Wireless Access

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

Thank you sharing your experiences. We actually have deployed 23.110.0.5 but no cigar in regards of performance improvement. 

There is also the suggestion to enable FIPS on the network NIC. Not quite sure why this would improve performance, as FIPS is for US government entities and its contractors. But we'll try this anyways.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

You probably refer to the hardware with 160MHz, but using 160MHz channels in 5GHz WiFi may only work well in lab environments or at home. In networks with multiple APs (or other/interfering APs), in most cases 20MHz (high-density), 40MHz (normal) or 80MHz (low density) are the max. If you have wider channels enabled, you may try if smaller channels fix things.

Thank you sharing your experiences. We actually have deployed 23.110.0.5 but no cigar in regards of performance improvement. 

There is also the suggestion to enable FIPS on the network NIC. Not quite sure why this would improve performance, as FIPS is for US government entities and its contractors. But we'll try this anyways.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

Hi Herman 

Thank you very much for your reply. The 160MHz relate to the NIC model. Customer has a low density environment running with 40MHz in the 5GHz band.

We are testing with the SSR 8.12.02 at this moment and haven't had a single interrupt this far. We are not yet sure if this is the silver bullet we are after, but after testing today/tomorrow, we may have an indicator that we may have found a combo NIC driver/AOS that will work,

You probably refer to the hardware with 160MHz, but using 160MHz channels in 5GHz WiFi may only work well in lab environments or at home. In networks with multiple APs (or other/interfering APs), in most cases 20MHz (high-density), 40MHz (normal) or 80MHz (low density) are the max. If you have wider channels enabled, you may try if smaller channels fix things.

Thank you sharing your experiences. We actually have deployed 23.110.0.5 but no cigar in regards of performance improvement. 

There is also the suggestion to enable FIPS on the network NIC. Not quite sure why this would improve performance, as FIPS is for US government entities and its contractors. But we'll try this anyways.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

d-nat, any update on this? Did 8.12.0.2 seem to resolve this, or do you still have issues?

I'm fighting similar issues (Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz chipset with 23.90.0.2 driver) with AP-315's running 8.12.0.3 code. (This is with an 802.1x network running on Instant, not controllers)

Hi Herman 

Thank you very much for your reply. The 160MHz relate to the NIC model. Customer has a low density environment running with 40MHz in the 5GHz band.

We are testing with the SSR 8.12.02 at this moment and haven't had a single interrupt this far. We are not yet sure if this is the silver bullet we are after, but after testing today/tomorrow, we may have an indicator that we may have found a combo NIC driver/AOS that will work,

You probably refer to the hardware with 160MHz, but using 160MHz channels in 5GHz WiFi may only work well in lab environments or at home. In networks with multiple APs (or other/interfering APs), in most cases 20MHz (high-density), 40MHz (normal) or 80MHz (low density) are the max. If you have wider channels enabled, you may try if smaller channels fix things.

Thank you sharing your experiences. We actually have deployed 23.110.0.5 but no cigar in regards of performance improvement. 

There is also the suggestion to enable FIPS on the network NIC. Not quite sure why this would improve performance, as FIPS is for US government entities and its contractors. But we'll try this anyways.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

Hi Cody

Thank you for asking back. The issue is partially gone: we have the latest Intel NIC driver and Aruba firmware 8.12.x (SSR). From our four customers affected, status is as such:

• No more WiFi disconnects for all
• No MS Teams issues (3 of 4)
• No more complaints about Internet/Fileserver performance

Issues pending:

• SQL server latency
• Sometimes MS Teams freezes

One of the two SQL customers "solved" his issue by reverting back to Ethernet.

Summarized: better, but not good yet for 3 out of 4 customers

d-nat, any update on this? Did 8.12.0.2 seem to resolve this, or do you still have issues?

I'm fighting similar issues (Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz chipset with 23.90.0.2 driver) with AP-315's running 8.12.0.3 code. (This is with an 802.1x network running on Instant, not controllers)

Hi Herman 

Thank you very much for your reply. The 160MHz relate to the NIC model. Customer has a low density environment running with 40MHz in the 5GHz band.

We are testing with the SSR 8.12.02 at this moment and haven't had a single interrupt this far. We are not yet sure if this is the silver bullet we are after, but after testing today/tomorrow, we may have an indicator that we may have found a combo NIC driver/AOS that will work,

You probably refer to the hardware with 160MHz, but using 160MHz channels in 5GHz WiFi may only work well in lab environments or at home. In networks with multiple APs (or other/interfering APs), in most cases 20MHz (high-density), 40MHz (normal) or 80MHz (low density) are the max. If you have wider channels enabled, you may try if smaller channels fix things.

Thank you sharing your experiences. We actually have deployed 23.110.0.5 but no cigar in regards of performance improvement. 

There is also the suggestion to enable FIPS on the network NIC. Not quite sure why this would improve performance, as FIPS is for US government entities and its contractors. But we'll try this anyways.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

we also had trouble with Intel Wlan Drivers. In our Case disabling HT / VHT on the SSID solved the Issues. Not a good solution, but makes the Network a little more compatible to bad drivers. 

Hi Cody

Thank you for asking back. The issue is partially gone: we have the latest Intel NIC driver and Aruba firmware 8.12.x (SSR). From our four customers affected, status is as such:

• No more WiFi disconnects for all
• No MS Teams issues (3 of 4)
• No more complaints about Internet/Fileserver performance

Issues pending:

• SQL server latency
• Sometimes MS Teams freezes

One of the two SQL customers "solved" his issue by reverting back to Ethernet.

Summarized: better, but not good yet for 3 out of 4 customers

d-nat, any update on this? Did 8.12.0.2 seem to resolve this, or do you still have issues?

I'm fighting similar issues (Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz chipset with 23.90.0.2 driver) with AP-315's running 8.12.0.3 code. (This is with an 802.1x network running on Instant, not controllers)

Hi Herman 

Thank you very much for your reply. The 160MHz relate to the NIC model. Customer has a low density environment running with 40MHz in the 5GHz band.

We are testing with the SSR 8.12.02 at this moment and haven't had a single interrupt this far. We are not yet sure if this is the silver bullet we are after, but after testing today/tomorrow, we may have an indicator that we may have found a combo NIC driver/AOS that will work,

You probably refer to the hardware with 160MHz, but using 160MHz channels in 5GHz WiFi may only work well in lab environments or at home. In networks with multiple APs (or other/interfering APs), in most cases 20MHz (high-density), 40MHz (normal) or 80MHz (low density) are the max. If you have wider channels enabled, you may try if smaller channels fix things.

Thank you sharing your experiences. We actually have deployed 23.110.0.5 but no cigar in regards of performance improvement. 

There is also the suggestion to enable FIPS on the network NIC. Not quite sure why this would improve performance, as FIPS is for US government entities and its contractors. But we'll try this anyways.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

Yea, disabling HT/VHT isn't a viable option. Like d-nat above, when we moved to 8.12.x.x code I feel like an improvement was made, but there are still lingering issues with the intel drivers (even the latest versions). I may try backing down to the intel 22.x.x.x drivers.

we also had trouble with Intel Wlan Drivers. In our Case disabling HT / VHT on the SSID solved the Issues. Not a good solution, but makes the Network a little more compatible to bad drivers. 

Hi Cody

Thank you for asking back. The issue is partially gone: we have the latest Intel NIC driver and Aruba firmware 8.12.x (SSR). From our four customers affected, status is as such:

• No more WiFi disconnects for all
• No MS Teams issues (3 of 4)
• No more complaints about Internet/Fileserver performance

Issues pending:

• SQL server latency
• Sometimes MS Teams freezes

One of the two SQL customers "solved" his issue by reverting back to Ethernet.

Summarized: better, but not good yet for 3 out of 4 customers

d-nat, any update on this? Did 8.12.0.2 seem to resolve this, or do you still have issues?

I'm fighting similar issues (Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz chipset with 23.90.0.2 driver) with AP-315's running 8.12.0.3 code. (This is with an 802.1x network running on Instant, not controllers)

Hi Herman 

Thank you very much for your reply. The 160MHz relate to the NIC model. Customer has a low density environment running with 40MHz in the 5GHz band.

We are testing with the SSR 8.12.02 at this moment and haven't had a single interrupt this far. We are not yet sure if this is the silver bullet we are after, but after testing today/tomorrow, we may have an indicator that we may have found a combo NIC driver/AOS that will work,

You probably refer to the hardware with 160MHz, but using 160MHz channels in 5GHz WiFi may only work well in lab environments or at home. In networks with multiple APs (or other/interfering APs), in most cases 20MHz (high-density), 40MHz (normal) or 80MHz (low density) are the max. If you have wider channels enabled, you may try if smaller channels fix things.

Thank you sharing your experiences. We actually have deployed 23.110.0.5 but no cigar in regards of performance improvement. 

There is also the suggestion to enable FIPS on the network NIC. Not quite sure why this would improve performance, as FIPS is for US government entities and its contractors. But we'll try this anyways.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.

d-nat, any update on this? Did 8.12.0.2 seem to resolve this, or do you still have issues?

I'm fighting similar issues (Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz chipset with 23.90.0.2 driver) with AP-315's running 8.12.0.3 code. (This is with an 802.1x network running on Instant, not controllers)

Hi Herman 

Thank you very much for your reply. The 160MHz relate to the NIC model. Customer has a low density environment running with 40MHz in the 5GHz band.

We are testing with the SSR 8.12.02 at this moment and haven't had a single interrupt this far. We are not yet sure if this is the silver bullet we are after, but after testing today/tomorrow, we may have an indicator that we may have found a combo NIC driver/AOS that will work,

You probably refer to the hardware with 160MHz, but using 160MHz channels in 5GHz WiFi may only work well in lab environments or at home. In networks with multiple APs (or other/interfering APs), in most cases 20MHz (high-density), 40MHz (normal) or 80MHz (low density) are the max. If you have wider channels enabled, you may try if smaller channels fix things.

Thank you sharing your experiences. We actually have deployed 23.110.0.5 but no cigar in regards of performance improvement. 

There is also the suggestion to enable FIPS on the network NIC. Not quite sure why this would improve performance, as FIPS is for US government entities and its contractors. But we'll try this anyways.

There is an Intel Thread related to this issue:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Wireless/Intel-Wi-Fi-6E-AX211-160MHz-slow-communicating-with-SQL/td-p/1637627

You should check on that. It worked in one case for me.

We have issues at three sites with the same Intel NIC and AOS 8.10.0.14 and 10.7.1.0. Two customers are on Aruba Central and one has a Conductor/Controller setup. What they all have in common is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz on Windows 11 notebooks and Aruba AP-505/515.

Issues: 

• SQL response times very slow while being on WLAN
• Timeouts, causing interrupts when in MS Teams and sometimes RDP sessions get disconnected

The issues occur with version 23.x only - it used to work fine with version 22.x. So our issues are related to the combo NIC driver / firmware. Customer is considering a downgrade as a last resort only. Have you dealt with this issue, too? How did you implement your workaround or solution?

Thank you for your thoughts.