hAP ax3 preventing buyers remorse

bylie · Wed Apr 26, 2023 11:46 am

I'm looking for a new ap to replace my current one (Linksys wap54g, don't laugh it works, seriously stop laughing).

I got into the Mikrotik world via a gifted hex poe after my opnsense router hardware broke down. The hex poe has served my needs quite well until recently when I replaced it with a rb5009 because I'm looking to do more internal segmentation which means more inter-vlan routing and fq-codel/cake queueing on the internet port for which the hex poe was lacking the necessary power. The hex poe will probably be put back in service as a small managed switch. I'm quite happy with the rb5009 so a second nice experience with Mikrotik for me.

I was looking into the latest hap ax series as a replacement for my current ap with the added bonus of 4 extra ports which might come in handy down the line. The hap ax3 in a switch/ap configuration seems to fit the bill:

External antennas

USB port for serial console access for those occasions that I lock myself out

Better design than hap ax2 reflected in the higher mtbf and higher clockspeed

Familiar routeros which receives continued updates throughout the lifetime of the product compared to some other vendors who just abandon their (consumer) products after just a few years leaving potential security issues unpatched.

However I've got some things that remain unclear to me:

I read some posts (mainly on this forum and reddit) about questionable wifi stability (ssid's dropping off, (older) devices that can't connect, having to disable pmkid for Apple devices etc) but it's unclear to me if this signals a structural problem with the product/chip, incompatibility with some other vendors/chips or just a misconfiguration on the users side?

I also read about disappointing wifi speeds compared to other vendors, is this really a thing or just a problem with some peoples expectations? I care much more about overall wifi stability than throughput as most of the time the marketing numbers (based on broad channels, no interference, full 4x4 mu-mimo on all devices etc) are meaningless in the real world. Wifi is also nice to have for me and not my main way of connecting to the network but I'd like it to just work of course once setup correctly.

Are the external antennas prone to unscrewing/loosening as it seems that operating without these could cause permanent damage?

Currently there is no support for hwoffload when using vlan filtering, however the cpu is capable enough to alleviate some of this but the soc seems capable of doing this in hardware, are there any indications that this will be coming in a future routeros release for this hardware?

Are there any known 2.5 Gb/s port incompatibilities with the rb5009 or other vendors? As there are/were some indications that the 2.5 Gb/s port on the rb5009 gave subpar throughput, even compared to normal 1 Gb/s, when connected at 2.5 Gb/s with some other vendors (mostly cable modems iirc).

gigabyte091 · Wed Apr 26, 2023 1:20 pm

My honest advice, if you have RB5009 leave it as is because it's a great router and buy AP from another vendor. I had really crappy experience with Mikrotik wireless on new ax devices and wifiwave2 drivers. (Old cap ac was far more stable device in my opinion)

Wed Apr 26, 2023 1:58 pm

My comments on some of your concerns:

I use AX3 (and AX2) as AP at home, RB5009 as router. Could be other vendors might have better wifi material/performance (in same price range ?) but for what I NEED, those devices are more then enough.
Antennas on AX3 (and AC3, same design) are not subject to accidental release, if you do not touch them. They are pretty easy to unscrew but again, not when being left alone.
2.5Gb trunk between AX3 and RB5009 works just fine for me (internal iperf test gets me to 2.3 to 2.4, good enough, I would say).
HW offload for VLAN filtering: probably just a matter of time before it gets enabled. Took quite a long time on Hex too before it was added.

At the end: your money, your choice.

sirbryan · Wed Apr 26, 2023 4:09 pm

I have probably over a dozen AX3's installed in customer homes by now, with 2-3x that for AC3 and hundreds of AC2. What you're seeing posted here comes from a lot of tinkerers trying to do everything they can on an AX3, certainly not combinations MikroTik has test cases for.

I have received zero complaints from customers about WiFi not working on AC3 and AX3 with WiFi Wave 2 drivers, most of them on RouterOS 7.7. I generally install them for my customers who want the faster (300+Mbps) packages, and on my iPhone 11 Pro and M1 MacBook Pro (both with 802.11ax support), I often get speeds of 600-700Mbps via WiFi without a problem.

I have not installed any AX2 routers (yet). I usually install AC2 because of their low cost and they can handle most of the homes out here without too much trouble. For now, AX2 has little to no benefit in my use cases, except as a second AP to help offload an AX3. (That said, speeds on 2.4GHz on 'ax devices are pretty good.)

Their config is pretty vanilla. A management VLAN on ether1, a world-facing IP, and internal subnet with NAT enabled, and basic firewall. I'm not doing VLANs on the WiFi interfaces.

If I need two or more routers, they're usually connected via Ethernet. If I have to use wireless to extend, say to a shop or other out-building, I use AC2 or AC3 with the older drivers for bridging to another AC2, AC3, or SQXT.

None of my customers have a need for the 2.5Gbps port; everything's running at 1Gbps for now.

If you're really into trying out all M'Tik features, use something like the RB5009 to do all the cool router stuff, and keep the AC/AX WiFi router config as simple as possible, or, as already mentioned, go with an alternative product. I use Ubiquiti UniFi AC/AX AP's in my house and a CCR2116 as my main router (home/office/lab environment).

bylie · Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:16 pm

My honest advice, if you have RB5009 leave it as is because it's a great router and buy AP from another vendor. I had really crappy experience with Mikrotik wireless on new ax devices and wifiwave2 drivers. (Old cap ac was far more stable device in my opinion)

Could you elaborate on the problems you had? Speed, stability, ...

What are other good vendors from consumer/prosumer devices that provide lengthy support for their products?

bylie · Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:18 pm

...

At the end: your money, your choice.

True but the product landscape seems... difficult. I get the impression that with each new wifi standard getting more complex, more and more interoperability issues will crop up in the future between different vendors.

bylie · Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:22 pm

I have probably over a dozen AX3's installed in customer homes by now, with 2-3x that for AC3 and hundreds of AC2. What you're seeing posted here comes from a lot of tinkerers trying to do everything they can on an AX3, certainly not combinations MikroTik has test cases for.

I have received zero complaints from customers about WiFi not working on AC3 and AX3 with WiFi Wave 2 drivers, most of them on RouterOS 7.7. I generally install them for my customers who want the faster (300+Mbps) packages, and on my iPhone 11 Pro and M1 MacBook Pro (both with 802.11ax support), I often get speeds of 600-700Mbps via WiFi without a problem.

I have not installed any AX2 routers (yet). I usually install AC2 because of their low cost and they can handle most of the homes out here without too much trouble. For now, AX2 has little to no benefit in my use cases, except as a second AP to help offload an AX3. (That said, speeds on 2.4GHz on 'ax devices are pretty good.)

Their config is pretty vanilla. A management VLAN on ether1, a world-facing IP, and internal subnet with NAT enabled, and basic firewall. I'm not doing VLANs on the WiFi interfaces.

If I need two or more routers, they're usually connected via Ethernet. If I have to use wireless to extend, say to a shop or other out-building, I use AC2 or AC3 with the older drivers for bridging to another AC2, AC3, or SQXT.

None of my customers have a need for the 2.5Gbps port; everything's running at 1Gbps for now.

If you're really into trying out all M'Tik features, use something like the RB5009 to do all the cool router stuff, and keep the AC/AX WiFi router config as simple as possible, or, as already mentioned, go with an alternative product. I use Ubiquiti UniFi AC/AX AP's in my house and a CCR2116 as my main router (home/office/lab environment).

Thanks for throwing in some usage numbers.

I understand the tinkerer statement but in theory a lot of those problems should go away when starting from a simple default config with minimal changes but it seems some users just keep having/reporting issues without any real resolution. Or it would be the case none of them started again with sane defaults which is poor troubleshooting.

Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:23 pm

True but the product landscape seems... difficult. I get the impression that with each new wifistandard getting more complex, more and more interoperability issues will crop up in the future between different vendors.

Hence why I stay with 1 vendor for my personal needs and for my customer.
It is more then enough for what is needed, I know the eco-system by now for the areas I am familiar with and I don't need bleeding edge features.

And most of the times a lot cheaper too.

Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:37 pm

Welcome to the forum, bylie

I can't be impartial here, so I'll just say, we also have a nice community and a really large network of enthusiasts, no matter where you are, there will be some Mikrotik experts nearby

Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:42 pm

I can't be impartial here, ...

You don't ?
Well well, what a disappointment

Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:48 pm

I can try. I like the hAP ax2 more than ax3, because of the design and size. I use it at home. I get 750-800Mbit over WiFi to my Macbook. All true.

dark77 · Wed Apr 26, 2023 7:36 pm

Using ROS 7.9rc I have no issues with my hAPs ax and yes I Iike ax2 more than ax3, a llittle powerful router.

gigabyte091 · Wed Apr 26, 2023 8:09 pm

My honest advice, if you have RB5009 leave it as is because it's a great router and buy AP from another vendor. I had really crappy experience with Mikrotik wireless on new ax devices and wifiwave2 drivers. (Old cap ac was far more stable device in my opinion)
Could you elaborate on the problems you had? Speed, stability, ...

What are other good vendors from consumer/prosumer devices that provide lengthy support for their products?

So, before OP (or anyone else) here thinks that I don't like Mikrotik, I really love Mikrotik products and I have many of them (2 ax2, 1 ax3 as main router right now, wAP LTE as backup link, 3 capac, RB4011, RB260 and so on... and that's just at home, at work also mikrotik router, switches, ap's and about 21-22 wAP LTE on various locations providing internet for fire alarm systems) and while I still consider myself complete beginner in networks I learned a lot here on forum and people here are great.

I had a problem with my two ax2, first of all with ether ports not negotiating full gigabit link speed (my distributor replaced both of them after testing) and with wifi, my original setup that worked without a problem on cAP AC is 3 VLAN's one for home network, one for IoT and one for my security cameras.

After replicating same setup on ax2 problem started:
- Laptop never wants to connect to 5 GHz radio (on cAP ac worked without a problem)
- Heating gateway for my central heating system disconnects from the network on regular basis (10-12 times a day)
- My and my wife's phone keep disconnecting from WiFi
- F**** roaming, so phones stays connected to downstairs AP, i have to reconnect phone every time.

Then i just tried default configuration just for test and it was the same thing...

ROS on them was 7.8 so i don't know if there is any improvement in beta version but all this information is for ax2, with ax3 i didn't have a problem regarding wifi and i really think it's a great router.

I will try wifi with new ax2 that i recieved just to see if there was maybe some kind of hardware error (like i had with ether ports)

maigonis · Wed Apr 26, 2023 10:02 pm

Could you elaborate on the problems you had? Speed, stability, ...

What are other good vendors from consumer/prosumer devices that provide lengthy support for their products?
So, before OP (or anyone else) here thinks that I don't like Mikrotik, I really love Mikrotik products and I have many of them (2 ax2, 1 ax3 as main router right now, wAP LTE as backup link, 3 capac, RB4011, RB260 and so on... and that's just at home, at work also mikrotik router, switches, ap's and about 21-22 wAP LTE on various locations providing internet for fire alarm systems) and while I still consider myself complete beginner in networks I learned a lot here on forum and people here are great.

I had a problem with my two ax2, first of all with ether ports not negotiating full gigabit link speed (my distributor replaced both of them after testing) and with wifi, my original setup that worked without a problem on cAP AC is 3 VLAN's one for home network, one for IoT and one for my security cameras.

After replicating same setup on ax2 problem started:
- Laptop never wants to connect to 5 GHz radio (on cAP ac worked without a problem)
- Heating gateway for my central heating system disconnects from the network on regular basis (10-12 times a day)
- My and my wife's phone keep disconnecting from WiFi
- F**** roaming, so phones stays connected to downstairs AP, i have to reconnect phone every time.

Then i just tried default configuration just for test and it was the same thing...

ROS on them was 7.8 so i don't know if there is any improvement in beta version but all this information is for ax2, with ax3 i didn't have a problem regarding wifi and i really think it's a great router.

I will try wifi with new ax2 that i recieved just to see if there was maybe some kind of hardware error (like i had with ether ports)

Nr.1 can be wpa2/wpa3 issue, try to use only wpa2, most of other issues can be TX power related. Try to use channel whit good TX gain in your country or try no country setting. WIFI Country setting is used on both sides (AP and station), so both sides adjust TX gain and some parameters to meet regulations. If you had no country set on cap ac and now you use some country, then that can make a noticeable difference in network coverage and connectivity. Roaming can be improved whit ACL, set RX limit to reasonable number, around -75dbm in general is fine, adjust as needed.

Wed Apr 26, 2023 10:06 pm

Forget network and reconnect can sometimes also do wonders after tweaking wifi settings.

gigabyte091 · Wed Apr 26, 2023 10:15 pm

Will try that, i always set country and tx power to auto. New AP is also WPA2/3 and works just fine but will try that also. When my wife replace her old laptop i will disable WPA2 and use only WPA3. Thank you for advices.

PeterXC · Thu Apr 27, 2023 2:28 pm

I understand the tinkerer statement but in theory a lot of those problems should go away when starting from a simple default config with minimal changes but it seems some users just keep having/reporting issues without any real resolution. Or it would be the case none of them started again with sane defaults which is poor troubleshooting.

AX3 looks like it is still a beta product, I’d stay away if you care about radio performance. AX2 is better as an AP.
Many people here tested really hard ax3 and in the end, it is just not good. And yes, with a default or minimal configuration as well.
In my view, it has some bad design ideas, and on top of it, software is not stable. Ax3 is great as a cheap smart router or firewall for your home, not as a high performance Wi-Fi AP.

Rox169 · Thu Apr 27, 2023 2:45 pm

Many AX3 has been sold and few people did complain here and you assume from those few complains that the AX3 is beta??

Most of those people never set up wifi in MT. Of cource Wifivawe needs some tuning but those are original drivers from producer so there must be the best performace not like in before where MT did their bad own drivers.

massinia · Thu Apr 27, 2023 2:53 pm

AX3 looks like it is still a beta product, I’d stay away if you care about radio performance. AX2 is better as an AP.
Many people here tested really hard ax3 and in the end, it is just not good. And yes, with a default or minimal configuration as well.
In my view, it has some bad design ideas, and on top of it, software is not stable. Ax3 is great as a cheap smart router or firewall for your home, not as a high performance Wi-Fi AP.

Never read so much crap in a single message...

ToTheFull · Thu Apr 27, 2023 4:18 pm

Love my hAP ax2 & cAP ax

Maggiore81 · Thu Apr 27, 2023 6:08 pm

@sirbryan can you share partially your config ?

I have created on a AX 3:

cfg1 for wlan1 (5ghz)
cfg2 for wlan2 (2ghz).
that is pretty default, only the DFS channels set to 10min on wlan1 and to ALL to wlan2

PeterXC · Fri Apr 28, 2023 8:29 am

Never read so much crap in a single message...

I love constructive criticism

PeterXC · Fri Apr 28, 2023 8:44 am

Many AX3 has been sold and few people did complain here and you assume from those few complains that the AX3 is beta??

I don't assume. I actually did some tests on two different devices, and it is just not good. It is at least average. And most people LOVE average.
The rest is angry not only here but on Reddit as well.

And the bad message is: it will never be a top performer. They made some strange design decisions, and as some guru members noticed, by design, it is only 80Mhz and MIMO2x2.
Why they designed their top-of-the-line router, with WiFi6 and 2.5Gbps ethernet uplink port without MIMO 4x4, CA or 160MHz channel? It is just unbelievable.

I will stick with my opinion: if you want 600Mbps+ wifi performance, don't go for ax3.

Fri Apr 28, 2023 9:02 am

Peter, something must have been wrong with your tests or your device. You can get 750-800Mbit in real life download speed (at least I do, regularly), slightly more in syntetic testing. Max data rate for 2x2 80 is 1200Mbit.

bylie · Fri Apr 28, 2023 10:10 am

I can try. I like the hAP ax2 more than ax3, because of the design and size. I use it at home. I get 750-800Mbit over WiFi to my Macbook. All true.

Any information on hwoffload vlan filtering for hap ax2 and ax3? Is it planned or are there showstoppers making it difficult/impossible?

I'll be honest that I like the ax3 over the ax2 for 2 main reasons atm:

Higher clockspeed of the cpu to carry the l2 forwarding burden when doing vlan filtering as it's not yet being able to be offloaded to the soc. However once offload is implemented the cpu won't be doing a lot in my setup, besides wifi I guess, so an ax2 might be enough.

Usb port for serial port access, but if hwoffload is implemented I might have to weigh the extra cost of the ax3 + usb vs the ax2 - usb.

PeterXC · Fri Apr 28, 2023 10:20 am

Peter, something must have been wrong with your tests or your device. You can get 750-800Mbit in real life download speed (at least I do, regularly), slightly more in syntetic testing. Max data rate for 2x2 80 is 1200Mbit.

Hi Normis,
I recognize you from many different threads where you typically comment wrong test setups or configurations. Many people, including me, posted our configurations and setups and received zero further response.

If we’re so bad in MikroTik configurations maybe you could post here a reference and optimal configuration for a typical home usage: internet on eth1 IP from dhcp, local lan, local dhcp server. It will cut all the speculation on incorrect settings.

bylie · Fri Apr 28, 2023 10:28 am

Could you elaborate on the problems you had? Speed, stability, ...

What are other good vendors from consumer/prosumer devices that provide lengthy support for their products?
So, before OP (or anyone else) here thinks that I don't like Mikrotik, I really love Mikrotik products and I have many of them (2 ax2, 1 ax3 as main router right now, wAP LTE as backup link, 3 capac, RB4011, RB260 and so on... and that's just at home, at work also mikrotik router, switches, ap's and about 21-22 wAP LTE on various locations providing internet for fire alarm systems) and while I still consider myself complete beginner in networks I learned a lot here on forum and people here are great.

I had a problem with my two ax2, first of all with ether ports not negotiating full gigabit link speed (my distributor replaced both of them after testing) and with wifi, my original setup that worked without a problem on cAP AC is 3 VLAN's one for home network, one for IoT and one for my security cameras.

After replicating same setup on ax2 problem started:
- Laptop never wants to connect to 5 GHz radio (on cAP ac worked without a problem)
- Heating gateway for my central heating system disconnects from the network on regular basis (10-12 times a day)
- My and my wife's phone keep disconnecting from WiFi
- F**** roaming, so phones stays connected to downstairs AP, i have to reconnect phone every time.

Then i just tried default configuration just for test and it was the same thing...

ROS on them was 7.8 so i don't know if there is any improvement in beta version but all this information is for ax2, with ax3 i didn't have a problem regarding wifi and i really think it's a great router.

I will try wifi with new ax2 that i recieved just to see if there was maybe some kind of hardware error (like i had with ether ports)

Thanks for the clarifiation and these snags worry me more than wifi throughput.

Strange that ax2 has so many problems when an ax3 in the same setup seems to working ok. I'd think the ax3 is really nothing more than a beefed up ax2 (higher cpu clock due to better thermal design, usb port, a 2,5 Gb/s port and external antennas) as it uses the same underlying soc with the same vendor wifiwave2 drivers.

sirbryan · Fri Apr 28, 2023 10:33 am

@sirbryan can you share partially your config ?

I have created on a AX 3:

cfg1 for wlan1 (5ghz)
cfg2 for wlan2 (2ghz).
that is pretty default, only the DFS channels set to 10min on wlan1 and to ALL to wlan2

I start with the defaults, add a management VLAN to the WAN port and associated firewall rules, and change the IP addressing scheme (I prefer 192.168.1.x as opposed to 192.168.88.x, but that's a preference and doesn't affect performance).

Change the default DHCP time to 3 days (also doesn't affect performance, but helps with some devices that don't like 10 minute DHCP timers):

/ip dhcp-server set lease-time="3d" [ find where name=defconf ]

The following script snippet is generally used when I upgrade an AC3 from standard WiFi drivers to Wave2; I haven't run this script on an AX3 lately to know if it removes any old settings that might override the config. I've also started disabling all DFS options on 5GHz because some IoT devices don't support UNI-II, and power levels are weaker (we all know everybody wants to reach around their whole house and back yard...).


:global SSID "customerSSID"
:global pass customerPassword

/interface wifiwave2 configuration
add channel.skip-dfs-channels=all country="United States" mode=ap name=cfg1 ssid=$SSID \
       security.passphrase=$pass 

/interface wifiwave2
set [ find default-name=wifi1 ] configuration=cfg1 configuration.mode=ap disabled=no
set [ find default-name=wifi2 ] configuration=cfg1 configuration.mode=ap disabled=no
set security.sae-pwe=hunting-and-pecking [ find ]

/interface wifiwave2 channel
add frequency=2412,2437,2462 name=ch2.4

# For AX3
/interface/wifiwave2/print
/interface/wifiwave2/set channel=ch2.4 1  
# End for AX3

# For freshly upgraded AC3
/interface/bridge/port/print
/interface/bridge/port/set interface=wifi1 4
/interface/bridge/port/set interface=wifi2 5
/interface/wifiwave2/print
/interface/wifiwave2/set channel=ch2.4 0 
# End for AC3

bylie · Fri Apr 28, 2023 2:22 pm

What I don't really understand is why Mikrotik would have/is having more problems with their newer wifi products as for these they're just using an off the shelf chip (Qualcomm ipq 6010 in this case) together with the vendors proprietary driver blob (as in the wifiwave2 package, so no more self written wifi driver) like so many other wifi device manufacturers out there. In my simple understanding, besides the radio design, the only thing a device manufacturer like Mikrotik can do is push the settings to the soc to configure it a certain way, like any other device manufacturer using the same chip. Maybe this is an oversimplified and wrong view?

gigabyte091 · Fri Apr 28, 2023 3:24 pm

You must admit that Mikrotik have far more options and far more powerfull OS with plenty of configuration options and you need time and a lot of testing to make things right...

Look at Microsoft, almost every day some kind of update, look at for eg. GPU drivers, frequent updates... Mikrotik can't test all possible scenarios in house...

My new ax2 works just fine now, no problem so i believe that this time i had hardware fault. (I will also test WiFi when i will have more time)

massinia · Fri Apr 28, 2023 4:03 pm

I love constructive criticism

For the moment I have installed 5 hAP ax3 and nobody has the problems you say, are places with many connected devices, no disconnections or slowdowns.
You obviously have some problem with wireless client or you have configured it incorrectly.

I will stick with my opinion: if you want 600Mbps+ wifi performance, don't go for ax3.

You should stop writing nonsense...

This is my hAP ax3 that I have at home, distance from the router: 6 meters.

The only things I changed are:
- SSID
- Password
- Country

Fri Apr 28, 2023 4:17 pm

Good one, massinia!

In the other topic there is a nice idea by bpwl: viewtopic.php?p=999005#p999005
Possible somebody set skip-dfs channels and there is only one remaining channel and there could be interference on that one. So misconfig.

natman · Fri Apr 28, 2023 5:44 pm

distance from the router: 6 meters.

Can you check what is the TX power it uses?

/interface/wifiwave2/monitor 0
/interface/wifiwave2/monitor 1

ToTheFull · Fri Apr 28, 2023 6:14 pm

This works for me, cap ax upstairs, hAP ax Living room.
3mtr test below TX power 9

cAP ax is running 5180-5250 TX power 16

0 name="wifi1" mac-address=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx arp-timeout=auto radio-mac=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
configuration.mode=ap .ssid="" .country=United Kingdom
security.authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk .passphrase="password"
channel.frequency=5180-5250 .band=5ghz-ax .width=20/40/80mhz .skip-dfs-channels=10min-cac

1 name="wifi2" mac-address=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx arp-timeout=auto radio-mac=
configuration.mode=ap .ssid="" .country=United Kingdom xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
security.authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk .encryption="" .passphrase="pasword"
channel.skip-dfs-channels=10min-cac

hAP ax2 is running 5745-5805 TX power 9

0 name="wifi1" mac-address=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx arp-timeout=auto radio-mac=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
configuration.mode=ap .ssid="" .country=United Kingdom
security.authentication-types=wpa2-psk,wpa3-psk .encryption=ccmp .passphrase="password" .disable-pmkid=no .wps=disable
channel.frequency=5745-5805 .band=5ghz-ax .width=20/40/80mhz .skip-dfs-channels=disabled

massinia · Fri Apr 28, 2023 8:59 pm

Can you check what is the TX power it uses?

/interface/wifiwave2/monitor 0
/interface/wifiwave2/monitor 1

Sure!

In the other topic there is a nice idea by bpwl: viewtopic.php?p=999005#p999005
Possible somebody set skip-dfs channels and there is only one remaining channel and there could be interference on that one. So misconfig.

@normis
Yes, that's probably true... or maybe a PC wireless driver problem, we will never know

I just tried it with a Dell XPS 2022 and I am getting around 720/780 Mbps, are very good performance for this hardware.

natman · Sat Apr 29, 2023 8:01 am

@massinia Thanks for details.

I've exactly similar setup and whatever configuration i do, it never reaches beyond 600Mbps speed where as through ethernet i get above 900Mbps always. And this 600Mbps speed i get only in MBA M1 or iPhone 13 Pro. But in Dell Precision 7560 which is intel 210 ax chipset, never goes beyond 250Mbps. All test approximately around 6 meter distance line of sight.

Screenshot 2023-04-29 at 9.55.20 AM.png

PeterXC · Sat Apr 29, 2023 8:13 pm

There is no point in further discussion with Mikrotik's PR department and fanboys.
Just for the record: AX3 is not a top-class high-performing WiFi6 AP and will never be. 80Mhz 2/2 router with the newest strict WiFi regulations will never have the best performance.
It is an objective fact. You can check any list of best-performing Wi-Fi6 routers from any tech site, and you will not find ax3 there.

And yes, if you are lucky and live in the middle of nowhere, you can have the luxury of using the first 5Ghz/80 Channel with a nice high power, and maybe you will be even happy with it until others arrive and make the first channels crowdy.

Still, it will never load your 2.5Gbps uplink. It is just technically impossible.
If your internet link is higher than 600Mbps, or you expect 600Mbps+ stable Wi-Fi transfers to your LAN, I suggest looking for other devices.

Maggiore81 · Sat Apr 29, 2023 8:24 pm

@massinia
can you share your wireless config?

bylie · Sun Apr 30, 2023 11:00 am

I can try. I like the hAP ax2 more than ax3, because of the design and size. I use it at home. I get 750-800Mbit over WiFi to my Macbook. All true.
Any information on hwoffload vlan filtering for hap ax2 and ax3? Is it planned or are there showstoppers making it difficult/impossible?

I'll be honest that I like the ax3 over the ax2 for 2 main reasons atm:
Higher clockspeed of the cpu to carry the l2 forwarding burden when doing vlan filtering as it's not yet being able to be offloaded to the soc. However once offload is implemented the cpu won't be doing a lot in my setup, besides wifi I guess, so an ax2 might be enough.

Usb port for serial port access, but if hwoffload is implemented I might have to weigh the extra cost of the ax3 + usb vs the ax2 - usb.

@normis
Giving this a bump as it might be important to know for future use cases. Any info on this?

massinia · Sun Apr 30, 2023 11:38 am

@massinia
can you share your wireless config?

I wrote it above, no magic config

It's all default... I just changed:
- SSID
- WiFi Security: Only WPA2
- Management protection: Disable

I have old home automation devices that won't connect when Management Protection is active, so i turned it off, but this does not affect performance.

gigabyte091 · Mon May 01, 2023 10:38 am

I did some speedtest with new ax2 that I recieved, i tested only 5 GHz band TX/RX (default config out of the box, only thing changed SSID pw and admin pw and country set to my country)

Server is on laptop, i have Intel AX200 WiFi card, i ran each test for about 5 minutes and distance between laptop and ax2 is about 3 meters

ax2 WiFi 5GHz RX.jpg

ax2 WiFi 5GHz TX.jpg

These are a better results than I have before with old ax2 that had fault.

As for ax3 not being best performing ax router, okay but i had a quick look and there are better performing router but for eg. Asus RT-AX86U is about 250 euros, while ax3 I found for about 103-112 euros. If you have multi-gig internet connection then okay, but for 1 gig and less ax3 is good router. At the end, your money, your choices.

Rox169 · Mon May 01, 2023 11:08 am

Hi,

im just doing some tests and the AX2 with integrated anenas has better signal and better throughput than AX3. Why? Why so big anntenas then ??

Mon May 01, 2023 11:45 am

Antennas are mostly for sensitivity on receiving end.

Rox169 · Mon May 01, 2023 12:36 pm

What is sensitivity good for???

maigonis · Mon May 01, 2023 1:17 pm

What is sensitivity good for???

To hear better your phone behind walls.

Mon May 01, 2023 1:18 pm

Weaker clients or further distance clients might still connect.

Mon May 01, 2023 4:40 pm

I did some speedtest with new ax2 that I recieved, i tested only 5 GHz band TX/RX (default config out of the box, only thing changed SSID pw and admin pw and country set to my country)

Server is on laptop, i have Intel AX200 WiFi card, i ran each test for about 5 minutes and distance between laptop and ax2 is about 3 meters

nice tests !!! please confirm AX200 driver version you are using

anav · Mon May 01, 2023 4:43 pm

Interesting biased opinions here.....
I find the hap ax3 way harder to configure (wave2) versus the capac.
In fact, I am thus far unable to successfully work my way through a config as there are two many overlapping menus with similar settings.
I have no clue what a default setup is?? I have to go in and make selections and get bogged down right quick.
If there ever was a need for quickset this is it. A quickset default config where the Admin only has to make one selection ( wpa2 password ).

When I do manage to get something resembling success, the performance is no better than a well tuned wifi5 device ( by well tuned mean plugNplay ) of other vendors approx 500Mbps.
Just to be sure I checked the iphone in use specs: 12mini, and it has wifi6 ax 2x2 mimo.

Fun fact, needed to setup a strong wifi signal to an outside solar box, did I use the ax3, hell no. It had to be done in 5 minutes, so took an old netgear router, turned on wifi plugged it directly into the CCR1009, added the bridge settings and voila, up and running. Not the magical 800Mpbs but it worked, first time, no muss and stable and fast.

gigabyte091 · Mon May 01, 2023 5:03 pm

I did some speedtest with new ax2 that I recieved, i tested only 5 GHz band TX/RX (default config out of the box, only thing changed SSID pw and admin pw and country set to my country)

Server is on laptop, i have Intel AX200 WiFi card, i ran each test for about 5 minutes and distance between laptop and ax2 is about 3 meters

nice tests !!! please confirm AX200 driver version you are using

Here you go, driver version:

AX200 drivers.jpg

Also, i had a problem with AX200 connecting to 2.4 instead of the 5 GHz (no problem with Ubiquiti U6-Lite for eg.) band and this can be solved (it worked for me) by changing some settings in driver menu:

Prefered band.jpg

@anav

Default setup or more correct way to say configuration, at least for me, is the one that come with the router, so factory SSID, encryption and so on, I only change factory password for wireless to something that I will remember and I change country to my own. That's about it, everything else (channel, power, etc. is on auto) I don't use quickset.

marsbeetle · Mon May 01, 2023 5:05 pm

I have to admit I was also very disappointed with hAP ax3 after living with hAP ac2 for many years. Sure it is faster but where I was able to comfortably get full coverage of my home with the ac2 I only get half coverage with ax3. I also only get these great speeds when literally sitting in same room which is hardly convenient.

The only saving grace and reason I don’t notice weak signal of ax3 anymore is because I configured my faithful old hAP ac2 as another AP at opposite end of house. So yes, ax3 speed is good but coverage is poor in my opinion. This may be due to more restrictive country measures on ax3 and wifiwave2 but it is and will be a let down for most people who have experience with using older MikroTik wifi devices and that is (unfortunately) a fact.

Mon May 01, 2023 6:17 pm

Ax3 provides for me better coverage then ac3 using wifiwave2.
And that one was better then ac2.
Thick brick walls and concrete flooring.

anav · Tue May 02, 2023 2:00 am

yours is not made of chocolate and waffles?
one day I will achieve your ax3 acumen..........

natman · Tue May 02, 2023 12:44 pm

Some are getting good performance while others are not, Is this something to do with certain batch of ax3 which has some faulty hardware? Or people whoever get good performance are living in a isolated place where there is no other wireless signals(noise)?

In my case, at the moment i can see 23 networks(both 2.4 and 5Ghz combined). May be is this influences the performance?

Tue May 02, 2023 1:36 pm

Obviously it is (and that's true for any AP) of utmost importance to select frequencies which are ideally not occupied or (if this is not possible) the least occupied.

I have 2 APs at home (AX2 on frontside, AX3 on backside).
2.4GHz:
Front there is a lot of 1/6/11 usage (and real nicely only those 3) with 6 being almost double of the other 2. So I took 11 since it is the least used.
In the back of my house I stay away from 11, 6 is still noticeable so there I choose 1.

5GHz:
Front: lots of lower frequency usage (older gear of neighbors ?). So I choose a higher frequency to stay away from those.
Back: not that much noticeable anymore but to stay clear from front AP, I choose a mid-range frequency.

My home connection is 500/30 (it was 300/30 but they upgraded it recently, and yes, I read somewhere ideally up should never be less then 10% down). No problems getting that saturated using equipment capable of doing so.
Internal iperf testing with a 4 year old laptop I can get to 600-650Mbps on 5GHz.
Using AX Lite in station mode, I can get around 400Mbps on 2.4GHz.

natman · Tue May 02, 2023 2:23 pm

In my case, ax3 automatically chose channel 100, which i dont think any other neighbor uses and still it does not cross 600 Mbps, that even very rare. Mostly its around 500 Mbps. All my tests are just with speedtest.net. Actually i'm happy with 500, but the problem is to achieve this speed my client needs to at line of sight with ax3

. Sitting at next room separated by a concrete wall with a distance around 5-6 meter gives around 100M speed. And this is where my two year old ISP router excels with speed around 250M in 5Ghz AC band.

gigabyte091 · Tue May 02, 2023 10:34 pm

Well... If you have 23 wireless networks around you then you are lucky to achieve this speed... That's a lot of interference...

Are you using 80MHz channel ? I set channel width to 40 MHz as i don't see the need for 1200 Mbps speed and with my internet connection 573Mbps is more than enough.

Maybe on your ISP router you connect to 2.4 GHz if router is dual band ?

gotsprings · Thu May 11, 2023 12:26 am

My Audience is still my best performing MIKROTIK Wireless Access Point serving clients. The WAVE2 driver on it improved it considerably from what it shipped with years ago. Have not been able to bring myself to buy an AX unit. (they were out of stock when I was willing)

However...
Since I got my RB5009 and hooked that to a WiFi6E Access point... The Audience has been demoted to paper weight again.

I have a ton of interference from neighbors. The Mikrotik radios have always "handled it the worst" of all manufactures I brought home. The WAVE2 Driver on the audience on the 4x4 radio worked well the 2x2 on the 5Ghz always had problems. And various firmwares would cause issues with some of my old 2.4 clients too.

I am over it for now...

Then that 48 port switch, loosing 8 ports at a time, really pissed me off.
Fortunately the 24 Port DOESN'T HAVE THAT PROBLEM ANYMORE. (Its important to note that when I First got a CRS328-24P... it did the same thing with losing 8 ports till rebooted. Months went by before it was fixed) I now have a bunch of CRS328s DAC connected to CRS326s that work day in and day out now.

cbwecomm · Thu Jan 04, 2024 2:49 am

I would like to add myself to the list of disappointed hAP ax3 users (possibly). While I keep seeing people speak of "performance", what really seems to be (at least to me) the common thread is range/power output. Quite a few people noted that they performed great when standing near them or in the same room.

The first instance of this was a customer who had a batch of eero mesh units (3, for a relatively small home). I thought this was excessive, so I replaced with a hAP ax3. Range dropped significantly, so he put the eero units back.

This week, has been a replacement of a AirCube, which while underpowered, provided adequate coverage well throughout an oddly shaped home (and unfortunately, the AirCube is in the garage at a far end). Assuming we could really improve upon this, we dropped in a hAP ax3 however the signal is so week that most devices barely connect. Nothing better than -60 and most in the -70 on 5GHz and up to -80 on 2.4. It was very very disappointing to have this happen and I'm at a loss as to what would cause this. I've been using default settings (minus the obvious tweaks of setting country, SSID, password, etc) so I dont think it's a configuration issue. Having said that, I've played with (and reset) quite a few options including power levels, chains, etc and nothing helps.

I actually think the hAP ax2 performs as well as (maybe better) than the hAP ax3, which doesn't make any sense. I'm going to take one out tomorrow to try and then ultimately, put the AirCube back.

Not here to bash or rant, as I'm definitely a MikroTik fan....but, something does seem to be wrong with these units somehow. Maybe the external antenna connectors are accidentally turned off in firmware or something?? as crazy as that sounds?? I don't have the equipment to test RF output at the antennas or connectors to know if anything is actually reaching them. It really feels like the power output on the ax3 is pretty abysmal. In a business, I would cover this area with a single U6-Pro and have no issues whatsoever.

What's the best way to raise the flag on this and try to come to a resolution?

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