AP 630s that are dropping clients very frequently

[netadmin10]

We have new Aerohive 630s.  We are struggling with keeping clients connected.  I use a scanner and see the radios dropping out from time to time (not regular that I can tell) and then they come back. I also see that clients are connecting to APs in other room with much weaker signal that the APs close to them.  Any help

[netadmin10]

So my solution for those in question was to just turn off the 2.4 radio in that classroom, as I know the devices have a 5GHz radio.

Anecdotally, what I have right now is large batches of Lenovo N42s that do not seem to have trouble. large batches of ASUS C300s that seem to be fine.

BUT I have 250 or so HP 11 G7 chromebooks that are a pain and get kicked off regularly. From HP I see they have the following NIC...

Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 9560 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2x2) Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® 5 Combo, non-vPro™ Compatible with Miracast-certified devices.

I remember reading about an Intel issue. Is there a fix for that on the aerohive end?

[samantha_lynn]

That is correct, it's not available in Connect.

[netadmin10]

The rooms are typical classrooms, block walls and one wall mostly block with glass (regular, not Low-E, maybe not even tempered) about half way up the wall. The only unique thing in the classrooms is a heatpump in the middle of the room that is physically 12" higher than the AP, and horizontally 6' or more away. Classrooms are 30' x 35'. They typically hold 24 kids. One 75" TV on a wall, opposite the AP and opposite the glass.

I am familiar with band steering.

We have Connect, so I think that Band steering is not available. Is that correct?

[samantha_lynn]

Thank you for that tech data. I see most of the stations connected to this AP (CLI command "show station" if you're curious) with a Good connection state. A couple have a connect state of High Retires so I took a look at your interference levels.

Looking at the output for "show acsp neighbor", we want to look at the RSSI column. These values depict how loud the neighboring APs are, or in other words how much air space they are taking up. For these values we want to see -75 or lower. The closer to 0 this value is, the louder that AP is, and the more interference you will be experiencing. In your case you have one loud 2.4GHz neighbor, but several loud 5GHz neighbors. I'd recommend lowering the 5GHz power on neighboring APs to reduce signal overlap.

I checked the health of your 2.4GHz radio and found a 66% CRC failure rate, which means 66% of the traffic on your 2.4GHz radio has to be resent at least once (likely more than once) before the receiving radio is able to read it. This will cause slower wifi speeds as the APs have to keep repeating the same packets until they are readable, and can cause frequent disconnections as well.

CRC errors are usually related to environmental interference factors. These factors include mainly metal, glass, water, or large amounts of people. All of these factors tend to reflect, refract, or generally damage your signal, leading to more retries, which leads to slower WiFi speeds. To help with CRC errors  if you could send pictures of a few problem APs with as much of the environment showing around the AP as possible, I can help you rule out any environmental factors that could be damaging your wireless signal.   

The 5GHz radio looks good, no significant interference there. Are we using band steering by chance? You can find this in your Radio Profile if you're not sure. If we aren't using it already, I would suggest turning it on so we can get most of your clients away from the 2.4GHz radio.

[netadmin10]

I was able to get a different AP that had less content, but still the same symptoms. Data sent.