I have experienced significant problems with the R5H cards. Several have died, some immediately when powering up a new board with them in it. You can smell them burning and see the burn mark in the upper left hand area of the card.

Another problem occurred this week with two of them that were in service for less than a week. I was changing the channels on them and all of a sudden the client on the other end could not connect to them. It happened to cards on two different RB433AH's.

At this point, I estimate my failure rate at or above 50%, and I have quit deploying them. This is very disappointing, as I had high hopes for them and I saw, via the video at the latest MUM, the MT rep talking about how good they were.

Is anyone else experiencing these problems? If not, any idea on what I am doing to cause it? When I replace them with XR5's or WLM54ag23's, everything works fine.

make sure that the antenna is connected to the antenna port, as without the antenna it could burn down. Also do not increase the tx-power of this card.

Some of the immediate burnouts may have been caused by not having an antenna connected. But the majority of them die while in service with default power settings.

I have one working for about one week...no problems so far.

make sure that the antenna is connected to the antenna port, as without the antenna it could burn down. Also do not increase the tx-power of this card.

Are you saying that withough antenna attached the card is OK to go up in smoke

it's true for most radio cards

I will have to disagree with you there. Other than MT cards, I cannot ever remember having a card burn up because you did not have an antenna plugged into the port. But that problem is a lot less expensive than the one where they just quit working after you change the channel (even when you change it back to the original one it was on). That problem effects users and requires a tower climb.

I am surprised that no one else seems to be experiencing this problem. But, nonetheless, I am going to have to quit using them.

I will have to disagree with you there. Other than MT cards, I cannot ever remember having a card burn up because you did not have an antenna plugged into the port. But that problem is a lot less expensive than the one where they just quit working after you change the channel (even when you change it back to the original one it was on). That problem effects users and requires a tower climb.

The more power the radio puts out, the greater the need to feed that into an antenna or dummy load. We have seen Ubiquiti XR series radios, Mikrotik radios, EnGenius radios, just about any higher power radio cards regardless of manufacturer go deaf due to not being hooked up to a load for a period of time. No matter what manufacturer you use, this will be an issue on higher power / higher sensitivity cards.

Honestly, even though it's an almost non existent risk, I wouldn't have even a low power card on without an antenna hooked up to it. The 10 seconds it takes to attach it to an antenna on the bench just doesn't make the risk worth it.

I will have to disagree with you there. Other than MT cards, I cannot ever remember having a card burn up because you did not have an antenna plugged into the port. But that problem is a lot less expensive than the one where they just quit working after you change the channel (even when you change it back to the original one it was on). That problem effects users and requires a tower climb.

The more power the radio puts out, the greater the need to feed that into an antenna or dummy load. We have seen Ubiquiti XR series radios, Mikrotik radios, EnGenius radios, just about any higher power radio cards regardless of manufacturer go deaf due to not being hooked up to a load for a period of time.

FYI: Ubiquity is OK with running their radios w/o an antenna for short periods of time:

http://forum.ubnt.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... n&start=15

Hey Guys,

Like i said, it is not recommended to power them on without the antenna, but if you do in short periods, you will not let the smoke out.

Thanks,

Mike

that did you understand from that post
you suck

Another problem occurred this week with two of them that were in service for less than a week. I was changing the channels on them and all of a sudden the client on the other end could not connect to them. It happened to cards on two different RB433AH's.

I was able to, unfortunetly, reproduce this problem on a R5H + RB433.

I had an XR5 running as AP on 5220 and a R5H connected to it in station-wds.
I changed the channel on the AP to 5320 and everything seemed to be ok.

Two minutes later, I changed the channel on the AP to 5300.
The client R5H connected, stayed online for 5 seconds, and then disconnected, never to be heard from again.
I tried power cycling the client but the routerboard wouldn't even power on after multiple power cycles of various length. After removing the bad R5H, and replacing with another R5H, everything came back to normal.

In the lab, the bad R5H can hear but can't transmit in another RB433.

It would be so great if MT GAVE UP on making radios. They just don't get it. This is taking their BRAND down. Ask Proctor-Gamble, brand is everything and if you take the radio issues away MT has an absolute killer brand. With the radios, they come off as half-... And now to delay getting N working so they can have their own radios? Hmmm Somebody has been reading their own press too much. They aren't listening to their customers on this. At this point there is no way that we would ever let anyone we work with use MT radios...

Same thing here. I just started using them and 2 out of 4 started smoking in a RB433. The cards were attached to pigtails. Power was left at default settings. It happened when one of the cards was enabled.

Is it antenna connected to pigtail when you enable it?

we've had 2 out of 4 burn up, one immediate, the other after an hour.
I agree that when it comes to radios, MT should focus on supporting Ubiquiti cards.....they work for years.

we've had 2 out of 4 burn up, one immediate, the other after an hour.
I agree that when it comes to radios, MT should focus on supporting Ubiquiti cards.....they work for years.

R52 works very fine. I've hundrets of them without a single failure.

Stefan

I don't have a problem with them making cards. The R52's are a very good card. And for the most part the R52H has been good lately. I definitely believe the R5H's have some manufacturing problems (could just be some bad assembly runs). So far the good R5H's that have been deployed work very well (although it is still soon).

Eric

And what you think to do MK? Are the staff read posts carefully?

R5H work great, and the price is very adequate.
But the problems with smoke... I loose 50% of R5H, so i calculate that can buy with this money XR5

MK staff what is your solution?
I think, primitive antenna(load) detector can solve the problems

P.S. Some cards was connected to antennas, some cards forget to connect. Some cards start smoke immidiatelly, but some cards after 2-3 monthes of using...

no problems for me

If you think this is a hardware problem, send them for warranty repair and we will investigate the cause. Currently we don't have any cards with such peculiar problems. Maybe this problem is isolated to one box, or maybe it's something in your installation

Hi Normis,
10x for message,
so we don't fisrt time install this cards, and we also think that the porblems may be with one box, but we use more than 50 items of R5H on more RBs. Some card smoke in first installation, but we have cards which damage during using, ( incase when we start to site surveying-scanning). We find that R5H required antenna installation before power up. Each time when we do it, we don't have problems, each time when we forget connect antenna cards was smoke...

send the smoking items to warranty repair, we would like to see them!

hrmmmm, samjam clearly states that they only smoke when they power them on without an antenna connected. Maybe there needs to be a giant sticker on them that lets people know NOT to do this or the smoke will escape and warranty will be void.

hrmmmm, samjam clearly states that they only smoke when they power them on without an antenna connected. Maybe there needs to be a giant sticker on them that lets people know NOT to do this or the smoke will escape and warranty will be void.

there ARE giant stickers on them! I designed the stickers!

my R5H's come with stickers

send the smoking items to warranty repair, we would like to see them!

Hello Normis,
can you indicate us the address to where we must sent it?

you must contact the seller and ask for warranty repair

Most resellers will not warranty repair your items... So if you want to see it so bad, why can't he send it to you?

if somebody doesn't offer warranty service to you, why would you give them money?

Just had my first R5H go up in smoke after working for 2mins now.

RB532
v3.27

Did you have an antenna connected to it ?

Power was off on the routerboard
card was inserted
Pigtail and antenna put on
Put Power back on the router

Card worked great for 2 to 5mins
Changed frequency
Card stop working
Card settings @ default


This is a pity , i had great faith in the R5H but will go back to using XR5

The R5Hs I have have NO stickers.....

Though I am aware of the ramifications of no termination.....

Matt

Same problem here, antenna attached and blow up when changing channel. Almost 50% os cards burn after this, and you tell
me to:

if somebody doesn't offer warranty service to you, why would you give them money?

I bought from " Flytec Computers S.A" and they dont give my money back. Bought cause they have a good price and
are Mikrotik Reseller. My question is: Why mikrotik dont have a better quality control over their dealers? In my opinion,
if a dealear appears at Mikrotik website it needs to deserve it, dont? I think mikrotik needs to select better their resellers
and not me! Im just a customer!

Anyway, reseller is just part of the problem, the major problem is the card! Its clear that card have hardware problems, just
read posts to see!

Sound like exact same problems on R5H's as with R52H's. Client cards burned up a few times while AP was rebooting. Seemed to be related to scanning.

We've had a few R5H's burn up. (could smell them outside of enclosure). Link would last for a few minutes while the card continued to get hotter. I think most were due to no antenna load. (unscrewed one from antenna to check for moisture after rain, then it died shortly after)

True that we have never lost a SR5 or XR5 for no load, but I'm now being very careful when programming on bench and installing. Haven't lost one in several weeks since.... Put up three NSTREME DUAL links with R5H's two weeks ago.. Holding my breath now...

One other worry, our R52H failures seemed to have gotten worse last year during spring sand storms (static maybe?) Most were in poorly grounded Rootenna's. I'm making sure all are now grounded better, but I'm fearful that next spring our failure rate might increase in R5H's...

Still zero failures on any of the R52's.

So more than one month my seller say me that the card sent to manufacturer, what now??
One month is more time for repair...

I also have an R5H card that loses connectivity when changing channels, can get it to work fine again after visiting the site and changing the channel back.

I must agree, that there are problems with R5H cards. A month ago two cards died, in a working enveroment, just by switching the channel. They had antennas connected, and were running with default TX-power setting, but they still ended up in smoke.. The supplier returned them to Mikrotik and last week they came back, with notes stating that they were damaged by over-voltage and won't be repaired. Today another R5H died, just from shifting channels to find best signal/quality (again with everything connected and working before that, for about 2 weeks). This one is in a pretty remote and unpleasant location, and going there to replace it will be a real pain in the a**. If it will be in any help.. all the problems seem to happen on channel 5180 using 20MHz channel width. We are seriously considering switching to other brands.

hii..
ya u are right. purchased two R5H for a important point to point link. with huge expectations.
one of them endded at time of configuation.
its really hurt.

thx

Hi, how far I know this problem covered by warranty. Can you send broken card mac address to support@mikrotik.com let he check and approve that " they were damaged by over-voltage and won't be repaired "

I must agree, that there are problems with R5H cards. A month ago two cards died, in a working enveroment, just by switching the channel. They had antennas connected, and were running with default TX-power setting, but they still ended up in smoke.. The supplier returned them to Mikrotik and last week they came back, with notes stating that they were damaged by over-voltage and won't be repaired. Today another R5H died, just from shifting channels to find best signal/quality (again with everything connected and working before that, for about 2 weeks). This one is in a pretty remote and unpleasant location, and going there to replace it will be a real pain in the a**. If it will be in any help.. all the problems seem to happen on channel 5180 using 20MHz channel width. We are seriously considering switching to other brands.

More than 3 monthes i sent back by guarantee my 6 items of R5H, and don't have nothing from Mikrotik....

I also had an R5H fail on the tower, on a clear day, connected to a 29dbi Terrawave/Pac Wireless grid. Was changing channels, and after a change, the card never transmitted again. Having only deployed two R5H cards, this isn't too encouraging.

if somebody doesn't offer warranty service to you, why would you give them money?

if somebody doesn't offer warranty service to buyers , why would you license them as a reseller?

lost another R5H in production today
The routerboard doesn't even show it in the PCI list.

Same problem here, R5H failed within first 15 minutes of use. I had 50ohm dummy load on the board since the first power up, the board was never used without a proper antenna load.
As I was reducing data rates under 18Mbps a component in upper left corner (looks like a diode) started smoking and the whole unit got hot.
No damage and no problems to the 411AR. I just got the board couple of days ago.

There definitely seem to be a symptomatic problem with the boards, either a design flaw or most likely component quality issue.
Mikrotik should deffinitly address this problem and let us know about the resolution.
I will personally no longer be using the R5H's unless Mikrotik acknowledges the problem and finds resolution.

Problems like this happen with all manufacturers, even big names, what makes difference is how quickly the problem is acknowledged and solved.
I am hoping that Mikrotik will address this problem for us quickly.

PS: I am big fan of pretty much every other Mikrotik product that I have tried.

There is obviously a problem all over the world!! I had it blow up in all types of RB's including an industrial pc motherboard.

The problem is not if Mikrotik replaces the card or not, but the time and money it takes to replace them and the DOWNTIME AS A RESULT OF THAT. Remember we are all service and uptime orientated.

Please stop having the approach that nothing is wrong with the card, but start off by acknowledging that something is wrong and start looking for the fix ... that is the only way it will get solved. By growing this post on the forum will not fix the problem and I think everyone has now said enough.

Come on Mikrotik, there is no card on the market today that can compete with this card in terms of sensitivity, stability (when it is working), interference and throughput - make us proud

Next R5H burned when changing frequencies

Next R5H burned when changing frequencies

from what frequency to what frequency you changed?

I had one R5H card smoking today when moving it from one RB433AH to another RB433AH

There are some card models that are more robust than others based on our tests (I have to mention that we only have maximum 2 of each card of other vendors so it's not completely accurate sampling error rate). Some components used are just more sensitive to changes.

Some of it is design, some of it is usage, some is based on the inherent failure rate when made on a mass production level.

One general rule of thumb in this case is to plug in the antenna BEFORE you power on the card (any card). This will reduce one possibility of something going wrong.

Hi,

I just lost my fourth r5h, burned after a simple power cycle. In service for 6 months no problems.

I lost 3 others after 2 months service. both lost tx signal but could still listen. Such a shame as they outperform anything else. Reluctantly switching to ubiquity cards for now.

i have the same issues... TX is totally lost, but RX still ok... now already 3 months on RMA

We too have experienced bad radios with antennas attached. Have had a couple of radios just dia after a few day without any channel change and a few die while changing channels as others have reported.Now we are having massive issues with poor receive throughput. We are going back to XR5 until Mikrotik resolves these issues.

I suggest we force Mikrotik to find and resolve these issues by boycotting the purchase of ALL MT radios until this is resolved this has cost us thousands of dollars in replacing radios and expensive tower crews. These radios offer Superior performance compared to XR's when they work but the cost of having to replace these when they fail as often and they are make that performance ultimately too expensive. We are going back to Ubiquity for now!

Can I join the club?

3/10 failure rates!

Are they even QA tested?

I have one FAIL straight out the box.

Seriously Id like to take one of these cards and shove it the sun don't shine

Same goes with the R52.

Don't even question me about antennas as every thing we do is to our ISO 9002 std. i.e ESD work shop, (Test equipment)- dummy loads, VSWR prints, Comms test head print outs etc..

Alvarion, Motorola, Redline, Proxim, etc.. would work out cheaper in the long run !

It's the last Straw dealing with crap Mr Tik !

what do you mean by "FAIL"? are you sure you didn't use them without antenna attached (even if only for one power up), or didn't change the tx-power setting? those things can damage the card. Sorry if it sounds obvious, but I had to ask, many people don't know that.

no problems for me

It's been more than 6 months since this post... Are you still of the same opinions? When we first started using R5H, we were impressed and started replacing XR5s, but many tower climbs later, we are going back to Ubiquiti.

I am curious; most of our R5Hs burn in RB433AH with 24V PoE injectors on towers (where there is lots of rf noise), what equipment are you using that you are having such great success with?

We never change power settings from default and always have antennas attached. They just fail! I have 10 dead units on my desk as I type...I've only lost two XR5's..I'm just saying that my experience with R5H oer XR5 is that we get better throughput but at a much higher cost both from outages/reliability and tower crew expenses. Gonna just say NO until there's a fix!

I have one FAIL straight out the box.

In the upper left hand corner is a chip labeled SJ. Is this chip damaged on any of your cards?

Sorry for losing my cool !

Power levels are always set to default.

Having a look at one of the R5H's the diode is blown. (top left)

A few (new) R52 have poor signal issues or would not scan anything.

I cant stress out more having a load on the rf ports before powering the cards up.

Im looking into our records to find out if these cards came with pre-built/ configured units.

More dead R52's, R5H's.

Im building quite a collection.

What is cooking these (NEW) cards, 24V into a 433 ?

No, it's Standing Wave Ratio.
Don't use antennas with SWR value higher like 2 and you acquire less damages.

i have today problem with R5h also

config:
Rb433ah
1xR52
2xR5h

configuration at home, with connected antennas to all pigtails... 2 cards for 10 min of configuring were good, but R5H had very big temperature, so hot, so i cannot even hold it in my hands (it can be definated when you place your head to the board, so at 40cm you can taste it). It's in list, all okey, but i dont think it's good idea to put @work this card..
As I see, at left side one diode is blown.

I think, it should be by warranty exchanged? I am from estonia, bought from distributor in latvia.


BR

What antennas you use? Write to rma@mikrotik.com ask way to replace it.

What antennas you use? Write to rma@mikrotik.com ask way to replace it.

dish antennas 32dbi from direct.lv
There's written, that direct to RMA I should write, if I was bought direct from them? i have bought from dealer in latvia SPX... Do not know yet, what they will say about it (just in monday).

The biggest FAIL, becouse i have planned to make some installations in these weekend..
And like always, when already all parts all together - something is missing

Precisely second picture is from this antenna feed measurement )

http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=38509

In addition this feed some times have problem with water inside. I have this antenna on few links.

jep, You'll have water inside, if you do not use silicon at the connector-cable connection.
@test they were @my home 1 week, so i do not think that couse problem, another R5H work's without problems with same antennas, i mean @test.

No, it's Standing Wave Ratio.
Don't use antennas with SWR value higher like 2 and you acquire less damages.

It doesn't explain why some are faulty from the word go!
You would see the radio slowly degrade.

Our sectors, that I have VSWR prints after towers were commissioned that also run tik blow out.
Also never have any probs with the 350's

Anyway im over it,Other equipment that have been placed on the same antennas- no issues.

Not even worth my troubles getting replacements, seems like customer support sucks balls anyway, From what ive seen people posting repeating questions on other topics going unanswered.

Switched to ubiquiti cards now. Everything running smoothly. I can power cycle and switch frequencies now without holding my breath.

I will return to MT cards when this issue is sorted as they are by far a superior card when they are working. I am sure Mikrotik will address the issue in time. Of course they have to be sure there is a problem first and this forum is probably the best way to prove there is.

If it helps, the cards seem to be failing mostly when a power cycle is performed on the board or when the frequency is changed. There should be a clue there somewhere as to what is causing the issue. Probably not detected in a LAb as these cards are blowing while in service with many clients associated.

Hi mikrotik

Are we able to know what type of diode it is I've had 3 R5h's sitting in my 'dead bin' for a while now and thinking it was my fault that they had blown, but now I see that the problem might actually be something with the card design itself. What is the warranty period of the card?

I dont mind replacing the diode myself I have all the tools and suppliers at my disposal. Perhaps a model number will help.
Is it a schottky/fast recorvery diode? Perhaps we can fit something with a bigger spec?

Thanx!

Xarion

Hi,

Can someon a MK please respond to this thread. I so want to go back to MK cards for the better performance but cant risk it till I know the issue has been resolved.

All devices have 1 year warranty. If you have it better way is send cards back to supplier. R5H repairing is very complicated.

Hi mikrotik

Are we able to know what type of diode it is I've had 3 R5h's sitting in my 'dead bin' for a while now and thinking it was my fault that they had blown, but now I see that the problem might actually be something with the card design itself. What is the warranty period of the card?

I dont mind replacing the diode myself I have all the tools and suppliers at my disposal. Perhaps a model number will help.
Is it a schottky/fast recorvery diode? Perhaps we can fit something with a bigger spec?

Thanx!

Xarion

We too have had problems with R5H and now the R52N radios transmit failure from thermal run-away. This happens often when changing channels or just running. We have had more than $700 worth of bad radios and more than $10k in tower climbing fees to replace these cards and Mikrotik or the vendor won't warranty them. We tried the new R52HN. Purchased 6 and 2 failed right off the bat! Once again Vendor wont accept return. Done with Mikrotik! Until they admit they have a problem and replace the bad radios we are going to either UBNT or dbii. At least they stand by their product. Would like to gather a list of all who have had similar issues with these radios!

You can put my name down. lost roughly 50 of my stock causing similar financial costs and angry customers. I now use dbii cards with no problems.

Intrestingly I mentioned the rb5h problem to dbii and they said they found the problem with the rb5h and made sure their cards did not replicate it. If dbii can find the fault how come the manufactuer of the Mikrotik cards can't? curious