NWA50AX / NWA210AX - questions

undsie · March 2022

Zyxel_Silvia said:

Hi @undsie,

Thanks again for your positive suggestion,

We want to summarize the above questions,

1. RF power of NWA50AX and NWA210AX

Because NWA210AX is 4x4 antenna design, it has array gain 3dB and the antenna gain is 3 dB higher than NWA50AX.

EU RF regulation is EIRP, the power of NWA210AX isn’t smaller than NWA50AX.
***Technically the power is lower, but regulations are regulations. So I cannot go agains that. I still consider +1db more would be required, but...this is how it is. Re-certification is not possible so...we have what we have.
***For me this is closed.

2. throughput test

Based on our test, the maximum NWA50AX throughput can reach 75~85MB/s,

(we would suggest you test in the environment with less interference and no co-channel usage. We also suggest you to use jperf or iperf as test utility and send 8 sessions at the same time.)

***I got around 65MB/s. I was curios about the maximum achievable speed in Zyxel's lab.
***Really appreciate your answer.
***For me this is closed.

about Q8,

Can you share how did you test?

Based on our test, when we use 160MHz with uplink 2.5G, it can reach 1.5~1.7Gb/s.
***That is kind of low for a 2.5Gbit uplink. I've raised this concern because there was(?) a limitation mentioned in another thread; the problem was that the speed cannot go over 1Gbit/sec because of some setting in the QOS engine. If this is not the case anymore, I would want proof from the engineering team. If not...it is how it is.

3. hissing noise issue

Based on our design and the quality test,

We will ensure the product without electrical noise.

we want to analyze the issued device on your hand and please PM me and provide us your contact information.

Our team will contact you and call back the devices.
***I might be in some business trips for the next months so this is a little complicated.
***I am referring to the below examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSDu_2VUamM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7eSLjekGxw

***When you have higher load, it starts making this "whatever" sound. Tried with UPS/non-UPS, and 3 different POE power supplies, including the included power bricks. If one piece would do this, I would say ok, but to have 3 pieces and other different examples from different countries...sorry...design flaw. And some examples from other people...or maybe some bad batch of capacitors.
I appreciate your offer. I will think on how this can be done. May I assume I get a replacement during that time?

4.PoE injector

We check your Mikrotik injector is using passive PoE.

This is the reason why it shows limited power; it provides AF power capability by default, but if it has the ability to provide AT power, we suggest to use force override the power.
***I've used a https://mikrotik.com/product/RB960PGS with the required power supply. I am overriding the power only for the rest of the POE adapters, which are AT. This actually does not show limited power, but the othertwo are, altoough they are AT. I was thinking maybe there is some bug in the AT detection mechanism.
***Either way, I have no idea if they are certified.
***For me this is closed.

5.roaming and 802.11r

Both wireless and WDS support roaming and fast roaming.

But standalone mode AP doesn’t support 802.11r

Because it should work with the group message.

(our Nebula support 802.11r)

***After studying the problem, it makes some sense. Other commpanies are doing the same. It would be nice to be "standalone", but this is how it is. You should update your documentation to make this clear I guess. I see others have the same dillema.
***For me this is closed.

6.coutry code

You may set through wizard or radio setting in standalone mode.

***Thank you for your answer.
***For me this is closed.

For the rest of the positive suggestion, we really appreciate your feedback and consider to enhance in the future.

Silvia

Hi Sylvia,

I'm quoting your message because I see the thread is getting "more developed".

Please see my answers under yours, marked with "***"

Thank you for your time to write the above.

jpblanch75 · March 2022

1.5 -1.7gbps is not slow for a 2.5g port. The bottle neck is the wifi capabilities not the port.

802.11r has been posted many times here by employees that it works in standalone mode.

At my work we sell Araknis and Access Networks APs and they work in standalone mode.... It's a limitation because of Zyxel. They want you to use the cloud......

Zyxel_Silvia · March 2022

Hi @undsie ,

about Q8, Can you share how did you test?
Based on our test, when we use 160MHz with uplink 2.5G, it can reach 1.5~1.7Gb/s.
***That is kind of low for a 2.5Gbit uplink. I've raised this concern because there was(?) a limitation mentioned in another thread; the problem was that the speed cannot go over 1Gbit/sec because of some setting in the QOS engine. If this is not the case anymore, I would want proof from the engineering team. If not...it is how it is.***

We saw you mentioned the Ethernet rate is 1Gbps/s, this is not related to Qos, may I know what Ethernet switch model did you use?

If your Ethernet switch or PC (based on which device your PoE injector connect to) support multiple Gi, we also suggest you to swap the Ethernet cable support multiple Gi to make sure it is not the bottleneck.

Because the Wi-Fi uses different mechanism with Ethernet, the real throughput is around 50-60% of link rate (some of the other brands only guarantee 40% of link rate, the bottleneck is not 2.5G port of Ethernet.)

If you want to do further test, please refer to attached file.

3. Hissing noise issue

We are appreciated that you spent time to search the video and provide the case for us, we have left message under the video and he can RMA the unit, we don’t expect it has hissing noise even under high load.

Don’t worry about that, even you have business trip in the next months, you can process RMA once you back or assign to your engineer team, below is the contact information.

https://support.zyxel.eu/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=114093996354

Thank you again for everything you’ve done.

Silvia

undsie · March 2022

Hi Sylvia,

Sorry for the late response. I have been kind of busy in the last weeks so not that much time for testing.

Q8:

Thw swithch was 1 Gbit only, but I was comparing with...LAN to LAN copy (SSD to SSD) and I was getting lower results; after some more testing(cable swapping, position swappping, etc) ,I actually got the same speed so for me it is ok. 113 MB/s constant speed over wifi over 1Gbit link ..it actually opens new possibilities for certain operations. For me this is enough..I assume that it will jump higher with the right hardware; one suggestion only(if possible): please allow full uplink speed on any client(if this is not already possible); "a random customer" will buy the AP, connect one machine over wifi, and then expect very high speeds (you see 2.5 Gbit speeds, you expect 2Gbit) , close to the maximum uplink limit; if that does not happen, the customer will most likely return the AP(at least in EU); so, either document the internal tests, either ...I do not know. Mikrotik for example posts some tests so you kind of know where their network is compared with ..the current setup.

Q3: hissing issue:

The problem is this little/big guy:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029482/uploads/editor/5b/tjoehon61b58.png

(I did not put the full picture because I do not want to get into legal troubles; I saw the internals are not on the FCC site, but the engineering team will understand for sure).

If you do something like this:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029482/uploads/editor/z9/5oh4tbpxg4z8.png

then the noise is ... still there but not that annoying. I know I called it a design flaw, but.. you get components from different vendors so.. it is normal these days to get unexpected results. But this is for you engineering team to decide. Since I had been experimenting on the unit, RMA is not really possible(out of warranty), but...for future revisions, maybe the engineering team can consider this.

What I find interesting is that the noise is based on the load(if you reach 10MB/s and keep this speed I can hear it), but if you take into consideration the use of the AP(many clients, light load), I honestly don't believe this would be a problem, unless you reach a certain bandwith use. Now taking into consideration the AP placement, depending on the number of clients and use, it might not be a problem( I am using it in a flat and it is 3 meters close to my ears, so I can hear it; this does not mean everyone can hear it).

Q:21: Now, as a general consideration for NWA50AX, most of the times when changing wireless settings, the AP get stuck low speed so the client will not get more that a 200mbit connection; you can solve this by restarting the AP, so my recommandation for whoever is reading this is that once you finished setting the ap(NWA50AX), is to reboot the thing and test after; I am not sure if this is a software issue, but this is what I am seeing; maybe the engineering team can take a look into this. It is not about DFS or anything else; the client just get's stuck in a ~200mbit connection.

As a general comment for NWA50AX, depending on the requirements and the price, it can be a very nice deal: you get wifi6(ofdma and some other stuff), POE, console, SSH and some other things. The internal design seems solid (solid capacitors, very interesting cooling), ability to mod antennas(be careful with the regulations), small footprint and most important stability(tested for some months now, it just works, but did not test it with a large number of clients); looking at the internals(I am not a hardware engineer) for me it seems like a good deal. I personally prefer slightly lower speeds than instabillity.

For whoever is reading this, I am in not any way affiliated with Zyxel; I just bought an AP because I was curious and...did some testing. My maximum speed over WIFI(NWA50AX) was around ~60MB/s, when copying from a windows machine to another windows machine (SSD to SSD, one machine connected over WIFI using an Intel AX210, the other connected by wire to a 1Gbit switch). For the price and internals, I personally consider this fair. I would like to have a nice roaming(rkv) without Nebula/or some external controller and wired backhaul...but again we get to the price...

Again, I am not affiliated with Zyxel in any way.. I just did some testing.

Zyxel_CSO · March 2022

Hi undsie,

Thanks for your feedback.

Q8: NWA210AX provides a 2.5G uplink port to aggregate wireless and wire traffic because it supports maximum 600 Mbps in 2.4G and 2400Mbps in 5G radio, LAN port support 1 Gbps

The WiFi real throughput is around 50-60% of the maximum link rate, it might be lower based on environment SNR.

As you mentioned currently you are using 1 Giga switch, it can reach close 1Gbps maximum.

Q3: hissing noise

We check global RMA return devices and we don't have the similar issue. we could provide a special offer for you, please PM me your personal information, Our team will directly contact with you to process RMA.

We use Eproxy to handle the noise of electric components,it shouldn't be heard.

Q21: We have a similar issue reported by another customer, we could provide a date code for you.
Please download the attached file.

Thank you.

undsie · April 2022

Hi Nebula_CSO,

Q8: thank you for the clarifications; we can close this;

Q3: I will make an inventory of the serial numbers and send them to you with the rest of the details on private.

Q21: I've tested the attached firmware for ~1 week and I did no get the problem anymore. So we can close this also.

Q22: this is new but interesting; when you initiate shutdown of the AP from the menu, we have the next behaviour: the uplink and the console port are shutdown, but the wireless (at least 5Ghz one) stays on and broadcasting over the air. You cannot connect to it because the uplink is off. Not sure if this is the planned behaviour.

Thank you again for your support.

Zyxel_Dick · April 2022

Hi undside,

Thanks for your information.
Q22: I can duplicate the issue as well, we expect the WI-Fi should be shutdown as well.
May I know do you need a date code or we could arrange a fixed plan in the future FCS firmware.

Thank you.
BR, Dick

undsie · April 2022

Hi Zyxel_Dick,

It would be fair for the customers to release a datecode based on the previous NWA50AX_625P8-DF-2022-03-25.zip (see the upper part of this thread) and incorporate this change. It would be even better(not sure about your policy) to add it to the downloads section and marked clearly as beta or something specific.

But the AP needs to fully turn off when you initiate shutdown. This means close to 0 power consumption; this for sure does not happen now, as you noticed.

I did not test the above issue on the NWA210AX.

Thank you kindly for your time and support.

Zyxel_Dick · April 2022

Hi undside,

The date code is ready which fixed the issue SSID is still available if we shut down the NWA50AX, please feel free to verify the attached date code.(it includes the fix 0328)

undsie · April 2022

Hi Zyxel_Dick,

Q22: I can confirm the wifi is going off when shutting down the AP from the menu.

Power consumption is ~3W...but I will not insist on why this happens. I guess we can consider this closed(technically it would be closed when the changes reach an official firmware release).

Q3: I've sent the details in private; I can confirm that at least one more person is "noticing" the AP noise after using it for some time, so it is not like I am the only one that has...a "certain sensibility" to the noise emmited.

Thank you kindly for your time and support.

NWA50AX / NWA210AX - questions

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