Please Help Help!!! ZD1106 unstable with 7372, 7352 and R300

[gerald_maduabuc]

(ZD1106, 7372, 7352 & R300) Users disconnect, freezing and Roaming issues .

Dear sir

Help Help Help!!!!!

1. We have a site of about 100 users built with ZD1106 on firmware version 9.9.x.x.x, controlling two units of 7372 and one unit of 7352.
Below issues are recorded

a. Roaming and load balancing issues, the ZD seems slow in load balancing and roaming seems slow or not happening.

question 1. So we changed load balancing threshold to 43 DBi. Please is this a firmware issues or dual band/single band issues? Please what do you suggest?


2. On same site, we added R300 to the network. ZD1106 on firmware version 9.9.x.x.x, controlling one unit of R300, two units of 7372 and one unit of 7352.
Below issues are recorded
a. R300 and 7352 were close so users experience kicked out or disconnected from network 
b. Slow or limited load balancing an roaming

question 2. What best 1100 ZD firmware version will maximize or enhence ZD1106, R300, 7372 and 7352 performance
question 3. Should we take single band AP 7352 out of the network?

please help, urgent help

[andrea_coppini]

Load Balancing and Roaming are different processes.

Load Balancing only happens on client join.  The ZD/AP's make it a bit harder for clients to join a busy AP and easier to join a quiet AP, but (a) it will still allow stubborn clients to join whichever AP they want to join and (b) once a client joins a specific AP, Load Balancing doesn't do anything with them - it doesn't kick clients out (that would be the SmartRoam feature and should be used with caution).

Now onto Roaming.
What do you mean by 'slow'? - does it take 500ms or 50 seconds to roam?

Roaming is always  a client-driven process.  The ZD/AP only assist with roaming, but it doesn't decide when to roam or where to roam to.

What encryption method are you using on the WLAN?
What are your client devices?

[gerald_maduabuc]

Hi Andrea

Thanks for your response.

The client devices are phones, PCs and some model i took note were some HP ProBook PCs 

The encryption method was the default encryption option at ZD setup, that allows minimum of 8 digits passphrase. I am not sure if it is WEP or WPA1/2. ......Please recommend the best encryption......

We realized that when users move around, they have to disconnect and reconnect before browse faster. When i moved, it took almost 2 or 3 minutes to regain full wifi bars.

If you have any suggestions, please urgently give, this is a test at customers premises and if they are not satisfied, they will not buy and we choose these devices because they are what we have in stock.

Please may you help us answer these questions
1. ZD1100 series is EoL is on firmware 9.9.x.x.x, not sure how we got to this upgrade....
    a. what best firmware will work best for ZD1100, two units ZF7372, ZF7352? Should we step down to 1100_9.8.3.0.14 or 9.7.2.0.9?
2. Will having a single band zf7352 in between dual band zf7372 give negative effect to roaming and load balancing? Will replacing the single band AP with dual band work better?
3. We added r300 to the network and the IT rep called to complain that some users were being kicked out of the network, so we asked him to disconnect the r300............
   a. If we have to replace the single band AP zf7352 with dual band zf R300, then will have two units of zf7372 and a R300, please instead of continuing with the present ZD 9.9.x.x.x firmware, what zd1100 firmware will work best for combination of r300 and 7372 
4. We increase the load balancing threshold from 50dbi to 43dbi, will this change contribute to our problems?

Please help us urgently

[andrea_coppini]

2-3 minutes to roam is definitely not normal, and definitely not being caused by load balancing.  Roaming should happen in around 500ms (bad case).  Load balancing may increase this time to 1 second, but not minutes!

How many clients are connected to this wireless LAN?
Are you using VLANs?
What brand/model switches are you using?

1. Yes the ZD1100 is EOL, but it's still a very capable controller.  9.8.3 and 9.9.x are the best firmware versions to use.  If you're already on 9.9.x it's OK to stick with it.

2. not really, but some smart devices (such as iPhones) may stick with 5Ghz even if there is a stronger 2.4Ghz signal.  This is because in most environments the 5Ghz band is much, much 'cleaner' than the 2.4Ghz band so even though you may have less 'bars' the performance will be better.  It's always better to have a fully dual-band network.

3. I don't think it was a problem with the R300, but with the underlying network infrastructure.

4. It's not a load balancing issue that you have, but to be safe it's better to turn it off until the network is stabilized.


Here's a couple of things to try:
SSID settings:
- turn on tunnelling
- use WPA2 & AES encryption.  Do NOT use TKIP or WEP encryption - ever!
- turn on 802.11k
- turn on 802.11r

AP Group settings:
- enable all channels
- leave the channel selection set to Auto

In 'Services' page:
- Use 'Background Scanning' for channel selection on both bands
- Change the Background Scanning interval to 300 seconds on both bands

Check the logs on the ZD - are there any errors or warnings?

[gerald_maduabuc]

Hi Andrea

We could not tunneling as we saw tunnel options in more than one parameter. so we were not sure which one to apply.

We turned on 802.11k and 11r, after a while, the ZD rebooted. Printer HP7510 reconnected  But some printers like HP 8610 and HP Pro 400 could no longer connect to wi-fi giving error reports 'WPA Error". The funny thing is that the encryption were not changed, the encryption had been wPA2 & AES. Please who knows what we could do?