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Beamforming issues

geops

Regular Contributor
I've had some weird issues with the .40 beta 1 firmware as well as the .39 releases and the official 3.0.0.4.374_4561. When beamforming is enabled and I connect with AC triple stream from my MBP I get packet loss, a serious one around 4%. Running constant ping I can see that every half a minute the rtt goes above 1s, then it drops a few packet and after that it goes back to normal (<1ms). When I disable beamforming the packet loss goes down to almost normal levels significantly below 1%. Why would beamforming cause this issue? Could it be related to the ac adapter in the MBP? Anyone else experiencing similar behavior with other wireless cards?
 
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Hi,
Beaming forming only works with compliant adapter. Is you adapter beam forming capable?
 
Hi,
Beaming forming only works with compliant adapter. Is you adapter beam forming capable?

The spec for ac has a version working with compatible adapters and one that works even if the adapter does not support it. I have no idea if the macbook pro's adapter supports it or not. I couldn't find any information on it.
 
The MBP likely has the old wireless N Broadcom card. These do not support beamforming, the AC Broadcom cards do support it, and some clients do not play nice with it enabled unless they explicitly support it. The DD-WRT devs talk like it is a problem in the Broadcom drivers on the routers, eventually the manufacturers will update the drivers to also support clients that do not explicitly support it. For the time being, if you have problems, you should disable it.

If the MBP does have the AC Broadcom card(late 2013 model), I would have to say it is Apple's fault with bad drivers. They do show it to be a feature of their own AC routers, so it is hard to know who to blame. However, since the router drivers need work, maybe the client drivers do as well, which would put the blame on Broadcom. Try it with other AC routers to see if it makes a difference. Welcome to AC beta testing..lol
 
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At a local WiFi network packet loss should be 0%, and not below 1%. Update drivers and/or investigate where is the real issue.
 
Hi,
There maybe some thing at MBP user forum about this. Fortunately beam forming works very well with my Netgear R7000 running latest dd-wrt f/w. When it is enabled, I can see the difference.
 
Hi,
There maybe some thing at MBP user forum about this. Fortunately beam forming works very well with my Netgear R7000 running latest dd-wrt f/w. When it is enabled, I can see the difference.

I can see a small difference on file transfers (more stable speed) but I also see that huge packet loss. The MBP is the late 2013 model with 802.11ac adapter. It is a very weird behavior. I'm starting to think that the AC68U wifi drivers just don't play well with the mbp's adapter. I used to have an N66U that of course doesn't have ac but worked perfectly well with the mbp in terms of stability.
 

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