MikroTik

I'm starting a new thread because the previous one is marked "Solved" - and it degenerated slightly. Please let's focus on the particular issue here - at least some hAP AX3 units appear to have extremely limited range. I'm operating on the assumption that MT designed, tested, and produced working product - but some units have problems so let's try to figure out the cause.

My particular two units are:
Model C53UiG+5HPaxD2HPaxD
Serial HER09CFZ59Y / HER09DGXRFS
Factory Firmware 7.8
Upgraded Firmware 7.14.2
United States

The two units are located in two different houses in different parts of the city - and both have generally unusable 5G. 2G is great. I'm in the US so I'm using US settings. I've started with defaults and kept desperately trying other combinations of security, channel, and anything else I remotely understand to try to improve. Nothing.

The one thing I've found that's unusual - I have a windows PC with built-in WiFi 6 that does connect from another room with moderate success. But that's the only device that does. None of the various IoT appliances nor any of my Android phones, from multiple vendors, will connect at ranges more than 5-10 feet from the AP.

I've just received an RMA from my vendor, and I'm considering using it, but since I didn't keep the packaging (why would I? New MT product always works!...), and I'll be paying for shipping multiple times, if there's any magical software fix that will work I'm all for trying.

So - anyone with similar issues, who's willing, please share your info. There have been multiple posts indicating problems - and multiple posts indicating flawless operation. Maybe we'll find a pattern of serial numbers that will indicate something?

Let's start by sharing your config.

Sure. This is not a CAPSMan issue, not a firewall issue, not a queue issue. Again - for me 2G works fine while 5G has no range. The Android devices that can't connect 20 feet away do connect 6 feet away.

I downloaded and ran the hapax3.rsc config on my hAP ax3, only two changes being: (1) I set the password explicitly on wifi interfaces because it complained and (2) I ran it without CAPsMAN.

It worked well, and TX power was at 28 dBm in winbox status tab.

Can you please try and replicate my setup and use (1) winbox status tab and (2) "WiFi Analyzer" app on one of your Android devices to register (1) the tx power hAP ax3 thinks it's transmitting at and (2) the power registered by the client device, respectively?

Winbox status shows TX 28.
Sitting in my usual chair, about 50 feet away, through a wall or two, the 2G network shows a fairly constant -46db, 5G shows a fluctuating -60 to -70db.
Moving out of the far room, down the hall, to within 10' open line-of-sight, I see -30db@2G, -45db@5G.

Default config, country=US, tx-power, antenna-gain unset. 2G/5G: TX 27/28. At 10', WiFi Analyzer shows both networks at -33..38 dBm. About 40 ft away on the other side of the flat, 5G is around -60 dBm with 2G being 5 decibels higher.

Is it just me, or do the power numbers appear to be numbering?

Have the same router model. Same problem with 5Ghz wifi.

Quick prehistory. Carrier is Orange Polska Sp. zoo. All was good, router from them was super (stable link with 2.4 Gbit/s link), but they deployed a spyware on router and backdoor. I was told a lot of stuff how good MikroTik is, so decided to try. No spyware not, but wifi link is awful, really awful. So if support/dev team is here I need help. Later firmware 7.15 Beta 9. First of all channel select settings are crazy complicated. Need instead a list like channel 1 up to whatever is there possible and manual select of channel (enforced mode). It always tries to stick to some 5.68 GHz and then only 300mbps max, so had to set allowed below that to avoid. So the problem is, technical specs state as warranted 1200mbit/s, is fact max I get 960 Mbit link, and actual speed below that. And by tech specs it's declared as AX1800, which means it should support up to 1800mbit/s link, but probably locked by firmware, which is time to unlock then.

Problem is I have 1Gbit fiber and it was max like that (stable) on previous carrier router, but problem was spyware.

This router is better as no spyware, but worse due to router being at maximum 5-6 meeters away from router and fails to get even stable 1200 mbit link. Test results are here https://www.speedtest.net/result/16086764065 .
I need at least 950 mbit/s link, as I am working with servers (mean work remotely with servers) and whole link needed for backup downloads etc. If that don't get fixed it's a first and the last time I've ever tried MirkoTik. Promotion from friends about this vendor and expectations were much higher that it acts in fact. And no option to manually chose channels from list and force routed pick what I want, not what it decides is good. . Screenshot of wifi settings attached. I need stable minimum 1200 mbit link and minimum 950 mbit/s actual transfer speed. Wifi card shows power jumping and link speeds jumping from 800 to 960 mbit/s link, but never gets maximum 1200mbit. Also on screenshot you can see newly added field some "reselect interval" and I don't know what it wants but prevents from saving settings. Jumping from channel to channel is also not good. It must allow manually select from some drop down menu precise channel on my own choice and lock it, so that I can take something not used by neighbors. And minimum 15 meeter coverage for whole flat is also mandatory.

Thanks for any help and firmware fixes in advance.

As already told in terms of privacy router seems good, in tems of speed and link quality average, which is not enough.

Got the same problem. Through a bit of discovery and forum diving I've reached the same conclusion some others have in that the regulatory domain for some countries are wrong.

Details on my hAP ax3 are in the attached config.

Here are the hard facts I've gathered:

I'm set up in Australia, which should have a regulatory target of 23 Tx power on 5180/Ceee - I instead get 17 Tx power, a bit lower. When set to the United States, which has a regulatory target of 30, it reaches 23 Tx power, which Australia should theoretically be able to reach on this antenna.

This becomes more pronounced on 2.4ghz. I transmit 27 Tx power on 2437/ax/ce when set to the United States (regulatory target of 30), but only transmit 16 Tx power on 2437/ax/ce when set to Australia (regulatory target of 36, incorrectly set to 20 with a reg-info printout).


With a couple of particularly loud broadcasting neighbours, a Tx power of 16 has severely reduced the range of my wifi in parts of my home. It's pretty much made owning it a bit of a nightmare, I can't believe I didn't notice the significantly lower broadcast power in all my troubleshooting. I've attached my config, though I've currently set my regulatory domain to the United States for now for my own sanity.

Here are some less hard facts, so take with a pinch of salt:

This would pretty clearly establish some of the range issues certain individuals are having, particularly in regions where the regulatory domain is particularly out of whack (Australia, Poland). The responses of "mine works fine" is probably because it does, your regulatory domain isn't mangled.

Another thing, a mate of mine owns a cAP ax that shares the same chip model as the hAP ax3, the QCN-5022/5052. He has noticed similar issues with Tx power output, though this is purely anecdotal. I'll encourage him to post some findings if he can, otherwise maybe someone else owns one and can corroborate the issues.

Let me know if there is any testing I can do or more info to provide to help, I'll try get to it when I can.

Hope MikroTik can provide a response at some stage, it's clear that something is not right on the hAP ax3.

Just installed 7.15B9. It seems like it's actually, if only slightly, improved the TX. Where before I never saw better than -60db in my chair I'm now seeing it reach -55db.

Something I didn't state previously - while watching in a wifi analyzer the 5G network will periodically disappear. Don't know if that's an announce/beacon thing or if it indicates an issue.

I still can't connect at any distance. My android devices show they're attempting to connect, display "Authenticating...", and give up. When I move close enough to the hAP to connect, and then go check Winbox, I see the RX signal from my device is quite weak.

Have the same router model. Same problem with 5Ghz wifi.
<...>
And no option to manually chose channels from list and force routed pick what I want, not what it decides is good.

Please start a new thread if you need help with basic Mikrotik wifi config - I want to keep this one focused on a specific issue. I will tell you that you can get the channel configuration you want, if not necessarily the performance, by making the right changes.

Something I didn't state previously - while watching in a wifi analyzer the 5G network will periodically disappear. Don't know if that's an announce/beacon thing or if it indicates an issue.

I still can't connect at any distance. My android devices show they're attempting to connect, display "Authenticating...", and give up. When I move close enough to the hAP to connect, and then go check Winbox, I see the RX signal from my device is quite weak.

Huh... Interesting. So it may indeed be the receive side that is to blame. I would presume that the microvolt-level signal that is actually received by the antennae is amplified prior to being processed. If that amplifier is somehow borked, the AP won't be able to actually receive packets from devices attempting to connect to it, except for ones that are very close to it.

There's also another possible explanation, which is high noise floor. Please try and measure it with frequency scan tool.

Here are some less hard facts, so take with a pinch of salt:

This would pretty clearly establish some of the range issues certain individuals are having, particularly in regions where the regulatory domain is particularly out of whack (Australia, Poland). The responses of "mine works fine" is probably because it does, your regulatory domain isn't mangled.

I posted a 3-page PDF with two 5 GHz ranges tested for over a hundred countries in another topic. The regulatory domains are indeed completely and totally out of whack, at least in my experience. MikroTik apparently already knows this. I did also file a bug report with my findings though, but no response yet. So yeah. A bit of a nightmare, agreed. But it seems to be only half the issue, and it is not what this particular topic seems to be about, as @dalami has explicitly stated they set country to United States, which works fine as far as I'm aware.

I'm set up in Australia, which should have a regulatory target of 23 Tx power on 5180/Ceee - I instead get 17 Tx power, a bit lower. When set to the United States, which has a regulatory target of 30, it reaches 23 Tx power, which Australia should theoretically be able to reach on this antenna.

The regulatory domains are indeed completely and totally out of whack, at least in my experience. MikroTik apparently already knows this. I did also file a bug report with my findings though, but no response yet. So yeah. A bit of a nightmare, agreed. But it seems to be only half the issue, and it is not what this particular topic seems to be about, as @dalami has explicitly stated they set country to United States, which works fine as far as I'm aware.

Apologies, don't mean to derail the topic then - a lot of these topics have seemed to have melded due to the shared issue of the ax3 and it's range.

If it's at all helpful to the other half of the issue dalami is facing, the Tx power output I was getting for my US set config was seven db's lower than the thirty target on 5180/Ceee.

This topic is already hijacked by others.

@phoenix91140
I don't like how you make demands. Complain to your friends who gave you the recommendation. It is not Mikrotik to feel sorry. And this is a user forum and we all can sleep well, even this is your last Mirkotik (!) device.

Regarding AX1800: this is the accumulate of all bands this device supports. see explained https://superuser.com/questions/1616283 ... 6-802-11ax

Lookup technical specifications of your former ISP wifi AP and see if this is a fair comparison.

If it's at all helpful to the other half of the issue dalami is facing, the Tx power output I was getting for my US set config was seven db's lower than the thirty target on 5180/Ceee.

Ah. Then I should be the one apologizing. And I do apologize. I misremembered my testing.

The Android devices that can't connect 20 feet away do connect 6 feet away.

Within 2m connecting and 6m away not? that's odd indeed

There's also another possible explanation, which is high noise floor. Please try and measure it with frequency scan tool.

Not sure what I'm looking for. Are there lots of other networks visible from my neighbors? Yes.

Which makes it all the more annoying - I can see my next door neighbors' 5G networks (from detached houses over 100' away through multiple exterior walls) while my mighty hAP AX3 can't speak to my phone more than 10' away. I purchased these units as upgrades for existing competitive units. I'm not seeing the upgrade though I really want to.

As you say yourself: speak and see is a difference. So you can't tell if you could successfully connect to your neighbors AP due to being protected by a passphrase isn't it?

Of course. And when I go outside my home - I don't see my hAP 5G. So my beloved MT device is certainly "weaker" than other offerings.

Not sure what I'm looking for. Are there lots of other networks visible from my neighbors? Yes.

Sorry. There's the "Scan" button in winbox, and "Freq. Usage" button. You wanna look for "NF" column in "Freq. Usage" and take note of what it's saying. Here's mine:


And while you're there, can you also screenshot "Scan" results? They should look a little bit like this:


I'm interested in noise floor levels across channels and signal levels of various detected networks. Reason being, this can potentially help understand what is happening on the receive side of things.

Also, I've just noticed that some of my neighbors are using WPA encryption. Gotta go steal their Internet.

I do have hap ax3.
To debug anything around Wifi physical link performance I recommned to just use the device
after reset without config as a simple AP, just add WPA2 password (do not use WPA3) and apply country settings. Nothing else!
Any additional config does change the baseline to something probably less good.

In addition since in 7.X release have band steering/roaming, you better disable the 2.4G Wifi interface completely
to avoid that the AP pushes your clients onto 2.4Ghz (I found the settings for steering are all over the place and I don;t trust steering is off until I disable 2.4G).
I saw especially with steering that you think you should get onto 5G, but the AP won't let you.
So disabling 2.4G ensures nothing like that happens.

Regarding the output power which you say is not meeting regulatory values. Could it be that the vaues are for the board only,
and you have to add antenna gain to that? Which is pretty high for the hap ax3 with its external antennas.
I would be super surprised if there is any error in that, Mikrotik doing routers since 20 years or more.

PS: My hap ax3 has very good range in 2.4G and 5G and I get close to 900mbps TCP over Wifi with my phone in 5Ghz (7.15beta9).

Regarding the output power which you say is not meeting regulatory values. Could it be that the vaues are for the board only,
and you have to add antenna gain to that? Which is pretty high for the hap ax3 with its external antennas.
I would be super surprised if there is any error in that, Mikrotik doing routers since 20 years or more.

PS: My hap ax3 has very good range in 2.4G and 5G and I get close to 900mbps TCP over Wifi with my phone in 5Ghz (7.15beta9).

It's a fair thing to be skeptical about and I appreciate MikroTik's experience and capacity to make some awesome stuff, but everyone makes mistakes and this one has, for me anyways, made owning this great little router quite the headache. To not put too fine a point on it and to nip this in the bud, but the Tx power is accounting for the antenna's capacity and is regulating itself to what it can output, there is no human intervention that is required for the regulatory domains that are accurate to output the correct Tx power. It's worth noting that nobody over the last year of threads and complaints has made this clear if it is necessary...

The regulatory targets are being met for countries whose output from the reg-info is accurate to their actual legislation, while countries like Australia which have much lower incorrect values, are outputting poor Tx power - which in the case of Australia is exceptionally annoying as the actual high targets mean your neighbours are quite easily drowning out the low fake targets. This becomes pretty clear when the US can meet the actual Australian targets but Australia can't, evidently the hAP ax3 can do it, it's just being kneecapped by incorrect targets.

If it's at all helpful to the other half of the issue dalami is facing, the Tx power output I was getting for my US set config was seven db's lower than the thirty target on 5180/Ceee.

Ah. Then I should be the one apologizing. And I do apologize. I misremembered my testing.

Now I have to apologise to your apology to my apology!

I had more of a look into it, the US regulation (referencing here https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke ... ree/db.txt Line 1793) does say 30dBm in master mode but 23dBm for clients. This isn't mentioned in the reg-info printout but would track with what I was getting, so potentially intentional and which would track.

To debug anything around Wifi physical link performance I recommned to just use the device
after reset without config as a simple AP, just add WPA2 password (do not use WPA3) and apply country settings. Nothing else!

This is the best advice so far in this thread. OP, start with a fresh configuration with the absolute bare minimum. If you still have this weird behaviour -> you have at least gathered a reproducible workflow for Mikrotik support so they can reproduce your issue as well.

I don't think that it's strictly speaking necessary to go back to default configuration. OP stated they started with default config and gradually modified it. I tried OP's config, and it worked flawlessly on my ax3*, with devices connecting 20 feet away with relative ease. If this was a config issue, there wouldn't be so many threads, and they wouldn't all end in nothing.

I think this sounds like a hardware/firmware issue on receive side. So far, we've observed that the TX power is at a relatively normal level. There was this issue with the network vanishing periodically, though.

I think that, in order to get to the bottom of this issue, the receive side of the hAP ax3 should be tested. To that end, I think examining noise floor level and signal levels of neighboring networks is a good first step. A good second step, is using an Android device with WiFi Analyzer to see what it thinks the signal levels are, comparing signal levels between networks with the same SSID. If they're 15-20 dBm higher than on the ax3, well, the ax3's receive amplifier is probably borked.

*Note, my ax3 is international version, while OP might have a US version.

I do have hap ax3.

Thank you - I'm glad to have an on-topic response.

In addition since in 7.X release have band steering/roaming, you better disable the 2.4G Wifi interface completely
to avoid that the AP pushes your clients onto 2.4Ghz (I found the settings for steering are all over the place and I don;t trust steering is off until I disable 2.4G).

Now, this is interesting. I didn't know/realize this. Worth trying...disabling 2G...
Seems like it makes things worse. I don't even see the 5G in my room anymore.

Hmm...in all my tests with Mikrotik support, when they told me to return the units, this method wasn't discussed nor were the steering settings. I do have separate SSID's for 2G and 5G.

Looking at the steering settings (which I never had done before now) I don't see anything obvious that might affect this. At the moment I only have one active AP in my house with separate SSID's for 2G and 5G. So I think there's nothing for steering to do.

Sorry. There's the "Scan" button in winbox, and "Freq. Usage" button. You wanna look for "NF" column in "Freq. Usage" and take note of what it's saying. Here's mine:

Ok. Here's frequency usage: And here's a scan. Note the "strong" hidden network is coming from my wifi-enabled cable modem. This was just installed a few days ago - it made absolutely no difference to the how the hAP AX3 5G was operating. I've been trying to kill that hidden wifi - I'll probably wind up replacing the modem. Please disregard those entries.

Sorry. There's the "Scan" button in winbox, and "Freq. Usage" button. You wanna look for "NF" column in "Freq. Usage" and take note of what it's saying. Here's mine:

Ok. Here's frequency usage:
frequse.png

And here's a scan.
scan.png

Note the "strong" hidden network is coming from my wifi-enabled cable modem. This was just installed a few days ago - it made absolutely no difference to the how the hAP AX3 5G was operating. I've been trying to kill that hidden wifi - I'll probably wind up replacing the modem. Please disregard those entries.

Hrm... Where is the modem located, relative to the ax3?

Can you please also do a WiFi Analyzer scan next to the ax3 and compare signal levels with the ones gotten from the ax3?

The signal levels seem to be indeed pretty weak across the board, but it may technically still be due to neighbors being relatively far away. The WiFi Analyzer scan should show if that's the case.

The modem is in my back room - about 50' away from AX3. Again - this has only been present a few days and the AX3 performance has been unaltered. PLEASE disregard its existence - other than the fact that this "free" modem is able to push a 5G signal throughout my home while my AX3 can't see past its own antennas.

As requested, here's an android wifi analysis with my phone within 3 feet of the AX3.

Soo... Fun. Receive numbers are okay, transmit numbers are okay, config is okay, because I've just rechecked, and it works perfectly on my ax3. Granted, I made a few changes to security configuration so that it works without CAPsMAN, but they shouldn't matter...

Can you please try this config, to eliminate any potential config-related complaints? It works perfectly on my ax3, at least with my laptop and two different android phones.

Just drop it into winbox, open a terminal and enter `/import hapax3-mod.rsc`. Password for the network is "PASSPASS", it uses no capsman, WPA-PSK is turned off on sec1 because otherwise the interfaces won't start.

Is there something I need to do for this to overwrite my existing setup? Wipe to default? Doing the import it stops with "failure: already have interface with such name".

It was worth trying - though I did before. It's not a CAPs issue. I manually applied the settings, disabled everything CAPs, exported the config to compare against what you provided...and the resulting 5g worked, or didn't, just the same.

So yeah. Not a config issue. If it was, we'd all be drinking coffee and laughing at how easy this was to fix.

I was really hoping to see some more responses from other AX3 owners. As it is...I'm probably going to box these up soon. Now the question is what do I replace them with. Roll the dice to see if replacement AX3's work? Or look elsewhere?

I *want* to use MT devices...but I've seen too many posts from others who swear by MT for routing but recommend alternatives for wireless. Then again, when I last played with Ubiquiti, I'd see comments on their forums recommending MT instead. And it's been a while since I last looked at Ubiquiti - the product line seems a bit different. Not that Ubiquiti is the only other option...

I'm torn.

So, I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to me like it's possibly a more sneaky radio-related issue. Like the ones Ron Touw mentions in the first half of this talk that @bpwl linked in the "hAP ax3 wireless problem" topic, before that topic devolved into whatever it devolved into.

Might need a spectrum analyzer to diagnose this one. If you have an hAP ac lying around, or just generally an old MikroTik with a MIPS chip, it can potentially be used as a make-shift spectrum analyzer. But no guarantees.

I was really hoping to see some more responses from other AX3 owners. As it is...I'm probably going to box these up soon. Now the question is what do I replace them with. Roll the dice to see if replacement AX3's work? Or look elsewhere?

Before boxing them up, consider creating a support ticket. There's a "hardware problem" section there. MT might wanna take a look at these or at least know of their existence. Even the serial numbers might be of help, potentially, as they might help tracking down devices with the same issue.

As for replacements... I don't know. U6 Pro looks pretty sweet. U7 Pro looks interesting as well, but it's more of a "I have vast sums of wealth to waste" type of device, IMO, as there's little to no devices that support WiFi 7, and by the time you have enough devices to justify it, there's probably gonna be something better. Or you might wanna consider an hAP ax2. It's fairly capable (though 2x2 MIMO instead of 4x4 of U6 Pro), can be controlled by CAPsMAN and is not plagued by the same issues as ax3, as far as I'm aware. The issues are still there, but they're different!

Also, one last thing to potentially try, just for kicks. Try using 20 MHz channel width on the 5 GHz interface. It's a hail mary, but who knows.

I was really hoping to see some more responses from other AX3 owners. [...]

I *want* to use MT devices...but I've seen too many posts from others who swear by MT for routing but recommend alternatives for wireless. [...]

I'm torn.

You'll find a variety of ax3 owners with similar complaints on the forums, my issues with my ax3 in regards to Tx power are not related here in this case, though it looks like no one has a straight answer for the other issues. Like @Nullcaller said, I'd raise a ticket and hope that it can be fixed in a firmware update.

I'd second the hAP ax2 if you want to stick with MT - it's a bit more mature, a little less magical-mystery-tour as the ax3.

though it looks like no one has a straight answer for the other issues

The straightest answer I can personally give regarding @dalami's issues, is that my personal undereducated guess, is that something very weird but very dumb is happening with the 5GHz RF chip, QCN5052, right after QC.

With how reliable MikroTik devices usually are, I presume they do a little burn-in test on each device, also testing the wireless-related components. During the test, there must be a load connected to antenna connectors. And after the test, that load must be disconnected. Let's say it gets disconnected a little bit too soon. Just a tiny bit. Well, the amplifier gets a little bit of a shock. Not the full blast, but still enough to potentially mess it up. Some chips retain full functionality, some don't. But since this happens after QC, it still counts as a QC pass and a newly-borked router goes into the box and off to the customer.

And this doesn't happen with other devices, because they're built in a little bit of a different way. The hAP ac3, for one, uses IPQ4019 as its 5GHz RF chip. All of Chateau axs seem to be limited to 23-24 dBm in TX power, instead of 27-28 dBm that ax3 can do, so there's definitely some differences in the amplifier stage. This also might be a matter of power of reflected signal. A 4 dBm difference translates to a 2.5 times more powerful signal. Even the ac3 is limited to 25-26 dBm, which is 1.6 times weaker than ax3, still nearly double. So any signal reflected off of an antenna-less connector is roughly double the power on ax3, compared to other boards.

It should be noted that MikroTik devices are manufactured in multiple locations, as far as I'm aware, and it's fair to assume that some testing parallelization is happening at some point. So it might be that only a select few machines in a select few locations are to blame for all the broked ax3s, thus we don't see everyone complaining about the ax3, just a few unfortunate souls.

Again, this is a guess, and, to be honest, probably a wrong one. I don't know anything about MikroTik's internal processes. But this is the only way that I can imagine an ax3 being half-dead out of the box, assuming MikroTik does everything in their power to QC every router before they send them off to customers. Also, this explanation has that "most issues are usually dumb" spirit about it, which is always good.

The modem is in my back room - about 50' away from AX3. Again - this has only been present a few days and the AX3 performance has been unaltered. PLEASE disregard its existence - other than the fact that this "free" modem is able to push a 5G signal throughout my home while my AX3 can't see past its own antennas.

As requested, here's an android wifi analysis with my phone within 3 feet of the AX3.
Screenshot_20240404-093532.png

I understand you already tried a lot of configurations. But could you repeat the scan with WiFi analyzer with the following differences?

- disable the 2.4GHz interface
- disable WPA3, disable WPS, disable management protection
- set the channel width to "20/40MHz Ce"
- power off the free modem for the duration of the test
- reboot the AX3
- forget the wifi network on your smartphone

We are looking into this. Big thanks to those of you who send us more info to support.

Im also confused guys... i repeat my knowledges here also :
Im using ac2 as a "replacement" till i found my new router. Ill tested yesterday ax3 the second time (dirrent device as first) and i dont know what is happening. I see finally better signal ratio (neither RB4011, ac3 and ax2 was able to provide in my 80m2 apartment better numbers as ac2!!), better Tx/Rx rates, but the real speed is always at least cca 100-150Mb/s "behind" compared to ac2. Same setup, same place, same clients and i dont understand why is this happening. Im able to get max 600Mb/s (iPhone 13, iPhone 15, Lenovo T14) from ax3, 1meter away from the device. If i take two more steps and make measurement 3meters away from router ill get 400-420Mb/s. For comparison, ac2 provides here 520-560Mb/s speed. And this is the same in every spot...
If i can support/help you with any informations, comparison, please let me know. Im now "dancing" on the edge of the blade with ac2 and its limited memory and have ax3 as paperweight.

Just advice: rename the topic from 5G to 5GHz.

I am also hAP ax3 owner, I also noticed weaker wifi compared to my previous hAP ac2. Probably due to tx-power hard coded lower than regulatory would allow (country Czech).
But I never opened this topic because 5G is mobile network standard, so why should I read that...

I'm a hAP ax2 user at home and I too struggle with 5GHz signal strength downstairs in mainly open space, i.e. same room. My home set-up is hAP ax which is sat in an open fronted cupboard under the TV. My laptop is usually on a desk about 4m away. There is a partial 20cm stone wall and me (!) blocking line of sight. If I watch the logs carefully after the laptop wakes up, I often see entries like this in the log:



It's doing it right now... connects and then disconnects immediately. After a while it gives up and picks up the 2.4GHz signal.

The laptop has a Realtek 8822CE Wi-Fi 5 chip in there. This is the inSSIDer report from the laptop. I'm connected to Middle-Earth and strength looks pretty good to me. I assume the green line at -70 in inSSIDer is a general "must be above this" guide:



Out of interest, inSSIDer is reporting signal strength of ~-50 but the hAP ax2 log shows about -20 lower. Why the difference?

Just tried with my Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 mobile in the same place and it too struggles - and it has a Wi-Fi 6 chip. My Android tablet however has connected fine at the same spot even though it's reporting a lower signal strength of -59. All very unscientific but IMO my laptop should be able to connect with a signal that strong - something feels off here which is I supposed why the original poster is sticking with it. I'm avoiding all Mikrotik AX lit in production at the moment.

Interesting that the other network shown above is my neighbour. That's a similar distance to a Virgin Media Super Hub but through a brick partition wall AND a 1' thick stone wall. The signal strength is similar if not sometimes a little higher... My hAP ax is currently on 5500MHz frequency with a Tx Power of 24.

I've got a bit of spare kit here at the moment so I can do some tests with a cAP ac, a hAP ax lite (on order) and hAP ac lite.

I've just put a new Wi-Fi 6 USB adapter in my laptop and it's connected fine with a signal strength of -59. Is there some quirk with ac devices? Signal strength is similar:



Windows reports a pretty good connection:



But speed test is horrible!!



Just for comparison, this is speed test through my PC wired into the hAP ax2:



I'm going to restart the laptop first, try again and then reboot the hAP ax2... LATER: after restarting the laptop (but not hAP ax2), it's running at the same speed as wired. All very strange...

Rob just a little reminder to make sure your InSSider or any other scanning software ISN'T running while speed testing!
It will reduce speed significantly...

Good tip - it probably was running but not after the restart.

I have onboard ax210, signals are about -50/-52 so pretty close for me 3mtr distance to hap ax2.
Green is connected to he highlighted blue! Cap ax clients are behind doors hence the -10 more!

Good tip - it probably was running but not after the restart.

Yeah it catches me out all the time because I use Wifiinfoview to hop between BSSID's and leave it open. ps, if you wish to do that with wifiinfoview you need to disable the auto-connect flag then you can hop to all your AP's with same SSID

Out of interest, inSSIDer is reporting signal strength of ~-50 but the hAP ax2 log shows about -20 lower. Why the difference?

Each device reports strength of signal received from the link peer. inSSIDer is reporting signal strength of AP, received by laptop. And hAP ax3 reports signal strength of laptop. As AP reports much lower signal strength than laptop, this means either hAP ax3 has shitty receiver (not very likely) or laptop's Tx power sucks (more likely). The first option would equally affect all clients.

I've just come across this thread about SA timeouts:

viewtopic.php?t=198736

This appears to be the problem on my laptop so not the signal issue as such. If I change from WPA2-PSK/WP3-PSK to WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK, the SA timeout errors stop and my laptop can connect fine. I'm not sure whether this is a problem with RouterOS or the laptop network adapter. Need to do some more reading but my report doesn't look like a range issue.

Each device reports strength of signal received from the link peer. inSSIDer is reporting signal strength of AP, received by laptop. And hAP ax3 reports signal strength of laptop. As AP reports much lower signal strength than laptop, this means either hAP ax3 has shitty receiver (not very likely) or laptop's Tx power sucks (more likely). The first option would equally affect all clients.

Thanks for that - makes sense.

I've seen several issues with WPA3. That's why I suggested to the OP doing the following: viewtopic.php?p=1068392&sid=4dac3286143 ... 1#p1067995

Maybe it is better if we do not hijack @dalami's thread.

Maybe it is better if we do not hijack @dalami's thread.

Agreed. Will switch to other thread.

I've seen several issues with WPA3.

This doesn't really feel like it. WPA3 issues probably wouldn't depend on distance away from the router, and would also plague other devices that have the same exact hardware and software inside, like the hAP ax2 and the cAP ax, in the exact same way.

They would also be dependent on config. And while @dalami didn't test (or at least they didn't post about it) their ax3 against an ax2 with the same client device and same config, OP of the previous ax3 thread had similar issues, and ax2 worked perfectly fine, unless I'm much mistaken.

I understand your point. Still, the test I suggest aims at simplifying the environment by removing elements that potentially play a role. If this does not solve, then there should be a problem on the receiver side (as you pointed out).

I understand your point. Still, the test I suggest aims at simplifying the environment by removing elements that potentially play a role.

I agree. It just seems like @dalami isn't coming back with any new ax3 tests any time soon, so I'm trying to compensate for that by estimating the probability that this is it.

Hi,

i have a similar issue, back in the days i bought a bunch of MikroTik rb951ui-2nd and i was quite happy with them. Then i needed some more bandwidth so i decided to replace them with a bunch of C53UiG+5HPaxD2HPaxD. I realized that some clients are not connected, after some searching i found this thread and this one: viewtopic.php?t=203076. For me this sounds like a major issue with those C53UiG+5HPaxD2HPaxD. Is there any solution available or still in research?

I'm not sure where to respond, if it should be here or on this viewtopic.php?t=203076 thread.

I have also tried some different antennas i had lying around, with no luck. Maybe i can help with providing some logs or data? Please let me know, but i'm not a pro on this. Be kind

Best regards,
snooops

I realized that some clients are not connected, after some searching i found this thread and this one: viewtopic.php?t=203076. <...>

I'm not sure where to respond, if it should be here or on this viewtopic.php?t=203076 thread.

I have also tried some different antennas i had lying around, with no luck. Maybe i can help with providing some logs or data?

It would be best to test each ax3, one-by-one. Diagnose whether the issue is the same (i.e. clients won't connect 20+ feet away). Then start another topic. Include the list of devices you tested the ax3s with. Preferably, use the "hAP ax3" short name, because if you use the full "C53UiG+5HPaxD2HPaxD" board name, it's hard to understand what you're talking about at a quick glance.

Im here to provide infos when needed. Just tell me what.
It doesnt matter if i use this device as paperweight or run it for testing purposes...