Wireless Access

- What does it mean when AP 535 is operating in restricted power mode? Does it just disable the USB port or does it reduce Wifi signal strength or coverage?

- Worse case scenario power consumption according to the datasheet is 26.4, I have 27 watts reserved for it on a 2930M but it is still coming up as power restricted, any idea why that is?

Thank you!

Restricted power mode means an AP does not have full input power to cover all functions in all situations,

thus indicating the AP-535 does not have 802.3at (class4, 30W) 

Please check both the actual power, and the LLDP indicated by the switch.

Reference the AP-5xx data sheets

https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP530Series.pdf

Intelligent Power Monitoring (IPM)

"Aruba APs continuously monitor and report hardware energy consumption. They can also be configured to enable or disable
capabilities based on available PoE power – ideal when wired switches have exhausted their power budget."

This section outlines the AP behavior:

Power sources and power consumption

"• When powered by DC, 802.3bt (class 5) POE or 2x 802.3at (class 4) POE, the AP will operate without restrictions."

"When powered by 1x 802.3at (class 4) POE and with the IPM feature disabled, the AP will disable the USB port and
disable the other Ethernet port. "

"with IPM enabled, the AP will start up in unrestricted mode, but may dynamically apply restrictions depending
on the POE budget and actual power. The feature restrictions and order can be programmed."

Thus, if the AP has 802.3at, there should be no restriction flag.

if the AP is powered with less than 802.3at, then it will disable certain functions, depending on the IPM configuration.

Recommendation is to enable IPM and set sensible power reduction steps. In this example, these APs will never provide power, never use the USB, and will never use the 2nd ethernet. If the AP will use the USB of course we'd ensure it was never disabled.

ap system-profile "campus-ipm-basic"
    ipm-enable
    ipm-power-reduction-step-prio ipm-step disable_pse priority 1
    ipm-power-reduction-step-prio ipm-step disable_usb priority 2
    ipm-power-reduction-step-prio ipm-step disable_alt_eth priority 3

Newer AOS versions provides these  CLI commands, supported by the newer AP-5xx and later models. (consult product documentation for IPM, and TPM)

show ap power-mgmt-statistics ap-name<apname>

show ap debug lldp neighbors ap-name<apname>  interface eth0 detail  

(WLC-SQ-1) #show ap power-mgmt-statistics ap-name <APNAME>

AP Power Mgmt Status, Last update at 2022-01-07 14:52:33
--------------------------------------------------------
Attr                Value
----                -----
LLDP Granted Power  Eth 0: 0.0 Eth 1: 0.0
LLDP Request Power  Eth 0: 16.2 Eth 1: 16.2
Power Supply        POE-BT
USB Status          No USB
PSE Status          N.A.
ETH Status          Eth 0:Enabled. Eth 1:Enabled.
G-radio Chain       2*2
G-radio Enable      Enabled
G-radio Power       Full Power
A-radio Chain       4*4
A-radio Enable      Enabled
A-radio Power       Full Power
CPU Throttle        100%
Power Consumption   10.0W
IPM Enable          Enabled

Best Regards,

- What does it mean when AP 535 is operating in restricted power mode? Does it just disable the USB port or does it reduce Wifi signal strength or coverage?

- Worse case scenario power consumption according to the datasheet is 26.4, I have 27 watts reserved for it on a 2930M but it is still coming up as power restricted, any idea why that is?

Thank you!