We have a Meraki MR16 Cloud Managed AP and it disconnects certain clients. The clients with Intel wireless cards work without any disconnects. The Meraki reports the follow in its event log:
Sep 4 09:55:47 WPA authentication
Sep 4 09:55:47 802.11 association channel: 11, rssi: 64
Sep 4 09:55:38 802.11 disassociation client has left AP
Sep 4 09:55:38 WPA deauthentication vap: 0, radio: 0, aid: 1633956416
An example wireless network card which the Meraki disconnects is Realtek RTL8191SE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter. The realtek laptop is sat 2 meters away from the AP and has a lot of signal and the Meraki reports minimal interference.
Any ideas why it disconnects non-intel wireless network cards?
Best Answer
I have run into similar problems with our MR12 access point we got as a demo unit. Specifically it seems to be newer Intel WiFi Cards that have this problem. If these Intel WiFi laptops attempt to connect to an SSID using encryption like WEP or WPA2, they will appear to connect and then immediately disconnect and repeat that pattern forever. Only when using an open SSID (eliminating security all together) could those laptops connect.
Obviously, this presented a real problem for us. :) As we refresh computers we are getting more laptops with the affected Intel WiFi cards in them. I opened a ticket with Meraki and they blamed it on Intel drivers. Like in your situation they did a firmware update that gave us an extra option to specify 'WPA encryption mode' but that did nothing to help.
Here are the cards I found in our environment that were affected:
Card 1: Intel Centrino Advanced N 6235 Card 2: Intel Centrino Advanced N 6205 Card 3: Intel Centrino Ulitmate N 6300 AGN
This put a serious reservation in my mind about deploying Meraki WAPs in our environment as this is a pretty big problem. So far they have shown little motivation to actually fix the problem. We have $50 WAPs that seem to handle these WiFi cards just fine.
So anyway, they know about the problem but are doing nothing to fix it. :(