topic Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1 in ExtremeWireless (IQE)

AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

w1f1n00b — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 18:03:09 GMT

We recently deployed two AP410C access points to an area with high client counts.
Checking on them this morning, both APs have almost all clients connected to wifi1 with little to no clients on wifi0

In an effort to keep my configs as simple as possible I've avoided using any load balancing settings thus far.

Without having the "radio load balancing" setting on in the radio profile, does the AP make any efforts to distribute clients between it's two 5GHz radios, or is it purely up to the client driver to make that choice?

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

w1f1n00b — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 18:28:33 GMT

To add to this, since I'm impatient, I went ahead and changed to a radio profile with radio load balancing enabled, and I'm seeing a few more clients on the wifi0 radio, but it's still about 75%+ on wifi1. Would love to hear if anyone else has had similar issues.

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

w1f1n00b — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 18:32:16 GMT

Also noticing that the few clients now on wifi0 radio are connected with Phymode ac. All clients on wifi1 are connected at Phymode ax.

From my understanding of the AP specs, wifi0 should operate at ax when in 5GHz mode. Is this correct?

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

SamPirok — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 19:47:21 GMT

Hey, thanks for your patience while we looked in to this. Yes, which radio the client device connects to is always a client side decision. You can influence this decision somewhat with client load balancing.

Quick firmware note- if you are on 10.4r3, it maybe better to run 10.3r4 and observe if client load balancing is corrected. If on a older version - update to 10.3r4.

It may also be that the channel Wifi0 is using for 5 GHz is too congested for the clients to use, hence the decision not to use it. I might recommend checking the channel costs on the APs with the command "show ascp channel-info detail", the channels with the lower channel costs have the least amount of usage/interference.

A good article to reference when adjusting your RF environment in general can be found here.

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

w1f1n00b — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 20:01:13 GMT

Interestingly enough I tested this in my lab and once wifi1 is disabled clients that were previously connected to wifi1 at Phyrate ax then connect to wifi0 at Phyrate ac. This makes me think that the wifi0 radio on the AP410c may not be ax compatible. I haven't yet tested other firmware versions on the AP.

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

w1f1n00b — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 20:10:38 GMT

That would line up with why my original question as to why all the clients were associated to the wifi1 radio, as the device driver prefers the best possible connection (same way they're prefer a 40mhz channel to a 20mhz one).

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

w1f1n00b — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 16:35:27 GMT

Would love to get a definitive answer on this, as it's a pretty important aspect of running a dual 5GHz AP. Whats the point of dual radios if you can't get clients to distribute across the radios. Emailed my SE over a week ago regarding my most recent testing and haven't heard back yet.

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

AreckD — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 09:35:13 GMT

Hello,

The action of the radio load balancing is based upon client connection attempts, which is why you enter between 1 and 10 connection attempts per client before the AP stops attempting to move the client to another 5-GHz radio. Default is 5 attempts.

This means when the clients are attempting to connect, they are viewing the probes of one radio first in their scans, whichever it sees first, then makes an attempt, if the attempt fails as many times as the number you configure, it will then attempt to move the client across to the other radio.

Hope this clarifies.

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

w1f1n00b — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 17:44:36 GMT

Anyone else been able to get the AP410c to support ax on wifi0?
@Sam Pirok, is there any way to confirm this ap specification? I never did hear back from my SE regarding this.

Re: AP410C, dual 5GHz config, but majority of clients connected to Wifi1

SamPirok — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 01:21:35 GMT

All the engineers I've asked tell me it shouldn't matter which radio you're using, they should both support ax. Since you're seeing different behavior, I'd recommend opening a case. If you email me the case number, I can make sure it gets the right attention and add my notes to it.