TZ210 Wireless-N 802.11n FAQ

03/26/2020 5 People found this article helpful 486,517 Views

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Q: What is 802.11n?

A: IEEE 802.11n is a draft specification based upon previous 802.11 series standards. It includes a set of new features designed to provide greater throughput and coverage compared to 802.11g standard. The most notable techniques are MIMO, 40MHz channel, and packet aggregation.

MIMO is a signal processing method that uses multiple antennas to transmit and receive multiple data streams.
Current 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11 system use single channel to transmit and receive information. 802.11n allows channel bonding, that is combining two adjacent non-overlapping channels to provide a 40MHz channel. The two channels are known as the primary and the secondary channel.
Packet aggregation is a process packing multiple packets into one MAC level frame thus reducing the packet overhead, acknowledgements, contention process, etc.

Q: How about the backwards compatibility with 802.11a/b/g?

A: IEEE 802.11n networks are compatible with 802.11a/b/g clients in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency. SonicWall 802.11n products can be configured to work in a mixed environment where legacy 802.11a/b/g clients transmitting over 20MHz channel and 802.11n clients over 40MHz (if possible). However, the introduction of legacy clients into 802.11n systems might impact the overall throughput.

Q: What is the latest 802.11n standard?

A: IEEE 802.11n standard is under discussion and not finalized. For the purpose of initial certification and compatibility testing, Wi-Fi Alliance is using IEEE802.11n Draft 2.0 as baseline.

Q: What standard is TZ210W based on?

A: SonicWall TZ210W is based on IEEE 802.11n Draft 2.0.

Q: Can all 802.11n wireless clients work with TZ210W?

A: All wireless clients which are fully compatible with IEEE 802.11n Draft 2.0 and above can work with TZ210W. Some pre-N or N draft 1.0 products in the market may not have best result because of the protocol mismatch. Before installing wireless client, please check out the product specification to understand the capability of those products.

General Steps for troubleshooting

Q: Why my wireless client can not connect?

A: Please check the following things when wireless client doesn't connect:

Download preference and TSR from the SonicWall TZ210W or other wireless platforms and prepare for sending to us if you still have issues after going through the following steps.

Check if the RF spectrum is the same for both SonicWall TZ210W and wireless client. SonicWall TZ210W only operates in 2.4GHz band, which can not accept wireless client operating in 5 GHz band. However, SonicPointN can operate in either 2.4GHz or 5GHz.

Check if WLAN Radio is enabled and schedule is properly set up. If you are not sure about schedule, please set it to "Always on".

Check if the Radio Mode is compatible between SonicWallTZ210W and wireless client. "802.11n Only" mode can merely support 802.11n client, all legacy wireless clients can not work in this mode. If you have legacy 802.11 g/b wireless client, please select "802.11 g/b mode". If 802.11 n/g/b mixed mode is chosen, please set Radio Band to Auto or standard - 20MHz Channel for legacy client.

Set the Channel to Auto or pick up the favorite one after you complete the RF survey in your open air environment. RF survey can provide more data regarding the noise and interference which will definitely affect the connectivity and performance. Setting the channel with the least interference is crucial to maintain good wireless connectivity and throughput.

Check if Authentication Type and Encryption Settings are matched between SonicWall and wireless client. Some legacy wireless clients can not support WPA or WPA2, if you configure TZ210W using these security settings, you will have to upgrade your wireless client to support these security settings as well.

Check if "Hide SSID in Beacon" is enabled. Wireless client may not be able to list your SonicWall SSID in site survey result with this setting on. And for wireless client which is managed by Windows Wireless Zero Configure, you also need to enable "Connect to SSID even it is not broadcasted" checkbox in Windows Wireless Zero Configure.

Check Transmit Power to make sure you get good signal strength from wireless client.

Check the distance and environment between your wireless client and TZ210W. The connectivity and throughput are impacted by these factors. Being too close is as bad as being too far to degrade the performance and link quality for some of wireless clients. And the media which blocks RF radiation can not be in the middle of clients and TZ210W.

Check if Maximum Client Association number has been reached.

Check MAC Filter list to make sure your client is not blocked by this feature. Please turn it off if you are not sure about your ACL setting. If you want this feature enabled, please make sure your client MAC address is added into ACL Allow Group.

Please make sure you only have one Wireless client utility to control your client. Windows Wireless Zero Configure and vendor's specific utility can not work at the same time. For 802.11n high throughput support, vendor's specific client utility works better than WZC generally since it usually provides high throughput options.

Please provide wireless RF site survey or packet sniffer result if possible to help us understand more.

Q: What are wireless NICs which have been tested in SonicWall QA lab for 802.11n products?

For 802.11n high throughput features, the following wireless client NICs have been tested.

Model	Type	OS	Driver Version
Atheros AR5008	ABGN	WinXP	6.0.4.13
ZyXEL G-202	BGN	WinXP	6.0.1.75
Linksys WUSB300N	BGN	WinXP	1.0.7.2
Linksys WUSB600N	BGN	Win2008	2.1.4.0
D-Link DWA-130	BGN	Win2003	4.10.40.0

For legacy 802.11 g/b backwards compatibility support, the following wireless client NICs have been tested.

Model	Type	OS	Driver Version
1390 (Boardcom)	BG	Win2003	4.10.40.0
D-Link GWL-G122	BG	WinXP
Intel Pro 3945ABG	ABG	WinXP	10.1.0.13
Atheros 11a/b/g Mini PCI	ABG	WinXP	5.3.0.35
Netgear WG111v2 USB	BG	WinXP	5.1308.1226.2007
TRENDnet 802.11g USB TEW-424UB	BG	WinXP	2.2.803.2004

Q: How to configure Transmit Power and Channel?

A: RF survey is always recommended before planning transmit power and channel setting. The whole idea of these two parameters is to provide the decent signal strength and coverage for the planned service area with the least interference. In 2.4GHz only channel 1, 6 and 11 are non-overlapped from each other. If any access point nearby has been operated in one of them, TZ210W should NOT reuse that.

Too low transmit power can not provide enough signal and coverage. However too strong transmit power will generate interference to your neighborhood. The careful measurement is required to determine the power level. For larger coverage deployment, the dedicated high gain antenna can be considered to replace the existing antenna.

Specific Answers for troubleshooting

Q: Is there any settings I need to configure to get higher throughput?

A: Apply channel bonding (40MHz), enable packet aggregation, and short guard interval. These will take effect if the wireless client support IEEE802.11n draft 2 features. The wireless client should have the same option to be enabled to get high throughput.

Q: Which spectrum band does TZ210W support?

A: TZ210W supports 2.4 GHz only.

Q: Which spectrum band does SonicPointN support?

A: SonicPointN supports either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band.

Q: Does TZ210W provide bridge mode in the current release?

A: No. TZ210W supports Access Point radio mode in the initial release. Future release will provide Bridge mode.

Q: Which encryption algorithm can provide better throughput?

A: RC4 based encryption algorithm including WEP and TKIP will degrade the throughput. WPA2 AES is highly recommended for secure wireless connection.

Q: Why is the data throughput not good while wireless client’s signal strength is excellent?

A: Throughput is possible not at the best level when there are many wireless devices contending for the radio environment. You can use TZ210W “Wireless > IDS” or third party tools to determine whether there are too much interference nearby.

Q: How to do a site survey?

A: Besides TZ210W “Wireless > IDS”, other wireless sniffers that can do site survey include NetStumber, AiroPeek, etc.

Q: What information should I provide in order to get efficient support?

A: Your detailed symptom report about the problem will be very helpful for us to solve it efficiently. Generally we expect to see TSR report and Preference file downloaded from your TZ210W. Packet capture using site survey tools will be greatly useful. And the wireless client hardware model, OS version, managing utility as well as driver version are all required for connectivity issue.

Q: How to make my legacy 802.11g/b clients work with TZ210W?

A: TZ210W supports five radio modes: 802.11g/b Mixed, 802.11g Only, 802.11b Only, 802.11n/g/b Mixed, and 802.11n Only. If you only have legacy 802.11g/b clients, you can select 802.11g/b Mixed, 802.11n/g/b Mixed, 802.11g Only, or 802.11b Only. When 802.11n/g/b Mixed is selected, Radio Band must be Auto or Standard 20 MHz. Wide 40MHz will not work for 802.11g/b clients.

Q: Can Short Guard Interval feature also work on 20MHz?

A: No, SGI can only work on 40MHz channel width.

Q: Can Inter-wireless clients traffic achieve comparable high throughput as wireless-wired traffic?

A: No, given the nature of half duplex mode of wireless RF radio, inter-wireless clients traffic has lower throughput than wireless-wired traffic.

Q: I have an Intel 4965AGN NIC, but I’m only able to connect at 130Mbps. Why?

A: The IEEE802.11n maximum throughput (300Mbps) requires all 802.11n draft 2 features to be supported by both Access Point and wireless client. The most important features include 40Mbps channel bonding, packet aggregation, and short guard interval. SonicWall TZ210W supports all of the above features in 2.4GHz band and is completely compatible with IEEE standard.

Intel 4965AGN does not support 40MHZ channels in 2.4GHz spectrum, which means the maximum throughput for 4965AGN can not be greater than 150Mbps.

Q: My laptop connectivity seems up and down. Why?

A: Usually if you have both Windows WZC and Vendor’s specific managing utility working at the same time, both of them will try to control the wireless connection and conflict with each other. This will cause your connectivity up and down. You need to shutdown one of them to maintain the stability of wireless client.

And you also need to check the power saving option on your wireless client, which will disassociate wireless client based on power consumption status on the laptop.

Noise and interference will also affect the connectivity. The mobile device such as hand held phone and microwave can all operate on 2.4GHz spectrum band, which can overwhelm the normal 802.11 wireless LAN traffic and cause connection loss. The nearby access point which is operating in the overlapped channel will generate interference and impact the connectivity as well as performance.

Q: My wireless client can ping WLAN interface, but has trouble to access internet. Is this a wireless issue?

A: Most likely not a wireless issue if your wireless client can ping WLAN interface IP address (172.16.31.1). You may check your WAN setting, firewall rule and other customized configuration. System log will provide details if your packet gets dropped by TZ210W.

Q: My wireless client can only support WPA, can TZ210W be set up as WPA2?

A: WPA2 and WPA have different security criteria. If your wireless client can only support WPA, then TZ210W has to be configured as WPA or WPA2-AUTO.

Q: Why does my RaLink 802.11n card can not get good throughput?

A: The RaLink 802.11n client driver setting has not been optimized to support 802.11n high throughput. Please make sure to review the driver properties to enable high throughput specific features, such as 40MHz channel width, frame aggregation and short guard interval.

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