I just implemented a cisco 4402 wireless controller in one of my facilites for testing and havent had a very good experience. The environment is a warehouse environment with 25-30 aps. The clients connect (via telnet) wirelessly to a server and since i put this controller in, i am seeing several clients drop connection. Last week the aps were all autonomous and there were no problems with wireless connectivity but since the addition of the controller, we have seen several issues. What could cause this?
What do these below traps mean?
Here are some "traps" that are showing up on the controller:
Log System Time Trap
0 Fri Sep 12 07:30:30 2008 Decrypt errors occurred for client 00:13:10:cc:c8:38 using WPA key on 802.11b/g interface of AP 00:13:c3:1f:c6:50
1 Fri Sep 12 07:22:47 2008 Load Profile Updated to Pass for Base Radio MAC: 00:13:c3:1f:c6:50 and slotNo: 0
2 Fri Sep 12 07:19:47 2008 Load Profile Failed for Base Radio MAC: 00:13:c3:1f:c6:50 and slotNo: 0
3 Fri Sep 12 06:43:04 2008 Coverage hole cleared for Base Radio MAC: 00:13:19:c4:3c:40 and slotNo: 0
4 Fri Sep 12 06:40:04 2008 Coverage Hole Detected for AP AP_ISRoom whose Base Radio MAC is 00:13:19:c4:3c:40. Number of Failing Clients 1
5 Fri Sep 12 06:40:04 2008 Coverage hole cleared for Base Radio MAC: 00:13:19:c4:39:a0 and slotNo: 0
6 Fri Sep 12 06:37:04 2008 Coverage Hole Detected for AP AP2 whose Base Radio MAC is 00:13:19:c4:39:a0. Number of Failing Clients 1
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.
Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
I have two different types of clients. One is a cisco card and the other a SUmmit card. The cisco seems to work fine but summit is not working very well. We played around with power settings and disabled aironet extensions and that seemed to help a little.
What version of controller code do you have? THe version that i was on 4.0.17 was unstable. I upgraded to 4.2.160 and it didnt seem to help my case but maybe you could try?
We currently have 6 AP's deployed in a 60,000 sqare foot building, so an average coverage area of 10,000 square feet per AP. However due to the environment, a metal manufacturing facility due to the shape of the building and obstacles such as racking and machinery the site survey that was completed recommended these locations. We actually installed 7 to begin with, toned the system down to 5 because of what appeared to be power over coverage and just recently turned the 6th back on in an attempt to alleviate disconnects as part of troubleshooting in a specific area. Our environment is quite noisy as we have a large welding area along with 3 lasers and many other pieces of electrical equipment used in our processes. I have been visiting with our wireless vendor as well as the manufacuturer of the terminals we are using in the plant area, the manufacturer says they have had some issues with cisco and intel not wanting to play together so I am waiting to hear back from them also. As I stated earlier a linksys wireless card has been running for a week right next to a terminal with an intel card and has not disconnected once in this time frame, I am really leaning towards an issue with the intel cards.
Yeah i agree. BUT, at the same time, some cards are more sensitive then others and will pick up more aps. Might still be over coverage. Our warehouse has frozen product stacked 45 feet high w/ racking, etc. and we have over coverage issues.
If you have the "testing time" i would try to turn the power way down and then turn up slowly to see what best fits.
Could be different in your case though with the noise from welding area and lasers and obviously the site survey showed different so i am not sure...
Do you feel that if I forced a terminal to connect only to a specific AP (most have line of site to an AP) this may help with the disconnects. If I am understanding it sounds like you are describing the possibility of a power issue as AP's fighting over allowing a NIC to attach to them and part of the disconnect issue could be due to this? I'm fairly new to this whole wireless world and don't understand the whole power setting as of yet.
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: AmyJSPosted on 2008-09-22 at 15:38:11ID: 22544945
We have a similar setup using Cisco WAP's and controllers and I also have this issue, our log has many decrypt errors listed. We also experience frequent disconnects. I am beginning to wonder if it is the NIC in the terminals we are using with the wireless, they are Intel Pro Wireless 2915 ABG cards using the latest driver of 9.0.4.39 and windows networking to connect to the network. This seemed to work better than the intel utility. I placed a notebook in a location where we have been experiencing the largest amount of disconnects using a wireless linksys card and have not had a drop in over 4 days. It would be impossible to replace the NIC's in the other terminals as they are sealed and proprietarily built for a manufacturing plant. Any one else experience this issue and have a possible solution?