Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

teagone posted:

Is it normal for a satellite node to be significantly slower than the main node in a wifi mesh system? I set up a 2-node Orbi RBK20 kit as wireless APs at my brother's new place that has a ATT gigabit fiber, and while he gets fine wireless AC speeds in his office where the main node is (350-400+ Mbps), the same wireless devices connected to the node in the living room only get about half that—around 170-180 Mbps.

Google searches led me to telnet into the nodes and check the backhaul strength. Here's the debug info of the node in the living room that shows the backhaul status of the satellite node:



Everything checks out ok wrt signal strength right? I had my brother restart the Orbi nodes, and his modem, but nothing really made a difference. Things I've tried were disabling MU-MIMO and Daisy Chain topology in the Orbi's advanced wireless settings, but those didn't really seem to make too much of a difference either.


Going off this again, I had my brother disconnect the satellite node in his Orbi setup, so everything connected to the main node to test something out... and every device in their place clocked in at 300+ Mbps on 5GHz Wireless AC. As soon as he reconnects the satellite node in the living room, and the devices in that location connect to that node, their speeds drop to 120-180 Mbps, sometimes slower. Uhh... is this how mesh wifi is supposed to work? I'm confused.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


It's got a dedicated backhaul radio so there shouldn't be that sort of speed drop.

It sounds like you have no need for a mesh setup if every device is in range of a single unit.

Meydey
Dec 31, 2005

Meydey posted:

System LED flashing white about 5 times a second. No lights/comms on any port.
I'll let it cool down and do a system reset.
Update: (or lack of) System reset did nothing. No change from rapid white led flashing. Unable to ssh due to no port active. Purchased June 2019 so I should be good for an rma I guess. Anyone know how long an rma would take in these end times?
I did get 1 ap back online via a random poe injector laying around going through an unmanaged switch. That only gets me about half a house of wifi but better than nothing.

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

Thanks Ants posted:

It's got a dedicated backhaul radio so there shouldn't be that sort of speed drop.

It sounds like you have no need for a mesh setup if every device is in range of a single unit.

Yeah I'm realizing now he probably doesn't need mesh, but my original question is still valid because as you said, there shouldn't be that sort of speed drop in the first place. I did notice there's a firmware update for my brother's Orbi kit, so I'll do that later tonight and see if that remedies the issue.

Raymond T. Racing
Jun 11, 2019

WRT Pihole/Adguard Home, I've been really digging NextDNS. Costs a few bucks a month, but it's cloud hosted (so it works anywhere without needing a VPN back to your home network), has DNS over TLS/HTTPS, good blocklist support, very fast resolving, and optional exclusions for affiliate link type things if you're a slickdeals hound.

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

I've been trying to diagnose some game streaming issues that I think are related to the connection to my AP AC Pro. I did a network scan and got this. Isn't 95% utilization across every channel completely crazy? I'm in a detached home in a neighborhood of retirees so there’s only 2 other 5GHz networks I can even pick up. What could be going on?

Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 04:30 on May 21, 2020

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





Definitely seems like something is spewing noise in the 5G spectrum.

LRADIKAL
Jun 10, 2001

Fun Shoe
What does it look like if you use your phone and something like wifiman?

Are you near a military base or airport?

LRADIKAL fucked around with this message at 06:55 on May 21, 2020

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


I don't really understand that graphic - the channels are yellow which indicates an RSSI of like -80 which is gently caress all, but there's an exclamation mark on there as well and the height of the graph seems to indicate high channel utilisation.

It's possible someone far away from you is using 160MHz wide channels but if it's all happening at a really low RSSI then it shouldn't be troubling you.

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

mobby_6kl posted:

I just set up Pi-hole on my raspberry print server and wanted to configure the router, which is ISP-branded but seems to be from Ubee interactive according to the mac address. I went to change the DNS server in the router and



What. It's clearly a valid address (even shows up in connected clients) but just won't accept it as either the primary or alternative DNS. Any ideas why it might not like it? I can't find anything online because it's a weird oem model.
Ok so I got the new "premium" router.



You've got to be making GBS threads me. That's it. You can change the DHCP range and reserve an IP for MAC addresses and that is all. No way to change the DNS or anything else. I guess I could use the PI as the router?

:fuckoff:

mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 14:21 on May 21, 2020

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


Use the Pi as the DHCP server and turn off the one in the router

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

LRADIKAL posted:

What does it look like if you use your phone and something like wifiman?

Are you near a military base or airport?

I’m about 5 miles away from an Air Force bass, so yes to both. Is WiFiman the ubiquiti app? It just tell me what’s on my network but nothing crazy

I set my channel to 161 and that seems to have addressed the issue for now, but it still seems weird to see almost maxed out utilization across the whole spectrum.

Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 15:21 on May 21, 2020

Raymond T. Racing
Jun 11, 2019

Wifiman is a WiFi scanner as well.

The idea is to see if your AP is wrong or if there actually is just a whole bunch of RF pollution.

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

Apparently Apple doesn't allow wifi scanner apps on iOS, so that's the issue. The analyzer apps you can get will only do LAN discovery.

Luckily macOS has a pretty robust wifi scanner tool built-in and it did only show 2 other 5 GHz networks aside from my own. I guess I'll try lining my house with foil to block out the military radar. Maybe mix iron filings in the paint?

H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006

Fallom posted:

Apparently Apple doesn't allow wifi scanner apps on iOS, so that's the issue. The analyzer apps you can get will only do LAN discovery.

Luckily macOS has a pretty robust wifi scanner tool built-in and it did only show 2 other 5 GHz networks aside from my own. I guess I'll try lining my house with foil to block out the military radar. Maybe mix iron filings in the paint?

They sell magnetic paint already.

Asema
Oct 2, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I'm moving and my current router has been giving me a lot of issues so I figured it would be best to get a new one, the ones in the OP haven't been updated since 2018, what's the current recommendation set?

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down
Apparently just dodged a bullet with Best Buy closing before I could pick up a SB6190 cable modem as it apparently has some faulty chipset. Some researching shows that I should get the SB8200 instead for my 500/50 internet that I just upgraded to.

Just wanted to do a quick pulse check with goons if there are any red flags with this gigabit cablemodem and if I should be looking at another model while I still have time to cancel the order and make another selection. Appreciate the feedback! Thanks!

e: also, if I plan to start dipping my toes in the prosumer networking products in the near future (UniFi) is this still a good selection?

H2SO4
Sep 11, 2001

put your money in a log cabin


Buglord

TraderStav posted:

Apparently just dodged a bullet with Best Buy closing before I could pick up a SB6190 cable modem as it apparently has some faulty chipset. Some researching shows that I should get the SB8200 instead for my 500/50 internet that I just upgraded to.

Just wanted to do a quick pulse check with goons if there are any red flags with this gigabit cablemodem and if I should be looking at another model while I still have time to cancel the order and make another selection. Appreciate the feedback! Thanks!

e: also, if I plan to start dipping my toes in the prosumer networking products in the near future (UniFi) is this still a good selection?

The SB8200 is the right choice, and you did dodge a bullet. It will work just fine with whatever you want to pair with it.

TraderStav
May 19, 2006

It feels like I was standing my entire life and I just sat down

H2SO4 posted:

The SB8200 is the right choice, and you did dodge a bullet. It will work just fine with whatever you want to pair with it.

Thank you for the validation! I should know better than to just click buy without researching.

PSWII60
Jan 7, 2007

All the best octopodes shoot fire and ice.
Trying to find something to replace my Comcast modem router combo and having a hell of a time doing so. I need a modem that that can do 1,000 Mbps and supports VoIP. All the ones I found have either had a router built in (which I don't need as I have a router that works wonderfully), or this Netgear model which is quite a bit more than I need so I'm reluctant to drop that much on the modem. Anyone know of any that they would suggest?

fletcher
Jun 27, 2003

ken park is my favorite movie

Cybernetic Crumb

PSWII60 posted:

Trying to find something to replace my Comcast modem router combo and having a hell of a time doing so. I need a modem that that can do 1,000 Mbps and supports VoIP. All the ones I found have either had a router built in (which I don't need as I have a router that works wonderfully), or this Netgear model which is quite a bit more than I need so I'm reluctant to drop that much on the modem. Anyone know of any that they would suggest?

I just picked up the renewed version of the Netgear CM1150V and saved $60 to install at my parents house last weekend. Works great! I've been using a CM1000 for awhile (no need for voice), it has been rock solid for my gigabit connection.

Inept
Jul 8, 2003

Asema posted:

I'm moving and my current router has been giving me a lot of issues so I figured it would be best to get a new one, the ones in the OP haven't been updated since 2018, what's the current recommendation set?

Budget, house size? Do you care about wifi 6?

Rollie Fingers
Jul 28, 2002

I'm highly unimpressed by the 2.4 ghz speeds on my NanoHD

I've adjusted DTIM to 3, set it to use channel 11 (the least busiest according to the scan) and set the power to medium, and that managed to improve my download speed from ~3mbps to ~20mpbs from the default settings. I'm on a 220mbps line.

My 5ghz performance has improved considerably, but 2g speeds lag way behind my lovely Virgin Super Hub 3. Strange thing is I get roughly the same performance from 2g whether I'm two metres away or in my bedroom upstairs with 2 walls and a floor in between.

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

Thanks Ants posted:

Use the Pi as the DHCP server and turn off the one in the router

Yeah that's what I ended up doing but I mainly replaced the modem because the old one was giving me trouble setting the DNS too lol. But at least it doubled maximum 5G speed and actually works at both 2.4 and 5Ghz at the same time as opposed to only one or the other, like my previous "dual band" modem.

movax
Aug 30, 2008

Rollie Fingers posted:

I'm highly unimpressed by the 2.4 ghz speeds on my NanoHD

I've adjusted DTIM to 3, set it to use channel 11 (the least busiest according to the scan) and set the power to medium, and that managed to improve my download speed from ~3mbps to ~20mpbs from the default settings. I'm on a 220mbps line.

My 5ghz performance has improved considerably, but 2g speeds lag way behind my lovely Virgin Super Hub 3. Strange thing is I get roughly the same performance from 2g whether I'm two metres away or in my bedroom upstairs with 2 walls and a floor in between.

What's the card on the other side? And the channel width?

My question — right now I just have two VLANs, 1 and 1003 (artifact of using VLANs with my old Airport Base Station) which is basically "All my actual poo poo" and "IoT poo poo". Have a separate infrastructure SSID w/ UniFi that all the IoT wireless things connect too, and a few wired things.

I'm planning on "actually" doing this right and adding a management VLAN, but curious — can you do multiple VLANs on a single SSID? I'm idly curious if I can shove thermostats onto one VLAN, some other smart things on another VLAN so they're also separated from each other in addition to my main hardware. So basically tell UniFi "hey, put VLANs 1000 through 1010 onto infrastructure, put these MACs onto 1000, these MACs onto 1001 and so on".

I suspect the answer is no, unless the wifi clients are VLAN aware which most of these ESP32 based things are not (they can barely deal with anything outside of 802.11b, so...).

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


There's no real concept of VLANs on Wi-Fi. If I understand you correctly you want to put certain clients on one VLAN, other clients on a different, but all within the same SSID? That's possible but it depends on the access point - normally you can send back groups with the RADIUS response and use that group to allocate clients to different VLANs.

movax
Aug 30, 2008

Thanks Ants posted:

There's no real concept of VLANs on Wi-Fi. If I understand you correctly you want to put certain clients on one VLAN, other clients on a different, but all within the same SSID? That's possible but it depends on the access point - normally you can send back groups with the RADIUS response and use that group to allocate clients to different VLANs.

Yep, exactly — right now I'm all Ubiquiti, so I have nanoHD and FlexHDs.

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon
My Ubiquiti controller keeps hounding me to let it update my switch firmware, which the Cloudkey is plugged into for data and power; anyone wanna give me odds on the Cloudkey corrupting the poo poo out of itself if I update the switch?

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





I'm fairly sure PoE will continue to pass through on reboot. You should fine.

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon

Internet Explorer posted:

I'm fairly sure PoE will continue to pass through on reboot. You should fine.

It did but now the device is completely inaccessible :( Jesus Christ. It won't shut down gracefully or with a hold of the power button so I guess I'll unplug it and replug.

H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006
You can just not upgrade it. It can't beep at you or email you or text you. Just don't look at it and it won't do it.

I mean maybe not anymore. It might also need like 30m to update.

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon
The switch upgrade itself was fine but the Cloudkey itself seems so loving sensitive to any disruptions. Eventually I'd like to move it to a Docker container but in theory it'd be nice to have this tiny little device consistently work and run the controller.

The Cloudkey took a few minutes to become responsive after a hard reboot so things look good now.

Asema
Oct 2, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Inept posted:

Budget, house size? Do you care about wifi 6?

Reasonable budget maybe? House is 3 stories but we are probably only going to use two floors, and when the third person moves in with us they can get their own internet connection to the third floor so I don't know how important that all is.

Also I'm about half/half caring about wifi6 so I can take it or leave it depending.

astral
Apr 26, 2004

Less Fat Luke posted:

The switch upgrade itself was fine but the Cloudkey itself seems so loving sensitive to any disruptions. Eventually I'd like to move it to a Docker container but in theory it'd be nice to have this tiny little device consistently work and run the controller.

The Cloudkey took a few minutes to become responsive after a hard reboot so things look good now.

I've heard the newer generation cloud keys were supposed to be better, but I just run the controller on an old Raspberry Pi 3 (with frequent backups).

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon

Less Fat Luke posted:

The Cloudkey took a few minutes to become responsive after a hard reboot so things look good now.
Actually now it's unresponsive again, takes about 3 minutes to load each page in the controller. Man, Unifi stuff is so nice marred by my absolute garbage experience with these Cloudkeys :( Time to factory reset and restore a backup I guess!

Rollie Fingers
Jul 28, 2002

movax posted:

What's the card on the other side? And the channel width?

My question — right now I just have two VLANs, 1 and 1003 (artifact of using VLANs with my old Airport Base Station) which is basically "All my actual poo poo" and "IoT poo poo". Have a separate infrastructure SSID w/ UniFi that all the IoT wireless things connect too, and a few wired things.

I'm planning on "actually" doing this right and adding a management VLAN, but curious — can you do multiple VLANs on a single SSID? I'm idly curious if I can shove thermostats onto one VLAN, some other smart things on another VLAN so they're also separated from each other in addition to my main hardware. So basically tell UniFi "hey, put VLANs 1000 through 1010 onto infrastructure, put these MACs onto 1000, these MACs onto 1001 and so on".

I suspect the answer is no, unless the wifi clients are VLAN aware which most of these ESP32 based things are not (they can barely deal with anything outside of 802.11b, so...).

I'm begrudgingly using 2g for a couple of IoT devices like LIFX bulbs, my iPhone and, more importantly, a Sky Q box (in the UK Sky Q is like Tivo).

Sky force you to use 2g because the 5g channel is taken by the main box speaking to its mini boxes around the house. I've adjusted the NanoHD's settings into every imaginable combination and it hasn't improved the performance. I'm currently on channel 11, medium TX, DTIM of 3 and have disabled uplink. Either the particular HD I have is crummy, or the HD is just a poor product if you need 2g at reasonable speed.

Given that the signal I'm getting is strong but the throughput is poor, it could be the firmware is terrible.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
I'm finally fed up with my ISP-provided router and want to get a different unit. Running on Frontier (well, now Ziply) 100/100 fiber, I've got an ethernet interface so I should be able to throw in just about any router. Looking for input and suggestions.

Been reading through the past few pages and seems like Unifi routers are well-regarded here? Works for me, we've got Unifi WAPs (and a handful of switches) at work. That said I'm also open to other suggestions.

- I live by myself and have a couple of PCs doing light server duty. The only wifi devices are my smartphone, and occasionally a laptop.
- I'm not planning on upgrading internet speed again in the foreseeable future, so as long as the router will do 100mb I'm happy.
- I don't really need the router to include a wifi antenna as I wouldn't mind getting a standalone WAP to locate more centrally in the apartment.
- I've already got a separate gig switch and don't really need the router to have switch ports.
- I'm not fussing with VLANs or VPNs at home.

From what I've read the last few pages, it sounds like the Unifi Dream Machine would be serious overkill (and also isn't rock-solid yet? that's a big no-no, I'm very much not looking to janitor the router after initial setup), and that either the EdgeRouter-X or the Unifi Security Gateway would be a better fit.

Someone mentioned the ER-X is outdated: is performance on it weak, or is it missing certain features, or is it due to go EOL soon? Because I'm really liking that $59 MSRP.


Please let me know which direction would be better, or if there's another brand/model I should also be considering, and thanks in advance for any input you have to offer! :)

beepsandboops
Jan 28, 2014

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

I'm finally fed up with my ISP-provided router and want to get a different unit. Running on Frontier (well, now Ziply) 100/100 fiber, I've got an ethernet interface so I should be able to throw in just about any router. Looking for input and suggestions.
How is Ziply? I'm in the area too and was thinking about making the switch, but Frontier has pretty awful reviews and I wasn't sure if the acquisition would make things worse.

SlowBloke
Aug 14, 2017

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

I'm finally fed up with my ISP-provided router and want to get a different unit. Running on Frontier (well, now Ziply) 100/100 fiber, I've got an ethernet interface so I should be able to throw in just about any router. Looking for input and suggestions.

Been reading through the past few pages and seems like Unifi routers are well-regarded here? Works for me, we've got Unifi WAPs (and a handful of switches) at work. That said I'm also open to other suggestions.

- I live by myself and have a couple of PCs doing light server duty. The only wifi devices are my smartphone, and occasionally a laptop.
- I'm not planning on upgrading internet speed again in the foreseeable future, so as long as the router will do 100mb I'm happy.
- I don't really need the router to include a wifi antenna as I wouldn't mind getting a standalone WAP to locate more centrally in the apartment.
- I've already got a separate gig switch and don't really need the router to have switch ports.
- I'm not fussing with VLANs or VPNs at home.

From what I've read the last few pages, it sounds like the Unifi Dream Machine would be serious overkill (and also isn't rock-solid yet? that's a big no-no, I'm very much not looking to janitor the router after initial setup), and that either the EdgeRouter-X or the Unifi Security Gateway would be a better fit.

Someone mentioned the ER-X is outdated: is performance on it weak, or is it missing certain features, or is it due to go EOL soon? Because I'm really liking that $59 MSRP.


Please let me know which direction would be better, or if there's another brand/model I should also be considering, and thanks in advance for any input you have to offer! :)

er-x/er-l/usg are pretty much the same level of performance. They are old and busted but if you plan on never going faster than 100/100 they should be fine. If you don't care/plan to janitor your router maybe evaluate spending a tad more for a usg, GUI is less complex.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Gros Tarla
Dec 30, 2008

Binary Badger posted:

I'd also get something like AirRadar and do a quick scan; see if other networks are using the same channel as you and then pick another channel that's not near where everyone is clustering.

Most people don't even bother to touch their routers after it's set up for them by the cable/FIOS guy, so there could be a lot of APs stuck on a default channel.

I just checked and while near me there's only five other 802.11ac networks, all of them are on channel 157. I was on channel 161, and getting 3% noise.. I switched to channel 149, and now I get 0% noise and my Tx rate seems to be locked at 1300 Mbps, where before it was only topping off at 867 Mbps.

Quick PSA, but MacOS does this out of the box. Press Options+Wifi Icon in the menu bar. It's actually pretty comprehensive.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply