Spark + HG659b + 32 device limit?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark + HG659b + 32 device limit?

1 | 2 | 3

kiwifidget

"Cookie"
3421 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1801352 15-Jun-2017 11:09

It seems that even dropping the lease to 1 hour is not fixing the problem.

I need a better solution, preferably $0, they are a charity without much to throw around. Pretty much all their equipment has been donated.

From memory....

They have the HG659b as the primary router, doing DHCP, connect to ONT, Wifi 2.4 and 5GHz , and connected wired pc's and printer.

The phone is connected directly to the ONT.

There is a HG630b (cabled directly to the HG659b) in the building next door providing wifi 2.4GHz access to the HG659b.

An old ADSL TP-Link router they used quite happily before fibre was installed, sitting in a box looking smug.

I have a slightly less old ADSL/Cable TP-Link router I can use if necessary.

I'll be popping in tomorrow, is there anything worth doing with whats on hand?

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

PhantomNVD

2619 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1801539 15-Jun-2017 13:54

Perhaps use the older router for all the traffic and dhcp and just set the new HUAWEI to be the gateway?

Might take a little fiddling, but on the HUAWEI you need to turn off dhcp and wifi, and on the xDSL turn on wifi and dhcp and set the gateway to the HUAWEI IP address?

Make sure they're on the same subnet (10.x.x.x OR 192.x.x.x) and that the dhcp range set by the adsl router starts or stops before the HUAWEI's ip (eg. dhcp range 10.0.0.5-10.0.0.200)
Other option is to use an 'always on' PC as a 'server' to manage the dhcp/DNS/WIFI and wire it directly to the HUWEI ... but much more effort required for this route.

PhantomNVD

2619 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1801541 15-Jun-2017 13:56

FWIW we now have more than 150 machines using our fibre link through that router without significant issues (a week. Ow) as we have a fortunate firewall, ruckus wifi, and server rack doing the grunt work for it separately.

kiwifidget

"Cookie"
3421 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1801565 15-Jun-2017 14:37

PhantomNVD: Perhaps use the older router for all the traffic and dhcp and just set the new HUAWEI to be the gateway?

Might take a little fiddling, but on the HUAWEI you need to turn off dhcp and wifi, and on the xDSL turn on wifi and dhcp and set the gateway to the HUAWEI IP address?

Make sure they're on the same subnet (10.x.x.x OR 192.x.x.x) and that the dhcp range set by the adsl router starts or stops before the HUAWEI's ip (eg. dhcp range 10.0.0.5-10.0.0.200)
Other option is to use an 'always on' PC as a 'server' to manage the dhcp/DNS/WIFI and wire it directly to the HUWEI ... but much more effort required for this route.

Thanks, I will give that a go.

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

kiwifidget

"Cookie"
3421 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1801945 16-Jun-2017 09:57

OK, I'm on site now.

At first glance, there are devices still showing in the Lan Devices list that have been off the network for more than an hour.

Is that right? I expected they would disappear when the 1 hour lease renewal came around.

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1801983 16-Jun-2017 10:42

DHCP lease time is the time at which a client will renew it's lease (it will also typically do this at 50% of the lease time). It is not necessarily the time at which a DHCP lease will automatically remove itself from a lease table in a router.

Yes on some routers DHCP leases will be removed from the lease table at this time if it's not associated with a current device, but that's not the way every router works.

maxeon

1279 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1802006 16-Jun-2017 11:06

I have a very similar problem. The device limit is 32 per band.

In my case, all my light switches are WiFi modules so the total is around 40 including other devices.

I went and got a Netgear X8 router and used the Spark supplied one as a AP by disabling DHCP assuming it will resolve this issue.

To my surprise Netgear has the same limitation - https://kb.netgear.com/24043/How-many-clients-can-you-connect-wirelessly-to-a-NETGEAR-router

The limitation is per band, so if you have a dual band router it can be 64 devices (2.4ghz for 32 clients and 5ghz for 32 clients).

This could be different to the Spark modem but very confident it did not work for me beyond 32 devices and neither did the high end router from Netgear.

I recently bought a Ubiquiti one from here in GZ and planning to use that which has a device limit of 250. It says that on the box and descriptions.

For the OP issue, I suggest you two routers connected using Wired between the primary and secondary and have DHCP enabled on both of them.

You will have 64 device limit then and you can use two SSID's to make it easier for people to connect.

Lenovo

Shop now for Lenovo laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1802125 16-Jun-2017 13:50

32 wireless devices is a *lot* on any wireless AP of that quality and I'm surprised it's coping. If you need more than 25 or so devices you should be looking at quality Enterprise WiFi gear (I don't count UBNT as Enterprise).

With that number of clients even 1 device with poor signal strength will bring down the performance of every device that's connected.

kiwifidget

"Cookie"
3421 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1802196 16-Jun-2017 15:57

Results of today.

Set up 14 wifi devices to connect to the HG630b (just being a wifi AP) in the second building.

Part way the Lan Devices table on the HG659b reached 32, combination of active/inactive and wired/wireless and static/dhcp devices.

As I added more devices the inactive entries disappeared and the new device connected. Table stayed at 32 entries.

This would be normal I think.

I didnt have enough devices on hand today to push it to 32 active devices and try adding a 33rd.

Though I think from past experience the 33rd and onwards devices just wont connect regardless of how they are connecting.

So really not sure why they tell me they are having problems.

I wont be able to find out much more until next Wednesday night when they have their next busy period.

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

kiwifidget

"Cookie"
3421 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1804782 21-Jun-2017 18:23

On site again to try and witness the problem in real life.

The system admin detection chips must be working, as so far no issues.

I have noticed that the HG659b has the IPv6 DHCP server on. Is this necessary?

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

1 | 2 | 3