New Zyxel Customer & (2) New NWA50AX Access Point Issues

Bgv2022
Bgv2022 Posts: 5
Friend Collector
edited November 2023 in Nebula
Hello.  I was super excited to get my NWA50X yesterday.  Setup was easy (if accepting the defaults) which I really liked.

My home setup:
(1) NWA50AX downstairs
(1) NWA50AX upstairs

Issues:
1) NWA50AX downstairs on the Access Points list page it says channel is running on channels 157*/161/149/153 [5GHz]   BUT, I manually override to be only 157 and the radio settings page it says only channel it is using is 157.  My NWA50AX upstairs correctly listed on the Access Points page as 157 and the override manually radio settings page correct at 157.

2) Performance with NWA50AX downstairs gets about 300-400 mbit download & 500-600 mbit upload.  This is okay.  Performance with NWA50AX upstairs gets about 100-150 mbit download & 150 mbit upload.  They are both in similar positions (sitting on table/desk for the time being).  Testing was done via LAN with IPERF3 and also WiFiMan application.  Both tests done using Macbook Pro M1 and iPhone 12 Pro.

3) When I am upstairs (right next to the NWA50AX upstairs) it still stays connected to the NWA50AX downstairs.  How do I make it better deciding for changing AP with the mesh.

4) Guest/Layer 2 setting allowed the network to still contact other LAN IP Addresses.  Why is this?

Would greatly appreciate any help to improve my performance.  I really like them so far but I don't want to degrade my network speed (coming from Netgear crappy devices).  Thank you for taking the time to help and/or read!

Modifications:
disabled U-ASPD, disabled DCS, low density deployment, smart mesh enabled, load balancing disabled, smart steering enabled, 802.11d enabled.








All Replies

  • Bgv2022
    Bgv2022 Posts: 5
    Friend Collector
    Also noticed my Amazon Blink cameras and sync module are all disconnected and won’t connect to the new Zyxel Access Points. Shame … lots of issues I’m have right off the bat. Hopefully it’s not a sign I should return the devices.
  • Zyxel_HsinBo
    Zyxel_HsinBo Posts: 220  Zyxel Employee
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer
    edited June 2022

    Welcome to the Zyxel Community!
    We have received your message,
    Since the radio distributes as channel width 80MHz, thus it shows as 157*/161/149/153 from the front-end as you saw.
    The channel you fixed is not a good selection that both two AP are in high utilization(Refer to the picture below).
    Due to the mechanism and high load utilization of the channel, over 20 clients connected to the upstairs AP, the AP may decrease the bandwidth to ensure complete data transmission,
    Thus the channel bandwidth shows as 157 of the upstairs AP may indicate that the radio of the upstairs AP run as bandwidth 20MHz, which would be the gap of the speed test results that you mentioned.

    We would suggest you turn on DCS, Blacklist DFS channels in the presence of radar, and turn off Avoid 5G DFS channel to have more channels to choose from for DCS for better performance.

    The scenario that you describe is the process of client roaming, which is the behavior of end devices,
    We would suggest you change the deployment of AP, or adjust the power of the 2.4G radio lower to make the sticky device roaming process more smoothly in your scenario. 

    As you mentioned, the NWA50AX does not support Layer 2 isolation.
    Since NWA50AX does not support this feature, if you have the requirement to set up an SSID with layer 2 isolation in your scenario, Here is a workaround for you that setup firewall rules and setup VLAN SSID to block the traffic and achieve the same purpose.

    If the symptom still exists after you have done the settings, please feel free to contact us!
    Hope the solution would solve your problems,
    Have a nice day,
    Thank you!

    Best Regards,

    HsinBo
  • Bgv2022
    Bgv2022 Posts: 5
    Friend Collector
    edited June 2022

    Welcome to the Zyxel Community!
    We have received your message,
    Since the radio distributes as channel width 80MHz, thus it shows as 157*/161/149/153 from the front-end as you saw.
    The channel you fixed is not a good selection that both two AP are in high utilization(Refer to the picture below).
    Due to the mechanism and high load utilization of the channel, over 20 clients connected to the upstairs AP, the AP may decrease the bandwidth to ensure complete data transmission,
    Thus the channel bandwidth shows as 157 of the upstairs AP may indicate that the radio of the upstairs AP run as bandwidth 20MHz, which would be the gap of the speed test results that you mentioned.

    We would suggest you turn on DCS, Blacklist DFS channels in the presence of radar, and turn off Avoid 5G DFS channel to have more channels to choose from for DCS for better performance.

    The scenario that you describe is the process of client roaming, which is the behavior of end devices,
    We would suggest you change the deployment of AP, or adjust the power of the 2.4G radio lower to make the sticky device roaming process more smoothly in your scenario. 

    As you mentioned, the NWA50AX does not support Layer 2 isolation.
    Since NWA50AX does not support this feature, if you have the requirement to set up an SSID with layer 2 isolation in your scenario, Here is a workaround for you that setup firewall rules and setup VLAN SSID to block the traffic and achieve the same purpose.

    If the symptom still exists after you have done the settings, please feel free to contact us!
    Hope the solution would solve your problems,
    Have a nice day,
    Thank you!

    Best Regards,

    HsinBo
    Thank you HsinBo for your suggestions.  I will be trying out the suggestions you made and see how performance is.

    I'll look further into the Layer 2 isolation.

    I'll provide an update after a day or testing.

    EDIT:  Does DCS client aware need to be enabled?
  • Zyxel_HsinBo
    Zyxel_HsinBo Posts: 220  Zyxel Employee
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer
    Hi, @Bgv2022

    We have received your message,
    To avoid DCS not taking action to change the best channel if there is a client connected with it after the DCS scan, please help us to turn off DCS client aware.
    We're looking forward to the good news from you!
    Thank you.

    Best Regards,

    HsinBo
  • Bgv2022
    Bgv2022 Posts: 5
    Friend Collector
    Update with the changes.  Performance/speed was better (reaching about 600MBit).  Then after about 15 minutes both NWA50AX devices would fail on giving the clients DHCP addresses.  Triesd with Windows 11, Macbook Pro M1 & iPhone 12 Pro.  Each device would connect for a minute and work fine then get an device internal 169.254.x.x IP Address and not work afterwards.

    Any thoughts or help?  I highly doubt it's my DHCP Server causing the issue; I have over 12 other clients using DHCP connected via hardwired ethernet without any issues.  Both NWA50AX devices are on seperate switches as well to avoid a single point of failure.  My router is an EdgeRouter Lite 3 (ERL3).

    I had to swap out both NWA50AX for the time being because it was causing all WIFI connected devices to be offline.
  • mMontana
    mMontana Posts: 1,298  Guru Member
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer
    @Bgv2022 how are connected APs to your EdgeRouter? Directly via lan cable? Or what else?
    With your current (not NWA50AX) APs, do you configure APs as DHCP relay or simply brige?
  • Bgv2022
    Bgv2022 Posts: 5
    Friend Collector
    mMontana said:
    @Bgv2022 how are connected APs to your EdgeRouter? Directly via lan cable? Or what else?
    With your current (not NWA50AX) APs, do you configure APs as DHCP relay or simply brige?
    Thank you for getting back to me.

    Current network setup:

    EdgeRouter (computer room) -> Switch A (computer room) -> Switch B (attic) -> NWA50AX
    EdgeRouter (computer room) -> Switch A (computer room) -> NWA50AX

    My previous APs are Netgear Orbi devices with software setting to act as Access Point mode; so would assume it to be a "simple bridge" setup.  Mesh setup as well with the same physical locations for the APs.
  • Zyxel_HsinBo
    Zyxel_HsinBo Posts: 220  Zyxel Employee
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer

    Hi, @Bgv2022

     

    We have received your message,

    The symptom you described seems ran into the issue below:

     

    Link: [Notification] NWA50AX, NWA90AX, NWA55AXE Smart Mesh Station can't get IP Issue — Zyxel Community

     

    If both of your 2 AP were connected with hardwired with your switch,

    Please help us to turn off the Smart Mesh feature in Access point >> AP&port settings, which may be the reason that you ran into this issue.

    (In your scenario, you do not need to turn this feature on since you could provide all the AP uplink with hardwire connection)

    Wait a moment until the config status of both two AP shows up to date in Nebula then reboot them.

    After you have done the steps above, please help us to observe whether the symptom exist or not.

     

    Could you kindly help us to tell did the symptom disappear after you replace them with other brands AP?

    Please help us to open the Zyxel Support Access from the below path and provide us the org/site name of yours.

     

    Path: Sidebar “Help” >> Support request >> Turn on Invite Zyxel support as administrator

     

    Sorry for the inconvenience,

    We would check the diagnostic and logs for the symptom you mentioned as soon as possible.

    Thanks for your help.

     

    Best Regards,

     

    HsinBo  

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