Buffalo WHR-HP-GN Airstation N150 Wireless Router - Problems!

[insaf_mohd]

Hello there,



I am new to the forums, so greetings!!

We have 5 Buffalo WHR-HP-GN Airstation N150 Wireless Routers in our office to spread the office LAN over Wi-Fi (APs). Everything used to work fine but recently I notice out of the 5 stations some Access Points just freeze out of no action - means I can not ping/get connected to it via Wi-Fi or Lan/WEB-access it - nothing! I have to then manually unplug and plug it to reboot it and return it to work...another 5 days one week will go smooth where another one or two APs will freeze and complaints rise.

As I googled today on this issue I chanced to read that setting multiple access points (with same SSID/Security - as our infra) on same Wireless channel can cause overlapping the Wi-Fi Radio as well as the AP connectivity. I checked each one of them and found many are sharing channel 2.., as the article advised I changed the channels on each one of the 5 APs as - 1 , 6, 11 , 2 , 9 channels. Rebooted them all but after one day the behaviour is the same.. 🙁

All the APs are connected to one of our Cisco 3570 switches in the LAN and IPs are pumped from internal DHCP server, AP DHCP is pointing to this....it all looks good!

Now, is it a right thing I did that can help the access points from freezing? Or what else can be the issue? The only change I made to the APs months back was putting a Router Name (proper location specific name) from the default name and applied it for all.

Another thing noticed, some changes I make (like changing Wi-fi channel) are not quickly applied on these APs even after applying several times..e.g...I changed AP1 wi-fi channel to 6 and AP2 to 11 and even after applying them it shows channel 2 (the previous channel both held) in the sys-info....why is that?


Firmware V: DD-WRT v24SP2-MULTI (05/28/10) std


Appreciate some tips!

 

[bill001g]

3570 a mistype (3750?).

First be sure it is your AP and not your switch. The ports could be going into errdiable mode because they are detecting errors. "Show int" should show up up status. If you see errdisable you will need to issue more commands to find out which error of many you are actually getting.

Although it is better to run on different channels it should not HANG the device if you do it. This sounds like a bug so I would try the standard upgrade the software to the newest version that will run on your hardware.

Most the problem with overlapping channels is that you have areas where 2 AP are equal in strength and the PC will then get confused as to which to associate with and you will get lots more interference so the PC will tend to do re-association more which makes the problem worse.

 

[eibgrad]

dd-wrt is known to be a bit flakey on the Atheros chipsets. I don't know if things have changed recently, but it wasn’t long ago they were still using old wifi drivers w/ Atheros routers. It’s one of many reasons I tend to stick w/ Broadcom chipsets generally, and esp. when using dd-wrt.

Since you're only using these as APs anyway, I recommend returning them to the stock firmware. I realize that’s counter-intuitive to anyone using third-party firmware. But given the questionable benefits of using dd-wrt when configured as APs, and given the history of Atheros w/ dd-wrt, I just think it would be the better choice.

Of course, I'd install the latest Buffalo firmware too. At least try it, it couldn't hurt.

 

[insaf_mohd]

3570 a mistype (3750?).

First be sure it is your AP and not your switch. The ports could be going into errdiable mode because they are detecting errors. "Show int" should show up up status. If you see errdisable you will need to issue more commands to find out which error of many you are actually getting.

Although it is better to run on different channels it should not HANG the device if you do it. This sounds like a bug so I would try the standard upgrade the software to the newest version that will run on your hardware.

Most the problem with overlapping channels is that you have areas where 2 AP are equal in strength and the PC will then get confused as to which to associate with and you will get lots more interference so the PC will tend to do re-association more which makes the problem worse.

Thank you very much!

 

[insaf_mohd]

dd-wrt is known to be a bit flakey on the Atheros chipsets. I don't know if things have changed recently, but it wasn’t long ago they were still using old wifi drivers w/ Atheros routers. It’s one of many reasons I tend to stick w/ Broadcom chipsets generally, and esp. when using dd-wrt.

Since you're only using these as APs anyway, I recommend returning them to the stock firmware. I realize that’s counter-intuitive to anyone using third-party firmware. But given the questionable benefits of using dd-wrt when configured as APs, and given the history of Atheros w/ dd-wrt, I just think it would be the better choice.

Of course, I'd install the latest Buffalo firmware too. At least try it, it couldn't hurt.

Hello eibgrad,

Thanks for your tips I think the next best thing I should try is pick one of them and upgrade the firmware to the latest available. The current version on the WHR-HP-GN APs that we have is

DD-WRT v24SP2-MULTI (05/28/10) std

And the one I found in downloads (http://www.buffalotech.com/support-and-downloads/downloads ) for WHR-HP-GN is

whrhpgn-pro-v24sp2-14998-eu-us.enc - IT'S THE ONLY DD-WRT PACKAGE THERE? DOES IT SUIT? The 'MULTI-std' vs 'EU-US' confuses me a bit to confirm that's the appropriate one and won't damage the AP.

Could you please check it once and feedback? That's highly thanked..

 

[eibgrad]

To be honest, this is first time I've seen a manufacturer actually list third-party firmware on its own site! A bit odd considering most would normally disassociate themselves from third-parties if only because they don't control the firmware. And while I would assume they've tested it, perhaps they haven't, or not fully, or perhaps not in a configuration such as yours.

So what I’m suggesting is to NOT use DD-WRT, but the original Buffalo firmware. And what I'm seeing from Buffalo is release 1.85 (2012-06-04).

http://www.buffalotech.com/support-and-downloads/download/whrhpgn-185.zip

 

[insaf_mohd]

To be honest, this is first time I've seen a manufacturer actually list third-party firmware on its own site! A bit odd considering most would normally disassociate themselves from third-parties if only because they don't control the firmware. And while I would assume they've tested it, perhaps they haven't, or not fully, or perhaps not in a configuration such as yours.

So what I’m suggesting is to NOT use DD-WRT, but the original Buffalo firmware. And what I'm seeing from Buffalo is release 1.85 (2012-06-04).

http://www.buffalotech.com/support-and-downloads/download/whrhpgn-185.zip

Thank You again!

I found one of my friends has got the same AP model where his firmware is a bit different

Firmware: DD-WRT v24SP2-EU-US (08/19/10) std ....... I didn't burn my head a lot, copied this firmware version from his CD and flashed one of mine among the 5 APs....it got perfectly flashed (via ethernet) and now what I can see is instead of

Firmware V: DD-WRT v24SP2-MULTI (05/28/10) std ---> Firmware: DD-WRT v24SP2-EU-US (08/19/10) std in place!

It has made no mess yet, configurations remain the same, actively serving and I am watching. If no issues are found and 'freezing problem' is not recurring it for another week-- I will go ahead and flash the remaining 4 to this version as well...........apparently that cleared the buggy old version if justified right?

What do you think?

BTW, thanks for your version to download!

 

[eibgrad]

Try it for a while and see. If it the problems return, I'd switch to the manufacturer's original/stock firmware.

 

[insaf_mohd]

Thank you all very very much!

Apparently my issues are solved after I updated the firmware on our devices, each one of them! For a week now I've noticed no freezing on any.

Cheers.