What does the WiFi signal strength indicator on a Surf SOHO indicate?

On the back of the Surf SOHO hw version 1 are three LED lights that indicate something about the WiFi signal strength. On page 31 of the Pepwave MAX and Surf User Manual from January 2016 for firmware 6.3 it says “Wi-Fi signal strength (low, medium, and high)”. However, on my router the three lights are not solid, they blink, slowly, in some type of pattern. What is it trying to tell me? I am using the two external antennas, if that makes a difference.

I don’t even understand the concept as the router will normally have multiple devices connected to it and each device has its own signal strength - which is clearly shown when listing the router clients (*great *feature by the way). So how can there even be *one *value for Wi-Fi signal strength?

Thank you.

Hi Michael,

“WIFI Signal Strength” LED indicators are displaying the connected “WIFI WAN” signal level.

Low - Solid 1 LED Light
Medium - Solid 2 LED Light
High - Solid 3 LED Light

Known issue reported for the “Wi-Fi Signal Strength” LED indicators for firmware 6.3.0.

Please stay tuned, targeted this will be fix in firmware 6.3.1

Thank You

Are you saying that these lights are **only **relevant when the WiFi as WAN feature is being used and are **not **relevant when the WAN connection comes via Ethernet or a usb/4g/lte antenna?

In my case, with Ethernet used for the Internet on Firmware 6.2.2 and hardware version 1, *none *of the LEDs are solid. They blink in this pattern

2 on the left are lit
2 outside ones are lit
2 on the right are lit
2 outside ones are lit

What is the known issue you are referring to?
Thank you.

Hi Michael,

I’m referring to the WIFI Signal Strength LED indicators as attached.


Basically the “WIFI Signal Strength LED” indicated the connected “WIFI WAN” signal level. If the WIFI WAN for the Surf SOHO is connected, you will have the following solid LED indication:

Low - Solid 1 LED Light
Medium - Solid 2 LED Light
High - Solid 3 LED Light

Seem you don’t connect the WIFI WAN for the device, thus you will see the LED indicator are blinking randomly.

In firmware version 6.3.0, known issue reported that LED indicators, whereby the LED indicators still blinking although the WIFI WAN get connected. Targeted this will be fix in firmware 6.3.1

Thank You

We are indeed talking about the same thing, thanks for the picture.

That the lights blink randomly (its not really random, I did find a pattern) when not using WiFi as WAN needs to be documented. In fact, the bigger issue, that these lights ONLY apply to WiFi as WAN should be emphasized.

Thank you for your assistance.

Thanks for the heads up Michael, we have updated the manual.

I am not using wifi over wan, my novatel 6620 hotspot is connected via usb and the wifi on the hotspot is turned off. I also have a synology diskstation (backup drive) attached to the SOHO Surf via ethernet cable. The 3 lights on the back of the router are blinking. When I try to copy large files from the Synology Drive to my computer (connected via 5GHz wifi) the wifi function of the router ceases to function. The wifi light on the front of the SOHO continues to blink slowly, however the 3 lights on the back are no longer blinking, instead the center light is on solid. This happens repeatedly. Very frustrating! The only remedy to get wifi going again is to power off and and back on. After doing this, I have checked the event log and there is no mention of any problem. Any suggestions on how to resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Please confirm you are running the most current firmware:
http://download.peplink.com/firmware/soho/fw-surf_soho-6.3.1-build2023.bin
Thanks.

I am. And I opened a support ticket on this #763556 into which I uploaded the diagnostic report.

Thanks, sounds good. We will follow up via the ticket.

Here is the reply from Pepwave tech support on this issue:

I had set up a test lab at my side and I am able to reproduce this issue.

Surf soho has only 100 Mbps of router throughput, during the file transfer, it almost hit the maximum of the unit.
(http://www.peplink.com/products/pepwave-surf-soho-specs/)

The router is so busy until it is not able to handle other traffic, this causes the situation that you faced.

To move forward,

  • invest in a higher end model that has enough throughput
  • or you can do the file transfer at the L2 physical switch level because switch usually has very large throughput.

Hi Bob,

I have checked with the tech support. The Surf Soho was over utilized. He successfully reproduced the issue and provided all the facts based the test lab. The CPU is hitting 100% with throughput 85Mbps-90Mbps. Please take note Surf Soho do support 100Mbps throughput only. When the router continue with the overloaded situation, the rest of the function will be affected.

You may consider the suggestion from the tech support.

Thank you.