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Control channel, band etc

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Danhill76

Occasional Visitor
Hi,

I've been tring to read some giudes on what the different channels does but not really got the hung of it. I am a complety noob regarding wifi and so on.

I have a Asus RT AX88U and have 2 separate SSID one for 2,4 and one for 5,0. The 2,4 is all on auto settings and everything works just fine.

The second SSID is the 5,0 Ghz but here I have a few settnings that I adjusted manually, also here everything works perfect. The band is 20/40/60/80/160 Hz and AX option is on and obvious 160 MHz is enabled.

One question I have is regarding the Control channel, that I've set to 40 otherwise I cannot connect to the 5,0 with my network adapter (PCE AC68U). The question is, am I missing out on something if I have it on Control channel 40 vs 44, 48 or higher? What does the Control channel do? And what does the different bands do?
 
Bands are different frequency ranges which are used for WiFi, e.g. 2,4GHz range or lower and upper 5GHz ranges.
I think you mean bandwith, 20/40/80/160 MHz.
Every channel got 5MHz bandwithonly , so there are used 4 channels for the minimum 20MHz bandwith (or 8/16/32 for the others).
The more bandwith the more speed you will get, good if you are the only one in your area but bad if others want to use WiFi too as they will interfere each other.
Control channel is the single channel used for controling of the network, others are extended channels. Auto bandwith will use the bandwith recommended by the router (looking for other networks and makes its decision).
AFAIR from other postings there are problems with this card and you have to use ch 40, maybe solved with newer updates.
 
Thanks Grisu :)

So if the Control channel is higher than 40 then the speed will increase?

Strangely the only client limiting me to channel 40 is the PCE68U adapter, that was the same issue it had with my old router Asus AC68U anything beyond Control channel 40 the PC wont connect to 5,0 Ghz band.
 
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NO, control channel is only the one defined channel for signaling, lets say "main"-channel.
It will take at least 3 channels (or more) around according how much needed for your desired bandwith or if you set auto=20/40/80/160 what it chooses to use itself.

20MHz needs 4 channels (34-38 center/control 36), thats why there are steps by 4 (36, 40, 44 ...)
40MHz will use 36+40 (if one of them is definded als control channel)
80MHz uses 36+40+44+48 or 52-64 or 100-112 or 116-128 or 132-144 or 149-161
and so on..
in 2,4G it is not as well defined, so you can use channels in between too, though for 20MHz it needs 4-5 channels (~2 below and ~2 above your set control channel).
 
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Ok, thanks so I wouldnt benefit anything on putting the control channel to auto I suspect? Everything works like a charm, but just curious about the different settings.
 
better to use a fix channel and test which one gives best performance for you, can change over time as other routers may change their channel too - auto often wont use best channel.
 

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