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    Extremely slow wireless on SG-2440

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Wireless
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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
      last edited by

      "May be I should just forget it and buy a access point."

      Give the man a cookie..  If you want decent wifi, then you more than likely need multiple AP properly placed to cover the area you want to cover…  The router is almost never in the best place for wifi coverage.. I really don't even understand why people attempt to do it.

      Let pfsense do what its good at doing routing/firewall your traffic.  Its not a Switch, its not an AP.. its a routing firewall..

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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      • H
        HaburGate
        last edited by

        @johnpoz:

        Give the man a cookie..  If you want decent wifi, then you more than likely need multiple AP properly placed to cover the area you want to cover…

        No cookie, this is not a helpful reply. When purchasing a pre-configured router/firewall/ap combo directly from the pfSense store that advertises a/b/g/n wireless capabilities, and costs upwards of $500 USD it is not unreasonable at all to expect it to "just work."

        Especially coverage in a 1,400 sq ft house…any crappy Linksys can (and currently does) do that. Instead of being condescending and assuming you know the configuration and environment, try seeking to understand before commenting.

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        • D
          doktornotor Banned
          last edited by

          Yeah, so get that crappy Linksys. It's made for WiFi. Seriously, all the wifi crap should be nuked from pfSense code. FreeBSD is NOT usable for WiFi, end of story.

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            Looking at the store item for the 2440 https://store.pfsense.org/SG-2440/

            I don't see mention of any sort of wifi features, it lists that you can get a wifi card as an "option"  but I see no claims to its performance or that it even supports N.. Just that the optional card your purchasing is a/b/g/n and 2T2R

            it also has usb ports - do you think you can connect a usb printer or disk/stick and use it a print server/nas ??

            Even when you click on the more features of pfsense in that listing it really makes no mention of wifi supported, or claims to performance of wifi.  If you would of looked over the forums you will see that wifi is not a selling point of pfsense, if you look at the freebsd that its based up you would also see as dok points out wifi not a strong point in freebsd.

            Not sure why you would think that wifi is a strong point here…  It has been, and prob always will be some "option" that you may get to perform ok in a pinch.  But to be honest anyone looking to spend $500 on a router/firewall - not sure why this network would have a crappy wifi card in their router/firewall as their wifi for their whole network, etc..  The only real use I could see for a wifi connection would be out of band access to pfsense itself, as a possible wan backup link, etc..

            I agree you get no cookie for not doing some basic research before dropping $500 to what the good and bads of the device were.. I doubt you will find any post/article or anything anywhere stating the wonders of pfsense wifi support.  But a simple breeze over of the forums will find lots of caveats to its use, and limited devices and speeds supported.

            here for example... https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Is_802.11n_wireless_supported while it does say 2.2 and freebsd10.1 which does have 802.11n support in general, but support may still vary by card and driver.  Not sure I would take that as hey you can run your locations wifi off this thing ;)  And your speeds are going to rock ;)

            I am with dok here they should prob just remove the functionality all together, and make it clear on their documentation you should run external AP for your wifi..

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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            • ?
              Guest
              last edited by

              When purchasing a pre-configured router/firewall/ap combo directly from the pfSense store that advertises a/b/g/n wireless capabilities, and costs upwards of $500 USD it is not unreasonable at all to expect it to "just work."

              Could it be that the miniPCIe card was glitch out of this miniPCIe slot a bit and now you get it not solved out.

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              • H
                HaburGate
                last edited by

                @doktornotor:

                Yeah, so get that crappy Linksys. It's made for WiFi. Seriously, all the wifi crap should be nuked from pfSense code. FreeBSD is NOT usable for WiFi, end of story.

                Nope.

                It is not unreasonable to expect an enterprise product sold with an officially offered wireless add-in card to, you know, work with wireless. Shocking concept.

                Your opinion of what belongs in a software distribution notwithstanding, reality is that pfSense has an entire GUI page dedicated to wireless configuration, official documentation on wireless, and an official list of supported wireless hardware. I emphasize the word supported.

                So, thanks for the worthless reply, but until wireless support is removed from the distribution, I'll continue to assume it's supported.

                @johnpoz:

                I am with dok here they should prob just remove the functionality all together, and make it clear on their documentation you should run external AP for your wifi..

                Sure, I can understand that. But if it's not "really" supported it should be removed altogether, and not expected of the customer to "just know" because it's "not emphasized."

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                • ?
                  Guest
                  last edited by

                  It is not unreasonable to expect an enterprise product sold with an officially offered wireless add-in card to, you know, work with wireless. Shocking concept.

                  But what is then your problem? What is not running well then for you? If all is supported and there are also
                  DOC´s out about WiFi you could solve it and/or fine tune it right.

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                  • johnpozJ
                    johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                    last edited by

                    "Problem is that wireless throughput is extremely slow. e.g. Google.com takes over a full minute to load."

                    From that there is a so much we can work with and help him troubleshoot..  For starters what mode is client using.. How do you know its not the client side?  Maybe its wifi is fine and dns is a problem..

                    An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                    If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                    Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                    SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                    • H
                      HaburGate
                      last edited by

                      @johnpoz:

                      "Problem is that wireless throughput is extremely slow. e.g. Google.com takes over a full minute to load."

                      From that there is a so much we can work with and help him troubleshoot..  For starters what mode is client using.. How do you know its not the client side?  Maybe its wifi is fine and dns is a problem..

                      I've tested with various clients, including a Lenovo ThinkPad running Mint 17.2, Nexus 5 running latest Android, and an older Mac laptop.

                      The signal is extremely weak, to the point that it's odd, e.g. just walking down the hallway about 20 feet (with clear LoS to the router) and the signal drops off immensely.

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                      • dennypageD
                        dennypage
                        last edited by

                        Are the antennas fully connected?

                        @vocatus:

                        The signal is extremely weak, to the point that it's odd, e.g. just walking down the hallway about 20 feet (with clear LoS to the router) and the signal drops off immensely.

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                        • ?
                          Guest
                          last edited by

                          e.g. just walking down the hallway about 20 feet (with clear LoS to the router) and the signal
                          drops off

                          Could it be that there is another WLAN source that is over lapping your signal, perhaps a stronger one?
                          Or on the same channel?

                          Are you using AES-ccm or web encryption standard?
                          Are the antennas internal right connected?
                          Are you using TKIP or on standard only?

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                          • johnpozJ
                            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                            last edited by

                            Well vs saying strong and weak signals.. What are the actual numbers? You mention linux, how about simple iwscanner output.. What is the actual signal strength?  What channel are you using, does this happen both at 2.4 and 5ghz?  Are you using using 20mhz or 40?

                            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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