Wireless N now working in Alpha Head. Great Job Guys!
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Howdy,
I have been lurking a long time hoping for the newest wireless radio support. Alas i finally have working N on all my B/G Atheros devices with the latest Alpha builds from the end of August it seems to support Wireless -N. I have only been able to achieve 72M connection speeds but that is much better than 54M . I have tested it with both miniPCI AR9280 and AR9285 and PCI-e AR9280. Seems like some earlier problems i had with wifi channel changes -not actually changing- are fixed. Before the drop-down showed one channel and interface status page showed another. Plus my channels would not hold up on reboot but defaulted to 13 on reboot. Now all that seems fixed and we have faster wifi. So great work on the wifi stuff to the developer team here.
It always peaves me when i hear someone say-Don't waste your time buy an wifi router and hang it off pfsense. I would understand if it were buggy but my Atheros -G- setup has ran very reliably. I re-purposed my old Riverbed Steelhead router for just that reason. Plus captive portal, snappy OS security fixes and granular security are great reasons to run pfSense as an wireless router OS. I actually turn off all filtering and use it only as a router only –as my upstram pfsense box has the firewall and rules and dhcp server. Plus i use Static dhcp so am MAC locked for wifi security.One again i wanted to say good job to the pfSense development team and by extension the FreeBSD team as well.
Thanks for listening
Frank -
In case i was not clear this is Access Point mode. I also have the Atheros AR9220/tplink WN861/miniPCI working in N mode as well. Seem to hit a wall on speed at 72M. Sometimes shows as 90M but transfer speeds don't reflect that increase.
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How are you testing this?
For rates above 72 you need HT40 and/or multiple spatial channels.
If both sides don't support this (hardware limitation? only one chain?), 72 is the maximum you can get.
This shows you how: http://mcsindex.comI did some tests with 3x3 radios on both sides (pfSense AP, PC as STA) and got somewhat higher results.
tests here: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=74672.msg411023#msg411023 -
Hi,
Thanks a lot for those infos.Please, when you say "the latest Alpha builds" do you mean the 2.1.5 Version or which Version do you mean ?
I'm running currently a APU 1.C Board with Compex WLE200NX WiFi Card on 2.1.5.
The wifi is still stucking saying "ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count 4). I already tried various Workarounds found here in Forum, nothing works.
May be not compatible with 2.1.5So can We use instead one of these on the APU Board please ?
@Phishfry:miniPCI AR9280 and AR9285 and PCI-e AR9280.
You recommandation will be a lot appreciated ! THanks !
P.S: I am also one of the people thinking : Why not using the possibilities of Pfsense instead of getting an extra AP :)
edit by GruensFroeschli: there is no 2.1.15 ;) Latest release is 2.1.5, Lastest alpha is 2.2
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Yes latest nightly Alpha head for 2.2. I see your post about the buglist showing -N- not yet fixed, but nightlys since Aug 20th have worked for me. Im not saying i get 300M connection but i see a glimmer of hope!! My current 2X2 setup at 20mhz i think maxes out at 72M but I am really just learning so i dunno. I really appreciate everyones help. I am now curious as to how AP mode holds up to many demanding users..I am just a home user. Also is –number of clients allowed-- more a wifi card limitation or hardware issue or OS. Reason i ask is i just downgraded my appliance from a Pentium M@1500 to a CeleronM@900 and i wonder where simultaneous power users would seem to hit the hardware most?? Memory? CPU or Disk speed? Radio? Anybody running dual radios??
Thanks Frank VB.VA.