iOS wifi woes - how do I disable 802.11h+d on UK RT-AC68U?

[brummygit]

I am having serious problems with my iOS devices dropping off the wifi or sitting there apparently connected but not passing traffic. Sometimes they don't even get a dhcp address. Even when they are working I get wildly fluctuating signal strengths displayed on the iOS devices.

Having searched around I have already disabled beam forming but the problem persists so I think my next step is to disable 802.11h+d mode which is not available on the Professional tab of UK models.

I have found threads that tell me I can do it, but only instructions on how to do it in early versions of the firmware which won't work in recent releases.

Please can anyone help me to achieve this in a simple way.

Thanks in advance

 

[brummygit]

Can anyone help me on this topic?

 

[Puppa]

What firmware are you on? Also, iOS 9.1, correct?

Thanks to some regulation passed by the U.S. FCC, ASUS was forced to remove the 802.11h+d settings from the web UI. I am not having the signal dropping problem you describe despite not being able to set these. Older firmware (6 months back or so) still had it in. Beamforming also has caused me no trouble, as I have it turned on. I have, however, reduced my 2.4GHz bandwidth to a single 20MHz channel, mainly because of heavy neighbor interference, and have done my own site survey to pick the least congested channel, disabling Auto channel selection and picking a fixed channel manually.

 

[john9527]

Thanks to some regulation passed by the U.S. FCC, ASUS was forced to remove the 802.11h+d settings from the web UI.

Actually, this one is not due to the FCC......this is the EU regulatory body which mandates the use of 802.11h (802.11d is being phased out). At least that's my understanding....

 

[sfx2000]

If you've recently updated your iDevices to 9.1, probably best to reset the network settings in the device and start over...

Number of WiFi changes went into 9.1...

 

[sfx2000]

Actually, this one is not due to the FCC......this is the EU regulatory body which mandates the use of 802.11h (802.11d is being phased out)

FCC has also pushed thru rules to sunset 802.11d...

 

[sfx2000]

And FWIW - having 802.11 d+h enabled has no impact on iDevice (or Mac) unless one has changed the regulatory domain via CFE files or otherwise..

 

[kvic]

And FWIW - having 802.11 d+h enabled has no impact on iDevice (or Mac) unless one has changed the regulatory domain via CFE files or otherwise..

That's a huge _unless_.

Sometimes not necessary one changes country in his own router but a neighbour does. Most times the neighbour does not change his country either but he simply brings a router with him from his home country.

The situation of many APs with a mixture of countries is especially messy in hub cities. Like the place I live, I could see routers from around the world.

Old Apple devices with Atheros chipset failed in such challenging situation. Broadcom excels. I don't quite understand what piece of hardware missing in old Atheros chipset such as AR9280 that prevents a solution through driver update..

 

[sfx2000]

That's a huge _unless_.

Sometimes not necessary one changes country in his own router but a neighbour does. Most times the neighbour does not change his country either but he simply brings a router with him from his home country.

It's mostly a big deal for smartphones with hotspot modes, that's where one would see this most often with travelers..

Most clients these days basically don't care what the Reg. Domain is in client mode - they'll probe across the common international bands for active search, and do passive discovery in the gaps.

 

[sfx2000]

Old Apple devices with Atheros chipset failed in such challenging situation

The less we talk about Apple's brief fling with Atheros, probably better, lol...

Lucky those devices have pretty much aged out

 

[kvic]

Most clients these days basically don't care what the Reg. Domain is in client mode - they'll probe across the common international bands for active search, and do passive discovery in the gaps.

That may explain why Broadcom chipset is doing so well. It connects to every channel I throw at it.

The less we talk about Apple's brief fling with Atheros, probably better, lol...

Lucky those devices have pretty much aged out

When it comes to Apple+Atheros, I can't help stopping the rant. I'm one of the victim. And I believe a million more users of older Mac left in the dark. Simply look at discussions like "unable to connect to Wifi after a Mac wake-up from sleep..." Apple simply won't enlighten its users..really treat them like muppets on this issue..

Some smart guys figured out selecting a common channel such as 48 resolves the problem. Another smart guy patches the Atheros driver for OS X. Most Apple users pershap bought a newer Mac..

 

[brummygit]

Thanks for discussion. To clarify - I'm running iOS 9.1 on my devices but I have an iPad Retina, 2 iPhone 5C and a 5S which all suffer from unstable wifi and sometimes drop off the wifi and refuse to reconnect. I've done a reset all network settings and recreated the WiFi connection but still the problems continue.

Having read a number of threads (some quite old) there was discussion that disabling 802.11d+h can ease these problems. I was hoping there was a way in later versions of the RT-AC68U firmware to turn it off. I noted that the EU requirement is not mandatory yet.

 

[sfx2000]

When it comes to Apple+Atheros, I can't help stopping the rant. I'm one of the victim. And I believe a million more users of older Mac left in the dark. Simply look at discussions like "unable to connect to Wifi after a Mac wake-up from sleep..." Apple simply won't enlighten its users..really treat them like muppets on this issue..

Can relate to the whole Apple/Atheros mess, as I had a 2006 Mac Mini (Core Solo) that had that card, and it was a mess with the 10.6 update - between it not waking up when the Mac was woken from sleep, and generally poor receive performance even when it was working - the fix, if I recall correctly, was to use the driver from 10.5 which generally fixed it.. or just swap the card out for a Broadcom based card.

my Imac (2006 CoreDuo) has the broadcom card, and never had a problem with it (well, 10.4 would panic if it saw a dual band AP with common SSID's, fixed in 10.5)

 

[sfx2000]

Thanks for discussion. To clarify - I'm running iOS 9.1 on my devices but I have an iPad Retina, 2 iPhone 5C and a 5S which all suffer from unstable wifi and sometimes drop off the wifi and refuse to reconnect. I've done a reset all network settings and recreated the WiFi connection but still the problems continue.

Having read a number of threads (some quite old) there was discussion that disabling 802.11d+h can ease these problems. I was hoping there was a way in later versions of the RT-AC68U firmware to turn it off. I noted that the EU requirement is not mandatory yet.

What channels are you running in 2.4 and 5GHz?

 

[sfx2000]

And from the FAQ at the top-level Asus forum

MAC users: some Macs have issues with the 5 GHz band (and sometimes the 2.4 Ghz band too) and Asus routers. The solution usually requires you to connect to your router over SSH or Telnet, and issue the following commands:

nvram set wl0_reg_mode=h
nvram set wl1_reg_mode=h
nvram commit
reboot

 

[highwire]

When it comes to Apple+Atheros, I can't help stopping the rant. I'm one of the victim. And I believe a million more users of older Mac left in the dark.

I have an old Mac mini (a Core Duo from 2006) that I still use that has Atheros 'Yukon' a/b/g/n hardware. Wireless on that Mac as always been really terrible - so bad that I had to give up on it and stick to wired.

When I was experimenting with pfSense on it, even the FreeBSD drivers for that chipset couldn't help it!

Getting back on topic, if I enable the 802.11h stuff on my 87U, my other Macs and my iPhone have flaky wireless performance. I guess I'm lucky I have the option of disabling here.

 

[sfx2000]

I have an old Mac mini (a Core Duo from 2006) that I still use that has Atheros 'Yukon' a/b/g/n hardware. Wireless on that Mac as always been really terrible - so bad that I had to give up on it and stick to wired.

When I was experimenting with pfSense on it, even the FreeBSD drivers for that chipset couldn't help it!

The 1st Gen AppleTV uses a Broadcom Draft 11n dual-band card, and it's a direct swap in... so finding those on the eBay/Craigslist is an option, and usually cheaper than buying the card itself...

 

[kvic]

Having read a number of threads (some quite old) there was discussion that disabling 802.11d+h can ease these problems.

378.55 still has GUI for setting Regulatory Mode. Or else you can follow SFX suggestion and do it from command line. I had Regulatory Mode set it to off for no reason. All iDevices have very stable WiFi connection.

I have an iPad Retina, 2 iPhone 5C and a 5S which all suffer from unstable wifi and sometimes drop off the wifi and refuse to reconnect.

I know you observed it's a WiFi issue. Just in case, it helps in other way. I dig out my notes and find myself jot it down. "Wireless - Professional > IGMP Snooping: Enable (Bonjour services need it)" and "LAN - IPTV > IGMP Proxy: Disable (Conflicts with Bonjour)".

To be honest, I can't recall why I put down those notes. Worth a try if in desperate..

I have an old Mac mini (a Core Duo from 2006) that I still use that has Atheros 'Yukon' a/b/g/n hardware. Wireless on that Mac as always been really terrible - so bad that I had to give up on it and stick to wired.

When I was experimenting with pfSense on it, even the FreeBSD drivers for that chipset couldn't help it!

Rebuilt the driver with regulatory mode set to OFF. This shall resolve some problem but yours seem way more than that in this older chipset

The 1st Gen AppleTV uses a Broadcom Draft 11n dual-band card, and it's a direct swap in... so finding those on the eBay/Craigslist is an option, and usually cheaper than buying the card itself...

That's about what I did to a 2011 iMac that comes with a 3x3 802.11n Atheros and separate BT 2.0 module. Replaced it with a 802.11ac+BT4 broadcom combo module designed for 2013 models.

It's quite a surgery like this guy (I think later ready-made replacement available and ppl don't have to do soldering). Ever since the replacement, no more sporadic unable to connect WiFi issue due to 802.11d+h and I got faster WiFi speed and continuity/handoff working natively on an unsupported Mac.

 

[RMerlin]

Some of the regulation settings can no longer be changed, and will be overwritten by the firmware, as its wireless setup code is now closed source.

 

[followmsi]

Some of the regulation settings can no longer be changed, and will be overwritten by the firmware, as its wireless setup code is now closed source.

Starting from 378.56 for all models ?
Not only for 87 due to new drivers ?

Thanks