Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[pangu]

Dear all,

I am posting on this forum because we are really frustrated with the performance of our 35x DLink DWL-3500AP. We are using them in conjunction with the DWS-3024, and now we have taken two of the DWL-3500AP out of our managed pool to debug and do some testing. We did following steps:

- Factory Reset on the DWL-3500AP
- Firmware is the latest (3.0.0.14)
- Manually assigned a static IP 192.168.2.132/24 to the ethernet interface
[Wireless settings:]
   * IEEE 802.11d Regulatory Domain Support = ENABLED (also tried DISABLED)
   * Station Isolation = DISABLED (also tried ENABLED, although this isnt relating to throughput performance)

[Radio settings:]
   * Status = ON
   * Mode = IEEE 802.11g
   * Super AG = Disabled (also tried enabled and re-checked after reboot of AP)
   * Channel = Auto (or manual channel, tried all 13 channels)
   * Antenna = Primary (also tried Auto and Secondary)
   * Beacon Interval = 100 (also tried 20 and 2000)
   * DTIM Period = 10 (also tried 1 and 255)
   * Fragmentation Threshold = 2346 (also tried 256, 1024, 2048)
   * RTS Threshold = 2347 (also tried 0, 256, 1024, 2048)
   * Maximum Stations = 64
   * Transmit Power = 100 (also tried 5, 10, 25, 50, 75)
   * Supported Rates = All checked (also tried to check only the rates from 1-11, and from 11-54 separately)
   * BASIC Rates = 1+2+5,5+11 (also tried to enable only 54 MBps, or 11+24+48+54)

[VAP]
   * WiFi SSID set to "testing" and enabled WPA-Personal with TKIP and a password of "testing1234"

[QoS]
   * WMM = Disabled

That's it. I do not see any more options I could configure. The DWL-3500AP is attached to an isolated 4-port Gigabit-Switch. Two different desktop Systems (both have a Intel Gigabit NIC) are also attached to this isolated 4-port switch. Nothing else connected there. My Notebook is used to act as a WiFi-client for the DWL-3500AP. I manually assigned an IP for my wireless device of the notebook as following:

DWL-3500AP = 192.168.2.132, subnet 255.255.255.0, Gateway: 192.168.2.1 (not existant)
Computer 1   = 192.168.2.250, subnet 255.255.255.0
Computer 2   = 192.168.2.251, subnet 255.255.255.0
Notebook      = 192.168.2.252, subnet 255.255.255.0

All pings are there, connection is possible. Now to my issues:

- When pinging from Notebook the DWL-3500AP I realize lots of variable ping times. They can be very different. I noticed that some packets can be dropped, that's really weird.

- I have netio (network benchmarking throughput tool) running as server on Computer1 and Computer2. I have netio running on Notebook in client mode and connect to either Computer1 or Computer2. The tests are done and show me always throughput rates lower than 1 Megabyte per second (!). The rates I get are usually between 0.60 - 0.80 MB/sec which is equal to 4.8MBit/s -6.4MBit/s.

What is going on here? I have tried quite everything and cannot explain myself why the performance is so bad. Any help is really appreciated. Thanks to all in advance.

Regards,
Mike

[FurryNutz]

Link>Welcome!

What Hardware version is your router? Look at sticker under router.
Link>What Firmware version is currently loaded? Found on routers web page under status.
What region are you located?

inks>Wireless Installation Considerations and Managing Signal Congestion

Channel Width set for Auto 20/40Mhz or try 20Mhz only.
Try setting a manual channel to a open or unused channel. 1, 6 or 11. 11 for single mode N if the channel is clear.
Preferred security is WPA-Personal. WPA2/AES Only. Some WiFi adapters don't support AES, so you might want to try TPIK  only or Auto.

Any cordless house phones?
Any other WiFi routers in the area? Link> Use InSSIDer to find out. How many?
Try turning off Short GI, WLAN Partition,and Extra Wireless Protection if you have it.
Enable WMM Enable

Turn off all anti virus and firewall programs on PC while testing. 3rd party firewalls are not generally needed when using routers as they are effective on blocking malicious inbound traffic.

[pangu]

Hello,

the sticker says:

P/N: EWL3500MEU...A2G
Firmware Version: 2.2.0.4
H/W Version: A2
S/N:P1OZ......

the other 34 AccessPoints should be all the same. I have just one in front of me for testing purposes. I dont have seen any option to configure Channel Bandwidth Auto/20/40 ?? I have tried every channel in single (see my first posting, which settings I already have tried). Mode N is not applicable because I think these DWL-3500AP only supports 802.11b and 802.11g. I have tried WPA-Personal and also WPA2-Personal with TPIK (no AES, because its more overhead and power to calculate). There are NO cordless house phones, not even one. Any my AccessPoints are the only ones in this area (company).

I have tested through Windows and Linux, no other applications blocking or stopping the transfer. Raw mode was selected

Any help is really appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[FurryNutz]

Actually AES has been proven to have the best performance over TPIK. I would test if you can just to see.

Are you in the EU region? If so, there is v3.0.0.16 available.

Not sure if having that many (x35) units in the same area could be effecting things or not.

I would test one unit out in a different location away from any other WiFi radios if possible, maybe 1 or 2 others would be ok.

For B or G modes, you should be seeing at leat 2MB-4Mb xfer speeds. Are the devices connecting at 11Mb and 54Mb speeds between the devices and the DWL? Check the wireless status page on the DWL for connected client devices. It should display connection rates maybe. I know DIR series routers do. Not sure about DWLs.

[pangu]

Yes, I am in EU. Where can I download this latest version you have mentioned?
I have also tried AES+TKIP, didnt help . The other 34 units are not in the range of my testing  sinlge DWL-3500AP. They are too far away, and also using other channels. I have NO WiFi radios around here,. The device manager show me 54MBit/s connection when the connection to the testing DWL-3500AP wasestablished

[FurryNutz]

http://www.dlink.com/uk/en/support/product/dwl-3500ap-unified-wireless-poe-access-point

I would do a factory reset on the DWL after you aquire the file and unpack it. Use a wired connection to update the DWL. After the FW has been sent and it updates successfully, do one more factory reset then set up the DWL from scratch.

Keep us posted.

[pangu]

Thanks for the link, but the readme for this firmware says:

Firmware
Version
Problems Fixed

V.3.0.0.16

1. While configuring DWL-8600AP in standalone mode, it is not possible to
change AP management VLAN ID or untagged VLAN ID on the AP webpage
(Access Point
Manage
Ethernet Settings [HQ20110427000014]

2. If you attempt to configure an administrative (management) password with
more than 8 characters by using the web interface, an ambiguous error
message appears at the bottom of the screen. The AP was originally designed
to accept passwords of 8 characters or less. The code has been updated to
provide a clear error message that describes the limitation if you attempt to
configure the AP with password of more than 8 characters.
[HQ20110525000006]

So I don't think it will make any changes .. but I will try to flash my standalone test device and keep you up-to-date

[FurryNutz]

Seems like this bundle of FW handles multiple models.
I would do a factory reset on the DWL after you acquire the file and unpack it. Use a wired connection to update the DWL. After the FW has been sent and it updates successfully, do one more factory reset then set up the DWL from scratch.

Keep us posted.

[pangu]

I did!

- factory reset
- upgraded firmware to 3.0.0.16
- factory reset
- modified VAP and tried again.

No performance gain, although I tried again all the various settings, and also AES, also WMM, and all the different channels. I used 2 different notebooks as WiFi-Clients, and one other computer with WiFi-NIC. The connection is established with 802.11g but the throughput on the best case was 1.5MByte/sec which is equal to 12MBit/s. In my humble opinion this is a very disappointed throughput rate 

[FurryNutz]

Well, I presume there could be some more gained however working on G mode, you may not see a ton of through-put speeds.

I would put in a phone call to D-Link support, ask for level 2 or higher support and ask them what is the norm for through-put on these DAPs. If the result isn't what you need, then it may be time to get into N mode DAPs for where you need through-put the mode. I presume that for general use, Internet surfing and things like that, these will work fine. If you need something that can handle larger through-put speeds, you'll need something that can do that. Ask D-Link which model DAP would best suite that for your needs. Then put that in place where you need it the most.

You may want to consider a wired connection rather than using wireless if you an configure something like that, especially for large data xfers and such. Wireless just can't handle what wired can. Might consider and rethink your data xfer situation. If you an effect a change just for this certain area, then the wireless doesn't need to be changed any. Just a suggestion here.

Let us know what they say.

[pangu]

To be honest, I really think about to purchase another brand instead of D-Link and the reason for that is not really the bandwidth only, but also the reliability of signal. I have attached two other APs and did lots of tests with them. The Buffalo AP and the Netgear AP both showed a much more better throughput, but despite of that I had NO PACKET LOSS, and that's the most important thing. With our actual D-Link DWL-3500AP unfortunately I always realize some packet dropped through the continuous ping tries. That is not acceptable and as I described I have isolated two APs and tested lots of settings. Nothing did help to stabilize a continuous ping for 5min without one packet loss. While the other brands were able to produce such ping test without packet drops, the DWL-3500AP cannot. The throughput with the Buffalo and Netgear AP at 802.11g was also better (both were over 2,4 MB/sec which equals to about 20MBit/s). Thats the reason why I am not really satisfied with D-Link and afraid to pay lots of money (because we did for the DWS-3024 and 35x DWL-3500AP (!) ) again for a product which cannot satisfy the basic need of a realiable connection.

[FurryNutz]

These are older mode supporting units and of course if you tested something new in a different brand, of course your going to see differences in results. Newer HW and differences in code. Not quite a fair test since you are dealing with older HW.

You need to phone contact D-Link support and get help on this to see if they can help you with this. Ask them if they recommend any thing in regards to your needs and see what they say. It's possible there is a configuration that is missing.
http://www.dlink.com/uk/en/business-solutions/wireless/access-points/unified-access-points/dwl-3500ap-unified-wireless-poe-access-point

Let us know what they say. Good luck.