Controllerless Networks

We have Aruba access points at work and they work great.  I decided to buy a couple of IAP-315's for my new house.  One upstairs and one downstairs.  The coverage is pretty bad.  The garage is about 100 feet from the upstairs access point  and clients can barely connect.

I did the normal stuff (min / max power) and it didn't make much difference.  Probably because right now I am very low density with 2 or 3 devices connecting.

So I set the radios to 22 dBm and disabled IPM.  That made a slight difference and things are somewhat better.

How do I go about figuring this out?  I'm using WiFi Analyzer on my phone to measure signal strength and I have to be practically underneath of an AP to get anything better than -60 dBm.

Thanks,

Do you get a solid amber light on the AP? If so that might be a sign that there isn’t enough PoE wattage being supplied to the AP and its operating at a lower power mode. 

I had the LEDs off because they were bugging my wife.  I turned them on this morning and the amber light is solid.

Should I try a power injector?  Do I need an Aruba branded or can I use something I may have on the shelf?

I would recommend Aruba branded, but you can certainly use off the shelf. I use a Cisco branded and it works fine. Here is the data sheet for the power requirements: https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP310Series.pdf

I was able to get some generic injectors that were used on IAP-215's in another office.  I put those in and after everything booted both amber lights went out.

But the signal strength still wasn't great so I decided to reset everything to factory defaults since I twiddled so many settings I have lost track.

Now one AP is solid amber and the other is flashing amber.  I suspect because I turned off IPM previously that's why they didn't come up amber.

What do you think my next steps should be?  Turn off IPM again?

IPM would let you prioritize what happens when power is low, like throttling CPU, Disabling USB, Radio power limiting, etc..

If you are supplying enough power, you shouldn't need IPM on. If for some reason you can not get enough power over PoE, then maybe prioritize turning off usb, then throttle cpu, then radio in the less used band.

What I can't figure out is why it's different now.  I put the PoE injectors in and the amber light went out on both APs.  But after resetting to factory defaults and re configuring I now have a flashing amber light on one and a solid one on the other.

I thought maybe it was because IPM is turned on out of the box.  But I disabled that and it's the same.

The injectors are 48Vdc and 15.4W guaranteed.

Is there anything I can do in the CLI to see what it thinks the power is?

I figured out that the flashing amber was due to a bad patch cable that I used between the injector and the switch.  So now they are both solid amber.

I don't know why it was green when I looked the first time.  I think maybe I didn't wait long enough to see it power up completely which is why it probably didn't make much difference. 

After re-reading the datasheet you sent me I see:

Unrestricted functionality with 802.3at PoE

My injectors are 802.3af.  I have ordered an 802.3at injector off of Amazon because I can get it next day.  I'll see if that has any effect.

With IPM off the IAP-315 will apply some minor restrictions when the POE source is 802.3af (15.4W): USB port disabled and max power on 2.4GHz reduced by 3dB.

That should not result in an amber LED (given that these restrictions are not considered very relevant), but depending on software code version the AP may actually put the LED in that mode. What code are you running?

When IP is enabled, all restrictions are initially removed and the LED should for sure be green. It could turn amber if the actual (measured by IPM) power consumption of the AP approaches the max budget from an 802.3af source. That is extremely unlikely though for an IAP-315.

Finally, with an 802.3at POE source, the LED should always be green, regardless of IPM status.

8.6.0.4_74969 (Digitally Signed - Production Build)

I enabled IPM and now it's green.  I have two green lights on the APs.  If I turn ARM back on it lowers the power to 9 dBm on both 2.4 GHz radios and down to 18 dBm on both 5 GHz radios.

I guess where I am at is I have green lights but still pretty poor performance.  For example, my garage door on 2.4 GHz show a signal of 10 dB.  The one right next to it (maybe 10 feet closer to the AP) shows 18 dB.  Both are within 100 feet of the AP.  There are walls in between but this is residential framed construction.

Well, 9dBm is a pretty low power setting on the AP. You may want to try disabling ARM and maxing out power.

10dB SNR will maintain the link, but is indeed not great..

I disabled ARM and set both of them to 24 dBm.  It's better, but barely usable at the end.

I'm going to have to add an access point to the garage and perhaps one on the other end of the house.  I can't believe I need 4 access points in a 3000 sq ft residential building.  I just did a 35,000 sq ft commercial build out (1 floor) with only 8 and it works great.

That said, should I be using a better / different model?  I like the IAP for the flexibility.  I've used Unifi in the past but their controller software leaves a lot to be desired.

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@MichaelM999 wrote:

We have Aruba access points at work and they work great.  I decided to buy a couple of IAP-315's for my new house.  One upstairs and one downstairs.  The coverage is pretty bad.  The garage is about 100 feet from the upstairs access point  and clients can barely connect.

I did the normal stuff (min / max power) and it didn't make much difference.  Probably because right now I am very low density with 2 or 3 devices connecting.

So I set the radios to 22 dBm and disabled IPM.  That made a slight difference and things are somewhat better.

How do I go about figuring this out?  I'm using WiFi Analyzer on my phone to measure signal strength and I have to be practically underneath of an AP to get anything better than -60 dBm.

Thanks,

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How many walls/ceilings are between the garage and the upstairs access point and what are they made of?

https://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Wireless-Water-Cooler/RF-Attenuation-Values-of-typical-Building-Materials/td-p/298939/

It's hard to say.  It's a fairly open floor plan but worse case there are 3 interior walls made of wood framing and 1/2" drywall.  The access point is mounted to the ceiling - higher than the garage openers that have WiFi.

If I add another access point it would be in the pole barn next to the garage because I have a drop in there.  Much higher ceiling but exterior walls with brick and stone.  There is a door between them that is wood which would be the path of least resistance.