Controllerless Networks

Hello Everyone!

 

I have a recently deployed corp/guest network using 4 IAP-115s in a carpeted office space.

• The IAPs are currently running 6.4.0.3-4.1.02. 
• Guest network is configured with WPA2 and 10/10 client bandwidth limits
• Employee network is hidden WPA-2 802.1x network for domain joined laptops only
• Site has a 50M pipe with 10-15 employees.

Most employees have Lenovo W530 Laptops with Intel 6205 WLAN cards and can get an average of 35 Mbps on speed tests, with WLAN connected speeds of 144Mbps reported client side.

 

The customer just purchased and started deploying Lenovo W540  laptops with Intel 7260 WLAN cards, and now reports speed tests of no more than around 16MBps, and usually down in the 5-10Mbps range, with WLAN connected speeds of 100-140 Mbps. Additionally they report that outside of the office, the laptops get much better speed tests at hotels, etc...

 

I have been searching high and low to try and find a cause, but cant.

 

Are there any settings that would explain why these laptops may be having issues on this specific network?

 

Thanks!

 

Have enabled filter broadcast/multicast ?

Are you running the latest 7260 drivers?

Not sure on the drivers, I will follow up with my client.

 

DMO was disabled, but can be enabled if it makes since here. I hadnt really thought of that, since there are only 4-5 clients on that WLAN most of the time.

I also want to confirm a few settings on min/max transmit rates and min/max power.

 

Any input on these settings in a small office with dense AP coverage, and plenty of noise from other floors in the building?

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a dense deployment in an office , I recommend you turn on broadcast filtering.

And also take a look to see if your APs are hearing each other too much and if they are changing channels/power because of either interference has ocurred or the noise threshold exceceed 

 

 

If you are seeing your APs seeing each other too much you should consider decresing the power levels specially on the 802.11g band

 

Are you sharing the wireless VLAN with wired devices ?

 

 

I think the same as Tim

Check out the driver...

to get the lastest driver with intel is really easy...

 

Go here

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect

 

Recently i had a client which bough some USB dongles and he had a similar issue.  But here he was connected at 150Mbps and suddenly the speed drops to 5Mbps and at that time the speed was really slow... Anyways the problem in this was the lastest driver, i had to downgrade it and it fixed it.   So if for any reason they are already running the lastest driver you could try to downgrade it(weird i know but it was the fix here)

 

Cheers

Carlos

Another odd thing

Have you checked your client is connnected to 5ghz?  i mean it looks like the client is connected to 2.4ghz as their max speed is 144Mbs when it should be 300 or 250Mbps connected to 5ghz

 

As far i see those cards are 2x2 Dual band

 

Can you check on the instant cluster

Go here and click on Clients

 

 

When you already click on clients

Check if that those Clients are connected to type AN and the channel should be with a plus like you are looking in here

 

As you see my Smart TV is connected to channel 157+(which is a 40mhz channel) type AN and speed 270Mbps which is something what you should be.

 

And the clients are really far away from the AP? or are they in front of the AP and you get that poor speed?

 

Cheers

Carlos

Typically 12 and 18 on power is a good starting point. Make sure you have broadcast filter all on the SSIDs setup as well. Definitely be sure the drivers on the 7260 laptops are updated to the latest as many of the first drivers had terrible performance.