Controllerless Networks

I posted this earlier, but it looks like my post and related replies have somehow disappeared, so here is the issue I'm experiencing:

purchased my first Aruba WAP.  It's an IAP-305-US.  There is no controller, so it's using the built in virtual controller.  I have logged in, set a static IP address for both the virtual controller and the local device, and created a basic wireless network WPA-Personal (WPA2/AES) encryption.  I removed the initial "Open" network it comes with.

Ever since swapping this out for my Meraki devices (licensing was expiring on them), I have been dropping packets on all of my clients.  If I'm on a wired connection, everything is fine.  I can ping internal and external resources without any drops when on wired access.  As soon as I switch to wireless, my laptops both start dropping 1-5% packets.

I checked for a firmware update on the IAP, but it's up to date.  I tried manually adjusting the channels and transmit power that the AP uses, but that doesn't make a difference either.

This is a brand new AP being set up for the first time.  Oh, and I'm sitting 3 feet from the access point while testing, so I don't think it's an issue of signal strength.  Also, sometimes when I'm using a WiFi scanner on my phone, the SSID will disappear from the graph, but I'm not sure that's related to a problem with the AP; that could very well just be flakiness with the app.

Oh, and because I set up the new SSID with the same name and key as the old one, all of our devices are connecting to it without any issues, so client connection does not seem to be an issue.  Additionally, on my wife's laptop, I have updated her wireless NIC drivers and "forgotten" the network, but after re-connecting, the drops are still continuing, so I feel really confident that this is an issue with the AP somehow and not one our clients. 

The AP is running version 8.6.0.4.

Someone suggested checking broadcasting filtering, and I saw the broadcast filtering arp was configured in the config, though I can't see a GUI setting for that, so I'm not sure if that needs to be disabled.

Any ideas?

I take it by drops you mean ping drops.

What channel does your laptop connect on?

do the wired and wireless clients get their DHCP IP address on the same vlan/subnet?

is the AP/VC on the same subnet as that of clients?

Perhaps if you move the laptops to be around 2-3 meters away that will reduce the drops.

DHCP is handled by my primary firewall, so all devices, including the AP and the VC (and all wired devices), are in the same subnet.  I may add a guest network later after I can get this working as expected.  It's not just a matter of being too close to the AP.  The AP is in the same exact spot as my old Meraki which did not exhibit these symptoms with our laptops the same diatance away.

Additionally, my daughter's desktop, which is a few rooms away, is now having latency and disconnects when she is gaming, but we never had that problem before.

I am using chanel 149 on the 5 GHz band and channel 1 on the 2.4 GHz band. Also, while using ping as my primary data collection method, we have noticed that applications on the laptops and desktops will simply disconnect frequently, so it's not just an artificial test we're concerned about here.

Thanks.

are the WiFi clients connected to channel 1 or 149?

you can get that info fro Dashboard-Clients

check the signal and speed column as well.

also you asked about where to disable broad cast filtering.

configuration->Network-> (choose and edit your wireless network)->show advance option->Broadcast filter = disable.

The clients were connected to both 2.4 Ghz and 5.0 GHz.

Almost all of them had strong signal strength and decent bandwidth (300-500 mbps).  There is one device I have to track down that shows weak strength, but it was not one of the clients I was originally having issues with earlier

I also disabled the broadcast filtering.  Thanks for that.  I was not seeing the advanced option on my laptop, but I do on my phone, heh.

so did that solve your issue?

I'm going to guess that the ARP broadcast filtering was the culprit.  I am not noticing any significant dropped packets at this time.  My daughter hasn't complained of any connection issues either, so we are good for now.  Thanks for the help.

Thats great.