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WAP4410N - Will these ever work properly?

brendan
Level 1
Level 1

I have owned one of these for about 2 years now, and have sold many of these to clients.  Luckily, none of them get used too much as they require constant rebooting, and it would appear as though all versions of the firmware are unreliable.  Some simply don't work, other work for a day or two at a time between reboots.

Does anyone have a solution to getting these to work properly?  When I say properly, I mean, you turn it on, configure it and then use it.  That's it.  No rebooting, not even once a year.

Anyone?

41 Replies 41

Peter_Spencer
Level 1
Level 1

I have 3 x WAP4410N and had lots of issues. Now they are stable. I think it's the settings below in BOLD that count.

But I did first reset the unit to factory settings; upgrade firmware; restart; and then enter all settings MANUALLY. All as per Cisco instructions. Do not just install the fw over the old fw; and do not import your settings. But I don't think any of this made any difference, but do it anyway for sure.

Here is my config. Anything not mentioned has not been enabled. Settings in BOLD are important I think - and are settings folks have mentioned that have solved issues for them. YMMV.

Static IP address

Force LAN Port Speed to 100M: Enabled

Discovery (By Bonjour): Enabled

Wireless Network Mode: B/G/N Mixed

Wireless Channel: 2

Wireless Isolation: (between SSID: Enabled)

Security Mode: WPA2-Personal

Wireless Isolation: (within SSID: Disabled)

WPA: AES

Pre-shared Key: All lowercase 11 a-z characters. No funny characters or numerals.

Key Renewal: 36000

Wireless Connection Control: Disabled

VLAN: Disabled

Country: UK

Worldwide Mode: Disabled

Channel Bandwidth: 20MHz

Load Balancing: Disabled

b.wakefield
Level 1
Level 1

Hi Brendan,

I purchased 2 of the WAP4410N's about a month ago, to replace an old Linksys that was needing to be power cycled a couple of times a month.

I installed the WAP4410N and found myself rebooting it a couple of times a day. Not impressed at all. Then I sat and read an entire thead on this site about a ton of other people having similar issues.

I didn't want to even try and solve the problem. I just wanted something that was stable and worked.

To actually return the products to my supplier, I had to get some ID off Cisco (I assume this was a support case ID). So I called Cisco spoke to two overly helpful guys.

I still felt like I was getting the run around. Their suggestion was to download the firmware again off the Support site and do reset using the hardware reset button on the back on the device.

I have done what was asked by Cisco...

To my suprise, after 3 days, it's still running and no-one has had any issue losing their connection... yet. I probably shouldn't say anything... but so far, so good.

At the moment, it's replaced a very basic setup: 1 SSID with 64-bit WEP. After it's run for a week with no problems I'll be adding an additional SSID with WPA2-Enterprise.

So, they might have fixed it with the latest firmware... 2.0.4.2

;-)

Ben

Thanks for the feedback & advice, Peter & Ben.

A few more comments, to fill in the blanks, respond to your specific comments etc.

  • Peter, I did notice your post on a different thread, with the bold text, and thought it was worth a try.  I tried most of the settings, except the 100Mbps.  I didn't want to set the ethernet i/f to 100Mbps.  Only because it seems silly to me that you would connect wireless devices at 130+Mbps and then throttle them down to 100Mbps.  Needless to say, that new SSID, password etc. makes no difference to the reliability.  Now, I do remember reading a long time ago that the problem is actually to do with the ethernet i/f crapping itself; the person posting back then said that all they needed to do was disconnect/reconnect (which is fine if you don't use PoE), and then everything started to work again.  So you didn't actually need to reboot to repair/recover.  I use PoE and have the AP up in the roof soemwhere in the middle of the office.  So, I reset at the Patch Panel.  I'll give the 100Mbps a go....
  • I have recently done the whole reset to factory via the Web UI, not the pinhole - does it make a difference though?  Factory reset == factory reset in my mind.  Trying to avoid having to bring a ladder to work (ever tried to climb on a swivel chair  ), so I used the Web UI.
  • I am running the 2.0.4.2 release.  Every time I found new firmware over the last couple of years, I'd hope that Cisco finally got around to making this device work properly - my old WAP54G at home has been rock solid for about 6-7 years now.
  • Ben, note that if you setup multiple SSIDs in the one AP, you actually split the available bandwidth to the wireless devices; I suppose the 100Mbps setting is not a big deal in this case....

Cheers

Now, for fear of going off early, I made the change to 100Mbps when I started typing the previous reply.  Given the usual interruptions etc. it probably took me about 30 minutes to get the reply typed, and during this time, my laptop has not disconnected once.  Since I performed the 2.0.4.2 upgrade recently, I had been lucky to get any more than 5 minutes continuous connectivity at any given time.

I even started a 3GB file copy from one of our servers to the Desktop, and it is chugging away, one third done and reporting 6 minutes remaining.  Pre the 100Mbps setting, this copy wouldn't even start.

So, I will say with a modicum of confidence, that the 100Mbps setting is the golden setting.

Cheers

-Brendan

Hi Brendan,

I would try the 100Mbps for sure. If folks are transferring large files on the LAN, than not having Gigabit is a bit of a pain. But in most situations, folks are just surfing the web (in my case anyway). You will then have to have an internet pipe greater than 100Mbps for that to make any difference! And enough users on the AP to utilise that throughput - and that would be too many for the AP to handle!

I reset one AP (via Web UI and as per Cisco instructions) and not the other. It seemed to make no difference. I'm not sure if the physical pinhole reset makes any difference - but if you are going to do it, you might as well do it that way to be sure.

The WAP4410N is a pile of rebadged Linksys junk that Cisco inherited when they purchased Linksys. I too have had simple home WiFi router working for years in the house and office with no issues! I was thinking of RMA the WAP4410N's that I have, and getting the Cisco AP541N. But I checked the forums here, and they are just as bad!!! Again, Linksys I think.

I don't think that multiple SSIDs split the bandwidth, I think they just share it combined. The Web UI seems to imply that you can assign eg: 75% to one and 25% to another. But if you read the admin guide and online help, what this actually is is the utilisation percentage at which point the SSID will not allow any more connections to stop the AP becoming overwhelmed with connections and slowing down all users.

Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

It sort of makes sense that it's the forced 100Mbps setting, as it would mean that it could well depend on the type of switch it's being connected to as to whether a user has issues or not. Thus the AP would work for some folks in Auto Negotiation mode and not for others.

FWIW, it's still working, I'm going home & as far as I'm concerned, this is an acceptable workaround....

Cisco - you still need to fix this so it works at 1Gbps at some stage; sooner than later I would suggest.

b.wakefield
Level 1
Level 1

Hello,

Almost a full 7 days, and no problems. I've been plugged in to a 100Mbps port since I installed the WAP. None of the settings are locked down -- it's just on Auto.

After the factory reset, the only thing I did was set the IP, SSID and WEP -- I didn't touch anything else.

On Wednesday I'll start moving everyone off WEP, so I'll add an additional SSID and see what happens...

;-)

Ben

Same here Ben.  Mine is still working fine too....longest it has ever run in over 2 years.  I now believe that the 100Mbps setting, or in your case forced/auto 100Mbps due to the physical switch connection, is the setting that makes these units work reliably at present.

Cheers

Alas, I have finally RMA'd my 3 WAP4410N Access Points. I tried everything, and followed the Cisco technical instructions to the letter; but still got clients dropping-off and the units needing restarting.

I have purchased Cisco AIR-AP1142N-E-K9 to replace them - and these have been faultless. Same old story - to get good, professional quality, you need to pay.

I think that the bottom line is that the 4410N are just old Linksys boxes designed (badly) for a very small number of users - 2 or 3 in a small office for instance, with no other WiFi units around. Anything more than that and they can't hack it.

I'd like to thank the Cisco folks who have tried to help; and I hope all the problems are a lesson to Cisco on taking over NG kit when they buy another manufacturer out. You can end up just badly damaging your brand.

I just received beta firmware 2.0.5.2 which has corrected my issue. I have about 15 of these units some of them almost daily will drop all wireless clients until it is rebooted. This Beta seems to have fixed my issue. If anyone would like to contact me you can send and email to mikesitservices@atlanticbb.net to discuss.

Well I spoke too soon all wireless clients Just dropped off from one of the problomatic units. I GIVE UP. I rebooted the unit and all came right back online.

I do have an open case the number is 620900101 that is how I obtained the beta firmware 2.0.5.2 it has not corrected my issue at all. I should also point out that I have all of my AP's auto rebooting at 6:00am everyday Via SSH to try to eliminate all of my support calls. Today one of my AP's dropped all of the clients at 11:30 which is only 5 1/2 hours after it was rebooted a 6am. So it would appear that this dropping of clients is a random event. This unit was RMA'd last week and I received a brand new V02 sealed in a box and it does the same thing. This unit is plugged directly into port 2 of a cisco SA520. I am at my breaking point with these darn things.

I changed 2 settings the dhcp lease time on my routers to 7 days (168 hrs). This is the lease time for clients. The AP is set to a static IP address I also changed all of my SSID’s which were in all uppercase letters to all lowercase letters. So far they have not dropped out. But as soon as I hit reply on this  I’m sure something will happen

Don't worry about Beta firmware, just set the Ethernet interface to run at 100Mbps.  I haven't had to restart any WAP4410Ns since I did this on ours & our clients' networks (about 10 units across various sites) since September last year.

Seriously, all up I spent days getting to this solution over many, many months.  Don't waste your time with changing SSIDs or any other setting.  The money setting is the 100Mbps.

Cheers

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