Ruckus and Samsung NC10's once more

[TechSupp]

Had a Ruckus network installed in the summer (sorry Aggy) and all seemed well untill it was used in anger and now I'm getting it in the neck. We are having difficulty getting a class full of netbooks to log on correctly, some log on fine and some just wont find the profile to load (then when I try again its fine) and load a temporary one. They check out as having a wireless connection but having difficulty when logging on. The netbooks and server are fine as they worked OK when we just used a single AP (Netgear). Had the engineer out and he tested it and said the speed of downloads were fine when he had a connection which is fine but its getting it to log on reliably thats the problem. Now as I'm very new to Ruckus a couple of questions:

 

Should two adjacent AP's show the same channel? Did a wireless survey for signam strenth with some free software 'Ekahau HeatMapper' and it showed two next to each other on channel 6, the next time I tried it they had changed, so does Ruckus do the managemnet and allocation automatically all the time and should there end up with two the same next to each other?

 

Looking at the netbooks the drivers were the origianl installed ones (Atheros) and looking at the Samsung site the latest are a much later version. Dounloaded them but not had the chance to install yet. Could this solve my problems having them on the latest version (cant harm anyway!)

 

Cant remember the model number of the AP's but looking at the heat maps are they directional? Some seem to give much better coverage in some directions although it could be down to building structure, so just wondering.

 

Anyone suggest anything else I should check who have had this combination before (Know SimpleSi on here has had).

 

Will be upgrading the wireless drivers as a fisrt line of investigation anyway, any settings I should change other than leaving them as standard? Leaving them as windows managing the wireless rather than the supplied utility anyway.

[Chris_Cook]

Drivers would be my first guess. Try comparing the driver version on the ones that work and the ones that don't. You might find you need an older one instead of a newer one.

 

The windows event log sometimes gives out useful info about whats failing. What authentication are you using and what windows version? We find 7 handles wifi much better than xp does.

 

We've had some problems with the n210+'s from samsung (the n210's works well, don't know what they did to the plus but I wish they hadn't). I think I fixed it eventually by un-joining it from the domain, deleting the ad account, and starting from scratch.

 

Ruckus does manage the channels itself. Its possible if there are lots of other access points around that the only option was to have 2 on the same channel.

 

I think ruckus is supposed to do beam-forming, My understanding is that it adjusts the power sent in each direction. This should decrease the interference between neighboring aps. have you checked for any dead-spots where the netbooks are used?

[TechSupp]

Thanks for the reply, that explained alot. Went and updated the driver on 30 netbooks today and no different (well apart from the driver version now being 9 rather than 7). Updated 4 laptops and they logged on fine, updated another 10 and tried to log them all on and two of the initial four failed trying to load the profile and did a local one, and three of the 10 failed to log properly. Did the other 16 while I had the chamnce as time is short. Did notice that on those that had logged on although the signal always reported as very good or excellent when I tried to access a network drive it sometimes failed and then at the second attemp on another one displayed the files, then back on the first and that was ok as though it had lost the connection and selecting a drive caused it to reinitiate it. Laymans descriptions as as you may have gathered wireless is not my speciality! and with these problems not likely to be! Going to get the installer involved again as I can identify the problems not the solution.

On one AP I monitored the signal using WIFI Analyser on my android phone (basic I know) but it is not a steady signal (realtime graph of signal strength) its up then down then up then down etc not talking fluctuations but high on then disapears then back etc. Any ideas..interference? Its not faulty AP as it was swapped first time I saw it and then it was looking a stable signal but its doing it again.

Even got to stage of thinking if its worth the overhead of running them on a domain and just using them as local logins in a workgroup as they are netbooks?

[m25man]

Are you using N APs and b/g netbooks per chance?

 

I often find that even the very latest N notebooks/netbooks will have the cheapest possible chipsets and are only capable of 65mbps Non MIMo N wireless and when mated to a high speed MIMo N capable point that has been tweeked for the fastest possible throughput it all turns to dust!

 

N technology is not all it's cracked up to be and the challenge of large user profiles, software updates, group policies makes school admins think that setting everything up for 300 Mbps 2 x MIMo 40Mhz channel slots will solve the problem, when actually that's a big FAIL.

[morganw]

If you look at the AP logs on the controller then you'll probably find that the channels are being changed or power levels are being adjusted too frequently. The system that I had installed a couple of years ago used to be fairly stable but recently degenerated into a mess after adding a couple more APs. I found that the automatic power and channel settings had everything going in circles and settings were being changed every 10 minutes. Try manually setting the channel and power on the APs that you are using and then give it another test.

[TechSupp]

Thanks will relay that to the engineer on Monday, Its set up to be able to handle n and g but we only have the NC10's and they are g only. We have some newer laptops for teachers but not cheched what they are connecting at, b or g yet.

[m25man]

If your using N make sure it's set only for 20mhz channels your NC10s can't see or hear 40Mhz channels and the nett result is the odd N client will fly whilst the NC10s will be waiting for their turn!!

[TechSupp]

Hardly got any laptops (if any) connecting at the moment, would be happy with just getting the netbooks up and running.

[Steven]

We had the same problem. with NB30 Laptops & Ruckus Wireless. I upgraded the ZoneDirector firmware and that fixed all my problems

 

Also set everything to AUTO :-)

Edited October 5, 2011 by Steven

[TechSupp]

Firmware just been upgraded but still have problems, in one area outside a classroom that had an AP in it the NC10 on test was getting a speed test of 3Mb whereas the Toshiba laptop he was using to scan and test the network was getting 60Mb, moved to another area and near another AP and the laptop was getting 50Mb and the NC10 21Mb, figure that out! Anyway they have taken away a netbook to test on their own Ruckus network to see what the issues maybe are with the netbooks. We await and will see.

[paulfinlay]

How are your netbooks authenticating? Is it WPA-PSk or 802.1x?

[TechSupp]

Now theres a question! It used to be WPA-PSK on the AP we originally used and outgrew but not sure what has been set up on the Ruckus as its not been working enough for me to play with it and have a look around. Leaving well alone till its working, then if its working will still probably leave well alone! Anyway engineer thinks he may have a solution so will see when he comes out next week. Fairly confident he will get to bottom of it.

[Little-Miss]

Will be following this thread with interest.

 

We've just had Ruckus installed at "Hogwarts" and i'm having near enough the same problem. Thing is, i had the same issue with my HP setup in the old building so i teeter on it being a netbook thing. But please do keep me updated!! I would love to get to the bottom of this too!

[Little-Miss]

Oh i got Toshiba NB200 and NB300's by the way....

 

I'm supporting a teacher with them tomorrow, so will report on my issues...

[TechSupp]

I'll report what the engineers findings are in case it can shed some light on your case.

[Little-Miss]

Excellent! Thanks.

 

Never got to view the netbooks in use today. Will be interesting when people start using them more often.

[witch]

I've got NB30s and a Ruckus network and have had no issues as yet. Silly question but have you checked interference on that channel - lots of reports of interference on Channel 6

[TechSupp]

Yes he came out with a scanner and no interference could be seen, I watch it myself. Did mention it to him and he checked to see if any alarm PIRs etc were interfering.

[TechSupp]

Had a Ruckus network installed in the summer (sorry Aggy) .

Just to clarify my original message as it seems it has been taken the wrong way, my Ruckus system was not installed by Net-Ctrl (Aggy) but by another local Ruckus supplier. My refference to Aggy was that she tried so very hard for me with getting a really competative quote for the job but in the end the school went elsewhere. Take my hat off to Aggy as her endevours to get us a good quote were exemplary. Net-Ctrl have also offered advice to us since over our problem as they had experienced similar issues before so its hats off to them and I will have no hesitation asking them for a quote next time if I need one. Hope that clears any mistunderstanding up. ps Hope to see you at again BETT 2012 Aggy

[Aggy]

Just to clarify my original message as it seems it has been taken the wrong way, my Ruckus system was not installed by Net-Ctrl (Aggy) but by another local Ruckus supplier. My refference to Aggy was that she tried so very hard for me with getting a really competative quote for the job but in the end the school went elsewhere. Take my hat off to Aggy as her endevours to get us a good quote were exemplary. Net-Ctrl have also offered advice to us since over our problem as they had experienced similar issues before so its hats off to them and I will have no hesitation asking them for a quote next time if I need one. Hope that clears any mistunderstanding up. ps Hope to see you at again BETT 2012 Aggy

 

If there is anything else I can support you with please let me know. In the mean time, I shall look forward seeing your smiley face again at the BETT 2012.

[TechSupp]

Latest update is that the poe switch has died with no power to the APs, temp one installed and so far good results! Awaiting new replacement poe switch to see if it was coincidence or just a faulty new switch from the beginning, however does not explain difference between testers laptop and samsung netbook side by side test.

[featured_spectre]

Never rely on poe if you can help it. Switch dies and all hell breaks loose....if on manual power they can Atleast mesh a connection together, albeit not as powerful.

[Little-Miss]

So you think yours was down to the Poe switch? We're Poe at the moment but that's due to it all being kinda temporary and not being able to run cables everywhere.

We were all cabled up at school

[TechSupp]

Well.....the POE was changed, all seemed well untill I came to one AP that would not let me connect to it. Had them back in and it was swapped out, still same problem so signal analysed and on closer inspection it seems the signal was very intermittently dropping and comming back so wifi taken back to basics and hey presto that point sorted. WIFI network AP's tested and problem has resurfaced on a totally different AP that was OK before! Arghhhhh! Back to POE swapout again although when he left after a POE switch reboot it was apparently stable on all the AP's. So next week have got to check it out to see if its still stable. We shall see...

[TechSupp]

Well the latest is that all now seems well...big test next week when get a class to use it but so far it looks promising. Signal strengths and speed tests look good and no AP's that are being difficult to say the least. POE switch changed to a different make and still had some issues but after a scan of signals it was found some Security PIR's were causing some issues so channel fixed to avoid the same channel. Out of safety we also fixed the channels of the other points (dont have that many) so that they dont clash with each other or the wireless phones, security, alarms etc etc rather than allow Ruckus to determine the channel (as when we did the problem seemed to appear at another AP) and all seems well. Thanks for all suggestions, hope my adventure may help others who have a difficulty as well.