Samsung Chromebook and wireless issues

[roty80]

We have a strange problem where some Chromebooks the English department bought would not work over wireless. We tried them in our building and they worked fine. English kept reporting constant disconnections (which I did witness in their office, but only on the Chromebooks, my netbook and phone had no problems).

 

Looking into it further they have 2.4 GHz b/g interfaces on the access points in their building and we have 2.4 GHz b/g and 5GHz a/n. I tried one of their access points in our building and, despite being right next to the AP, the Chromebook always connected over n to one of the others. I started shutting the other AP's down to try and force it to connect to the b/g interface and it 'preferred' to connect to one on the other side of the building (despite having a signal strength of -79dbm) to the b/g AP in the same room.

 

b/g does work on the Chromebook as it connects when there are no other AP's within range, but I am wondering if the problem is they are trying to connect to n in neighbouring buildings and on other SSID's? I am wondering if this could cause the disconnections?

 

Does anyone else have any problems using Samsung 550C Chromebooks on b/g?

 

Does anyone know if Chromebooks prefer wireless n no matter what signal strength is on other interfaces?

 

I want to try changing the SSID on the English AP (to force a connection to it and then see how stable it is) but this is managed centrally by the NM (not here right now) on WCS.

 

Thanks for any feedback.

[Destinova]

What AP's are you using? Many AP's have a channel selection feature that tries to force clients over to 5.0Ghz if they are dual-band. The hardware on the Chromebook might also be set to prefer 5.0Ghz over 2.4Ghz.

[roty80]

What AP's are you using? Many AP's have a channel selection feature that tries to force clients over to 5.0Ghz if they are dual-band. The hardware on the Chromebook might also be set to prefer 5.0Ghz over 2.4Ghz.

 

Hi Destinova.

The English school have Cisco 1242 AP's, We have Cisco 1142's. The 1242's don't have wireless-n but they do have the ability to turn on 802.11a at 5GHz. I have put some antennas on and enabled it. The Chromebook I was using then connected to it straight away, but within a minute or so switched to a 1142 on the n radio interface.

 

I thought it might be something on the Chromebook but I have had a look at various forums and can't find an answer.

[Destinova]

Are these autonomous or running off a controller?

[roty80]

Are these autonomous or running off a controller?

 

We have 12 controllers with up to 100 thin access points per controller. All the APs in the same buildings have been put on the same controller in case of roaming problems.

[Destinova]

Do you have Band Select enabled for this WLAN? If you do I'd be curious to see what happens if you disable it - would the Chromebook pick the closest AP or still try the 5.0Ghz even if it was further away.

 

Client issues like this are always tricky just because you don't know what magic sauce the manufacturer has in their wireless drivers. 99% of the association decisions are made by the client, all you can do is offer the best signal possible.

[roty80]

Do you have Band Select enabled for this WLAN?

 

No, It is unticked on the controllers: