drastic speed difference ethernet AP vs ethernet Aimesh

[Gustour]

Nice to hear you.
As long as your are ok, it s great.
It's true that for me it works well, but i live in a house without neighbour close, so no other wifi around mine.
To test wifi, don't be to close from the node, as antenna are not done for that, regular use should be 3-5meters.
Did you turn off QoS ? If not, turn it off. What is the speed of you ISP ?
See you

 

[bobblet]

Nice to hear you.
As long as your are ok, it s great.
It's true that for me it works well, but i live in a house without neighbour close, so no other wifi around mine.
To test wifi, don't be to close from the node, as antenna are not done for that, regular use should be 3-5meters.
Did you turn off QoS ? If not, turn it off. What is the speed of you ISP ?
See you

Yes bro, thanks again for your assistance!

QoS is turned off. I think that's the default.

My ISP is at 1gb/s.

The interesting thing is I have 2 ISPs that i subscribe to, and both are 1gb/s. I've tested this on both and yielded similar results too.

 

[degrub]

turn off the 2.4 GHz radios on all but the main router. Put the XTs in ethernet backhaul and AP mode. Turn off AI MESH. What happens ?

 

[bobblet]

turn off the 2.4 GHz radios on all but the main router. Put the XTs in ethernet backhaul and AP mode. Turn off AI MESH. What happens

Hey degrub,

Thanks for helping out!

If i turn off Aimesh, that means configure the XT's to AP mode right? When i do that, the speed is flawless and consistent. Always yielding 800+mbps any time of day whenever i'm near the node. Tapers off as i move slightly further away, but still 600+mbps. More than acceptable.

The only issues with AP mode is:
1) to configure any settings/updates i have to go to each individual IP address. Also can't see which device is on what node easily in 1 page.
- Not a huge thing really. I'd say it's an acceptable inconvenience if that means consistently fast wifi

2) I have to turn off/on wifi when i enter a new room. (Main issue not only for me, but family also)
- With 3 nodes around my house, there's no dead zone. Just low signal zones. Problem with AP mode is that it doesn't drop and automatically switch to the stronger signal.
- I THINK i could probably tweak around with the signal strength/sensitivity, but i think not all devices would play well since i assume some would have different signal strengths.

 

[bobblet]

Hey Gustour,

Thanks again for the suggestion! After changing bandwidth and control channel, the problem has gotten better. Although not solved entirely, the wifi speed is in a satisfactory territory now.

My wifi speed using aimesh now ranges from 200mbps to 800mbps while standing next to the nodes/main router. While the spread/range of speed is still quite similar, the average is now closer to 400+mbps. Previously it tended to average around 200mbps, sometimes even going below 100mbps.

Over the past week, I've been testing during different times of the day especially when no one is at home to ensure bandwidth doesn't skew the results. Again, I can't seem to reliably test 800mbps.
- House can be full with everyone streaming and gaming, and i can test @ 800mbps
- House can be empty with all other computers turned off, and my wifi results are 200mbps across all nodes/router

Aimesh is still not as predictable as A/P mode where speed is consistently 800mbps; however, I'm at a point where there is no buffering for any device so I'm pleased enough.

For anyone else who has a similar issue in the future, here are my settings:
View attachment 40812

To find the best control channel, you can download wifi analyzer on android to scan. The best control channel will automatically be suggested. Run the app and test which recommended channel suits you best.

Additional update:

I think i figured out why the speed still varies and it's unpredictable. Found another wifi analyzer app that had more/better details. In case anyone is interested:

Main problem: Unable to adjust control channel and bandwidth for nodes
I realised that there is only one place in router home page that I could configure control channels. AND also only 1 place where i can assign channel bandwidth to 160MHz.

After adjusting the channel bandwidth and the control channels, i realised this is only set for the MAIN router (ax89x). The other 2 nodes are still on auto and they're still hopping around other channels. This probably explains why I am able to get 800mbps sometimes, and 100+ mbps other times. I was probably on a good control channel/bandwidth when i tested 800 mbps. There doesn't seem to be any way to access the individual nodes. When i enter the node's IP address, it redirects me back to the main router home page.

The "good" wifi analyzer app showed a few important details that the "junk" one didn't have:
- there were 5 x 5Ghz SSIDs
- 1x belongs to the dual band ax89x, the other 4x belongs to the tri band XT8s
- Using the "good" app, i could finally tell that only the dual band ax89x was on the designated control channel/bandwidth. The other XT8's were jumping around.

 

[degrub]

the client controls switching to a different AP. You can adjust the power level to help encourage a client to switch, but that is about it. The AP cannot force the switch.

It sounds like you have too much overlap at too high of a power level. You probably need to keep the nodes in AP mode and manually adjust power levels. Typically, clients may switch at about -65 to -70 dB strength. Anything higher ( less negative), the client will generally not try to switch and will try to stay on the original radio. You can keep a single ssid for all 5GHz radios. 5 Ghz generally will limit to one + and adjacent room depending on construction and openings. 2.4 GHz has the ability to penetrate multiple ( about 2, maybe 3) gypsum covered wood stud walls. 2.4 GHz will work over longer distance and may provide higher net throughput if you restrict it to 20/40 channel width rather than allowing 80.

you may have to reposition the APs to get what you want.

i have a 2x1500 ft2 2 story house with 4 APs on AC 5Ghz only. i have no coverage gaps and can walk anywhere in the house and not notice drops. It took some experimentation to get the position and orientation of the APs correct to do that.

 

[Gustour]

Once you set the channel/bandwidth on the main routeur did you reboot nodes to be sure they get the settings ?

 

[bobblet]

Once you set the channel/bandwidth on the main routeur did you reboot nodes to be sure they get the settings ?

Hi Gustour,

Yes 100%. I tried to reboot node within the router home page, and also turn off/on on the device itself... Can you double check that all of yours are on the same specified channel/bandwidth?

In main router homepage, my settings are:

After running wifi analyzer, these are my nodes:

Also added an example of today's horrendous results when i'm standing near the node.

 

[bobblet]

the client controls switching to a different AP. You can adjust the power level to help encourage a client to switch, but that is about it. The AP cannot force the switch.

It sounds like you have too much overlap at too high of a power level. You probably need to keep the nodes in AP mode and manually adjust power levels. Typically, clients may switch at about -65 to -70 dB strength. Anything higher ( less negative), the client will generally not try to switch and will try to stay on the original radio. You can keep a single ssid for all 5GHz radios. 5 Ghz generally will limit to one + and adjacent room depending on construction and openings. 2.4 GHz has the ability to penetrate multiple ( about 2, maybe 3) gypsum covered wood stud walls. 2.4 GHz will work over longer distance and may provide higher net throughput if you restrict it to 20/40 channel width rather than allowing 80.

you may have to reposition the APs to get what you want.

i have a 2x1500 ft2 2 story house with 4 APs on AC 5Ghz only. i have no coverage gaps and can walk anywhere in the house and not notice drops. It took some experimentation to get the position and orientation of the APs correct to do that.

Thanks for the tips degrub! Nice to know that it is possible to tweak the setting to eventually have seamless wifi using AP mode.

I'm about to give up on aimesh. It seems like the seamlessness of it comes at the expense of stable/fast wifi. Not a tradeoff i plan to have. Once i give up on it, i will be sure to experiment in a similar direction like you have suggested.

I believe this is the only setting i should be tweaking eventually right?

So plan should be to tweak around the RSSI values on the indiviudal AP home pages and router home page till i find one that works for my environment. Also, i should be adjusting value in multiples of 5?