topic Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues in Unleashed

R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

Vanquisher — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 19:45:47 GMT

I seemingly am trying to figure out why my R850s are transmitting at such a lower power level. Both are spaced apart at a good distance and there is very little interference on the channels they are on. They are only transmitting at 10dbm on DFS channels which seems incredibly low for the US when the power allowed is I believe 23DBM. They have in the past been transmitting at 22dbm but are now stuck at 10dbm.

Throughput after I noticed the transmit power drop on these on the download side has dropped off considerably, it seems to be capped or struggling at around 650-700MBPS on 2x2 Wifi6 devices. Same room I always used to be able to get 800/800 easily.

Environment:

Running latest version of Unleashed
APs are powered by a POE++ Switch (Engenius ECS5512FP) at the full 5GBE backhaul. The AP detects it's powered by a bt switch as it sets that power level. LLDP is on.

Troubleshooting Steps:

Tried a different switch with ++ power and it made no difference to the transmit power (10dbm only).
I tried overriding the TX power in unleashed and I set it incrementally up by 3 settings from -10dbm to full. It made NO difference to the AP transmit power. It would not change from 10dbm.
I verified it is in BT5 power mode via CLI. I also set BT5 power manually in Unleashed. No change to transmit power.

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

ishant_sharma_6 — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 09:29:04 GMT

Hello,

Please try to get into the CLI of access-point and hit the command "get power-mode" and please confirm if the power consumption status should be AT or BT5.

Just for your reference:

rkscli: get power-mode
PoE Configured Mode: AT
Power Consumption Status: 802.3at Switch/Injector
USB Status: Enabled
rkscli:

Regards,

Ishant Sharma

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

Vanquisher — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 17:32:09 GMT

Ok both APs,

ruckus(ap-mode)# get power-mode
PoE Configured Mode : bt5
Power Consumption Status : 802.3bt5 Switch/Injector
USB Status : Disabled
OK

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

Vanquisher — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 03:15:06 GMT

I tried setting it to override it to BT power in Unleashed as well. I did that in conjuction with trying to adjust the TX power up and down in Unleashed to see if I could notice a difference. The AP transmitted 10dbm no matter if it was set to -10dbm or full. It's like adjusting the tx power has NO effect on the ap at all.

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

CRSR — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 08:21:41 GMT

This is also my issue. Purchased 14 R850's, using Unleashed 200.10.10.5.253. Took a massive effort to get the APs to eventually negotiate proper 802.3bt mode to my POE++/BT compatible switch in auto mode, but even then the power output on the switch will not go any higher than 13 watts (when it can deliver 90 watts). In idle I can see the AP's consuming about 10-11 watts. Forcing bt mode makes no difference to the power in the GUI or ap-mode cli. It will make the power warning disappear but its only a cosmetic effect.

CLI shows:

rkscli: get power-mode
PoE Configured Mode : Auto
Power Consumption Status : 802.3bt5 Switch/Injector
USB Status : Enabled
rkscli: get lldp pse
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LLDP neighbors:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interface: eth1, via: LLDP, RID: 1, Time: 0 day, 00:06:18
Chassis: 
ChassisID: mac 18:5a:58:5c:5e:20
SysName: mps-ws1-idf3
SysDescr: Dell EMC Networking N3208PX-ON, 6.7.1.15, Linux 4.15.18-d60bb35b
MgmtIP: 10.10.0.12
Capability: Bridge, on
Capability: Router, off
Port: 
PortID: ifname Gi1/0/5
PortDescr: Gi1/0/5
MDI Power: supported: yes, enabled: yes, pair control: no
Device type: PSE
Power pairs: signal
Class: class 4
Power type: 2
Power Source: PSE
Power Priority: critical
PD requested power Value: 60000
PSE allocated power Value: 60000
UPOE: 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK

SWITCH:

mps-ws1-idf3#show power inline gi1/0/5

Port Powered Device State Priority Status Class Power[mW]
(Measured/Assigned)
--------- ------------------------ ----- -------- ---------- -------------------- ---------
Gi1/0/5 auto Critical On Class4/Class8 11300


Overload Counter............................... 0
Short Counter ................................. 0
Denied Counter................................. 0
Absent Counter................................. 0
Invalid Signature Counter...................... 0
Output Voltage (Volts)......................... 54
Output Current (mAmps)......................... 209
Temperature (C)................................ 46

There is definitely an issue going on here, as our performance is horrible compared to when we were using R700's. I just purchased the official Ruckus injectors but from another post on here, that also made no difference. Are all the R650/750/850's just defective and unable to use the full POE power? Is there a hidden ap-mode command to actually FORCE it to use the power?

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

Vanquisher — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 19:26:37 GMT

Can confirm I see the same behavior power consumption. Most I have ever seen is 13.X W usage. Mine also are idle in the 10-11w range. I also have no issue on power budget since the switch has 420W of budget. Sorry to hear the adapter did not fix it but thanks for posting as I was about to buy them to test.

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

CRSR — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 22:11:17 GMT

Other than the AP's being totally broken with auto negotiation for bt/class5 power, I was able to confirm they will use more power only when performance is taxed. This feels like a bug, but Im still working with support to figure out why this changed compared to older firmware.

With iperf3 testing, I'm only able to reach maybe 600Mbs for a single connection with the R850's. Our older R700's would give maximum performance for a single connection (800-900Mbs). If I start using more parallel connections, then I finally see the AP's begin to consume 19 watts+ power and max performance becomes achievable (but only by adding more connections). I'm still working with support on this and it feels like there is some hidden QOS happening internally that limits a connection so it can never saturate the AP.

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

Vanquisher — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 01:53:03 GMT

Any update from you working with Support on this? I am having the exact same issues still. I am also seeing limited throughput in the ~600MBPS range when before at some point it was easily doing the 800-900 you were saying.

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

CRSR — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 03:05:11 GMT

They escalated my case to a higher engineer last week but heard nothing back since.

I can replicate this issue with the R610 as well, so this issue goes beyond just the newer AP's. I'm guessing until this throttle issue is resolved, the R850/R750/R650 will never be able to achieve anything in the Gbs speeds as advertised, even in the best possible setup/scenario. Even worse, adding another client while attempting to max out the AP results in the 2nd client just getting handicapped in the 10-50mbps range. So its not a matter of client capacity, its something internal that is limiting speeds so bad that it throttles everything to maybe 600mbps max and refuses to go any higher. Great if you want to save electricity, awful if you expect decent performance for clients.

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

Vanquisher — Sat, 01 Oct 2022 22:18:35 GMT

I have replicated as well across the R850s, R750s, and H550s that we have. Same issue. Max throughput in the 600mbps download range. It is strange because I am getting 800+ on the upload. Every AP is always choosing the lowest power mode it can operate in for some reason.

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

Cognitive8819 — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 03:55:12 GMT

Not sure if a solution was ever found? but I can share what the cause is. I went through all steps mentioned, cli power settings on AP and Switch, tried injectors, etc. Came to the same conclusion, despite the correct power settings, the radios were not functioning at full power. What I discovered after many factory resets, was when you change the Unleashed setting of optimize compatibility to optimize performance (enabling DFS channels) this causes the issue. I've since moved away from R650s, but really wish this would get fixed if they ever release a new Unleashed firmware version.

Re: R850 - Strange TX Power Issues

DaJoJo — Sat, 19 Apr 2025 09:47:17 GMT

same here. i got a R850, 4x R510 and was doing 450~mbps on download, 780mbps upload. disabled DFS channels, set power to 802.3AT on R850, antenna power to full on R850. Finally getting 820 down/473 up on wifi6. Phone (samsung s24 ultra) wifi connection stays on wifi6 now instead of dropping to wifi 5ghz. (both R850 and R510 AP are approx 4 meter away so expected that it set connection to wifi5G)

so after setting r850 to full power it connect wifi6 to this AP. Manually set R510 to -12dB. So the poor throughput on wifi6/5/2.4 is gone now, but obviously a lot of jitter (~350). speedflex between R510 and R850 is ~350mbit, between R510 and R510 2nd floor and other R510 is ~250mbit. Speedflex from Phone to same AP's is ~530mbit on 5G. Real weird. This started from firmware 200.12 or 13 i think. before AP to AP was 900-1011mbit. it all makes no sense 🤔

and no it's not cables or anything.. all CAT8 and Dlink 10 port business-switch 130watt POE 802.3at connected to KPN V10C modem on glasfiber PON 1gbit internet. And yes I know it's overkill for a normal household.😆