with the latest driver but not in this respect. 1
Duane_Dibbley Posted October 6, 2010 Author Posted October 6, 2010 You can tell what version is running under the Sytem overview on the dashboard. version 8.1.0.2 build 3 You think it worth an update?
White_Fi Posted October 6, 2010 Posted October 6, 2010 version 8.1.0.2 build 3 You think it worth an update? Yes with out doubt i would get on 8.2.2 build 7 1
Duane_Dibbley Posted October 6, 2010 Author Posted October 6, 2010 Yes with out doubt i would get on 8.2.2 build 7 Is it possible to update from behind a proxy? The "check for updates" button returns "Unable to connect to the Ruckus Wireless Update Server. Verify that you are connected to the Internet, and then try again." I can't seem to find anywhere to input the proxy info either...
localzuk Posted October 6, 2010 Posted October 6, 2010 I don't think it is, no. I update manually, downloading updates from the Ruckus support site. You may need to speak to your reseller to get an account sorted there. 1
Diello Posted October 6, 2010 Posted October 6, 2010 We're having exactly the same issues - "Gets to the point where a class of kids using 15 laptops take 10-30 minutes just to log in, and then its virtually impossible to save to network drives etc." - We could have written that ourselves, word for word. Glad it's not just us suffering in a way...
White_Fi Posted October 6, 2010 Posted October 6, 2010 Also are there roaming profiles involved here? What is the speed of the AP to the switch? Are you tunneling the traffic back to the ZD? I think the 1st thing is to upgrade the ZD as suggested.
mattpant Posted October 6, 2010 Posted October 6, 2010 Hi Stuart, Yes we are running Version 8.2.2.0 build 7 on the ZoneDirector (ZD1000) I've tried the very latest driver and the previous Intel 5100 Driver, same problem. I think that it maybe some kind of interference from other Ruckus AP's, but the system is setup to manage any interference/ change channels / power levels etc. Something weird is going on. It's not just from updating to this latest firmware either, we have had problems from previous firmwares and each time an update comes out I install it on our system hoping it will make things better! What’s the ideal setup on the actual Intel Card Drivers for the Ruckus systems? I've played around with Power Management and Aggressiveness etc Any idea when Firmware 8.3 is due out and what new features we will find? Thanks Matt
White_Fi Posted October 6, 2010 Posted October 6, 2010 Matt there will be no 8.3 we should see V9 in the coming weeks which will add features like time based broadcasting and true spectrum analysis at the AP level. It sounds like you may have some interference, can you get your hands on a spectrum analyzer? It may be worth disabling back ground scanning mode aswell. How many SSID's do you have broadcasting? What AP model do you have? What is the predominant channel the AP's have chosen? Perhaps some channel management is needed? I wouldn’t change the Tx power of the AP’s but may suggest enabling the ability for the AP dynamically change its Tx power if interference is preset. 1
mattpant Posted October 7, 2010 Posted October 7, 2010 Stuart, We have 2 SSID's broadcasting, 1 is our Main Access that All Staff use, it's setup with WPA2 PSK Encryption, the other is a Hidden Guest Access SSID, with open access, which nobody is connected to, I set it up for testing out ACL's so users can only access the internet and nothing else. We are using the 7962 Access Points and the ZoneDirector 1000. We have 19 Access Points in use and they are spread evently between channels 1, 6 and 11 when I look at the Web Console Dashboard. The 5GHZ channels are again spread between Channels:- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Currently Managed APs MAC Address Device Name Description Model Status Mesh Mode IP Address VLAN Channel Clients Action 00:25:c4:1d:4f:30 AP01 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.1 100 (11a/n-40), 1 (11g/n-20) 8 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:4b:20 AP02 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.2 104 (11a/n-40), 11 (11g/n-20) 4 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:4d:c0 AP03 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.3 108 (11a/n-40), 6 (11g/n-20) 2 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:5c:40 AP04 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.4 112 (11a/n-40), 11 (11g/n-20) 3 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:5e:60 AP05 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.5 116 (11a/n-40), 1 (11g/n-20) 4 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:4c:b0 AP06 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.6 120 (11a/n-40), 1 (11g/n-20) 9 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:53:00 AP07 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.7 124 (11a/n-40), 6 (11g/n-20) 4 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:53:30 AP08 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.8 128 (11a/n-40), 1 (11g/n-20) 4 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:52:d0 AP09 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.9 132 (11a/n-40), 11 (11g/n-20) 6 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:4f:b0 AP10 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.10 136 (11a/n-40), 6 (11g/n-20) 1 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:54:a0 AP11 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.11 140 (11a/n-20), 6 (11g/n-20) 7 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:57:e0 AP12 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.12 100 (11a/n-40), 11 (11g/n-20) 3 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:50:d0 AP13 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.13 104 (11a/n-40), 6 (11g/n-20) 5 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:4c:40 AP14 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.14 104 (11a/n-40), 11 (11g/n-20) 4 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:53:50 AP15 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.15 108 (11a/n-40), 11 (11g/n-20) 3 CLI 00:25:c4:1d:51:60 AP16 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.16 132 (11a/n-40), 11 (11g/n-20) 5 CLI 00:25:c4:24:ac:60 AP17 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.17 100 (11a/n-40), 1 (11g/n-20) 3 CLI 00:25:c4:24:af:90 AP18 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.18 116 (11a/n-40), 6 (11g/n-20) 4 CLI 00:25:c4:24:a2:90 AP19 zf7962 Connected Disabled 172.16.247.19 108 (11a/n-40), 6 (11g/n-20) 7 Thanks, Matt
Duane_Dibbley Posted October 7, 2010 Author Posted October 7, 2010 Also are there roaming profiles involved here? What is the speed of the AP to the switch? Are you tunneling the traffic back to the ZD? I think the 1st thing is to upgrade the ZD as suggested. We redirect virtually everything on the kids laptops - start menu, desktop, my docs etc. When working ok this is great, but when we have wireless issues the laptops become unuseable as it can take 5mins to get 2 items deep in the start menu lol. I'll get onto our reseller to see if they have a Ruckus account to get updated firmware. Thanks for all the help so far.
White_Fi Posted October 7, 2010 Posted October 7, 2010 Matt feel free to take a support info file from the AP and a ZD debug with 802.11, RF managment and Access point enabled. I will take a look once i get a chance. Stuart 1
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now