Author Topic: WZR-600DHP and WZR-300HP wireless bridge trouble  (Read 6630 times)

jiwanowski

  • Calf
  • *
  • Posts: 2
WZR-600DHP and WZR-300HP wireless bridge trouble
« on: April 17, 2013, 10:40:30 PM »

My family and I live on a 10 acre farm with 2 houses, the main house is approximately 3000 sq ft, the guest house is 1500 sq ft, we also have 6 - 20' x 100' greenhouses behind the main house.  My wireless setup is as follows, main house has Exede Satellite Internet installed, modem is centrally located in the house with a WZR-600DHP router connected, in the guest house we have a WZR-300HP that is set up as a WDS Station with a virtual interface AP rebroadcasting the SSID, in the greenhouses I have a Linksys WRT54GS2 router set in "repeater bridge" mode.  I have tested the signal on a cell phone connected to the WiFi and I can wander approximately half of the property and still have wireless internet connection, I am very happy with the wireless range from my setup, the trouble that I am experiencing with the setup is within the two Buffalo routers.

 

I followed the instructions that were provided with the WZR-300HP to set up the WDS AP and Station. Both AP's are on the same SSID, the WDS AP and WDS Station are on a separate SSID, both are being broadcasted.  My Linksys WRT54GS2 is setup as a "repeater bridge" and has not had any trouble at all.  The two buffalo routers however, have been having various issues i.e.., web-gui failing to load, excessively long ping times, DNS errors, etc.  When these issues present themselves a reboot will resolve them for a day or two and then it starts all over again.  When the web-gui fails, I am still able to ping the routers and reboot them remotely by using telnet.  The issues did not present until I added the WZR-300HP onto the network, I have tried numerous times to update the firmware on the 300HP but I keep getting an error message "Error retrieving update information".  I am getting tempted to load the BrainSlayer DD-WRT firmware to see if there is any better performance or the option for "repeater bridge" as that seems to work perfect as opposed to the WDS AP & Station setup.  Before I do this and void the warranty, I wanted to check to see if anyone knew where I could get a copy of the original firmware from my router to go back to or if there is a way to make this one update to a newer version of the Buffalo firmware.

 

I am also open to suggestions to alternative setup options.  My my current setup & requirements are as follows:

Main house: Exede Modem -> WZR-600DHP (192.168.11.1), AP SSID(id1), Virtual Interface WDS AP(id2) - only connects to wireless clients, no wired connections

Guest house: WZR-300HP (192.168.11.3), WDS Station SSID(id2), Virtual Interface AP(id1) - Connects to 2 wired clients and wireless clients.

Greenhouses: WRT54GS2 (192.168.11.2), Wireless Bridge SSID(id1), Virtual Interface AP(id1) - only connects to wireless clients no wired connections.


buddee

  • Big Bull
  • *****
  • Posts: 547
Re: WZR-600DHP and WZR-300HP wireless bridge trouble
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2013, 05:49:40 AM »

I've said this many times, and dd-wrt dev team still doesn't agree, but imo - WDS mode is very flawed and non-standard, and will continue to have problems. WDS relies on the chipsets to match and the WDS implementation has to perfectly match for each scenario or it'll simply have problems.

 

What i do currently is i have a very simular setup - wzr-hp-g300nh and wzr-hp-ag300h. I live about 30+ yds away from my neighbor across the street, i have the ag300h in my house on comcast cable setup as the main gateway/access point. In her house, i have the g300nh linked to my unit via client mode (atheros repeater), and this is very reliable so long as client mode + virtual access point is functioning correctly. Been providing her and her children internet for around 3 years in this manner and wehave had very little problems with this setup. Linked signal from the g300nh is around 47% which gives her pretty much full throughput of the WAN if needed.

 

When we first initially set this up with the 2 units, i tried linking them via WDS and week after week there was nothing but problems and complaints. As soon as i ex-neigh'd the WDS config from the picture and went with client modes, all the problems and complaints soon vanished. ;)


jiwanowski

  • Calf
  • *
  • Posts: 2
Re: WZR-600DHP and WZR-300HP wireless bridge trouble
« Reply #2 on: April 19, 2013, 12:38:26 PM »

Last night I made an attempt to resolve these issues I have been having.  I changed the WZR-300HP off of WDS mode and onto client bridge (routed) and configured a virtual interface to rebroadcast the signal.  It took quite a while to get the settings straight and I kept knocking out our internet connection but it appears to be working.  I had originally set the wireless channel to 6 since it was the only wifi network in the immediate area but I kept getting RX errors.  The RX signal strength was showing around 62%, so I tried channels 1 and 11 and they boosted the signal strength to 98% but still had errors, I finally decided to test on channel 3 and the signal strength immediately went to 100% and all errors stopped.  I've had the connection up for approximately 15 hours and I can still access the web-gui on all 3 routers.

 

The only thing that I'm still working on is getting my ping times lower and steady. Obviously, I'd like to have <1ms when pinging the routers but right now it's varying from 2ms to 350+ms.  I remember when I used to have my first Linksys WRT54G I was able to tweak the Beacon Interval and a few other settings in the "Advanced Settings" tab but I can't figure out how to tweak these settings now or if it's even possible.  I'll update if I find a solution to this.