Hello Folks!

One of our basestation RB600 with 4 sectors have problem with ether1, well it is stable on 10Mbit/s full duplex, it is powered by PoE 48V high power device, cable length is 35 meters cat 6.

Before it was 100Mbit/s with the PoE device but it silently dropped to 10Mbit/s.

In the other end we have RB450G, it has start log rx-drops, coming in a couple per day.
In the RB600 I do not see any errors on the interfaces.

We tried to connect the RB600 other end to a swith, it did not make link.
Trying to reboot RB600 it might lock on 100Mbit/s full duplex, but drops down to 10Mbit/s in some time.
We did change to anther port in RB450G, same result, 10Mbit/s full duplex.

Yet I could not go up in mast and try another cable or port in RB600.

Since I am a beginner here, what should you more experienced folks say it is most likely ?

* Cable problem ?
* RB600 ether1 port problem ?

Hello Folks!

One of our basestation RB600 with 4 sectors have problem with ether1, well it is stable on 10Mbit/s full duplex, it is powered by PoE 48V high power device, cable length is 35 meters cat 6.

Before it was 100Mbit/s with the PoE device but it silently dropped to 10Mbit/s.

In the other end we have RB450G, it has start log rx-drops, coming in a couple per day.
In the RB600 I do not see any errors on the interfaces.

We tried to connect the RB600 other end to a swith, it did not make link.
Trying to reboot RB600 it might lock on 100Mbit/s full duplex, but drops down to 10Mbit/s in some time.
We did change to anther port in RB450G, same result, 10Mbit/s full duplex.

Yet I could not go up in mast and try another cable or port in RB600.

Since I am a beginner here, what should you more experienced folks say it is most likely ?

* Cable problem ?
* RB600 ether1 port problem ?

Looks like moisture/cable problem.
When RB600 ether1 port dies it dies completely (almost all of our eth1 ports of RB600s died already).

When RB600 ether1 port dies it dies completely (almost all of our eth1 ports of RB600s died already).

Same here. Of the five RB600s we bought and deployed, one arrived with ether1 dead on arrival (POE worked, but no data); three have had at least ether1, and in some cases at least one other ether port, go bad; and the one still in the field only uses the ether ports for power so we have no idea if any of them still work for data.

Then they EOL'ed them and replaced them with the more expensive RB800. We're a small self-funded operation, and this was a major financial hit for us. So why the crappy reliability, how does RouterBoard get away with it, and are these boards now good for anything more than expensive landfill?

When RB600 ether1 port dies it dies completely (almost all of our eth1 ports of RB600s died already).

Same here. Of the five RB600s we bought and deployed, one arrived with ether1 dead on arrival (POE worked, but no data); three have had at least ether1, and in some cases at least one other ether port, go bad; and the one still in the field only uses the ether ports for power so we have no idea if any of them still work for data.

Then they EOL'ed them and replaced them with the more expensive RB800. We're a small self-funded operation, and this was a major financial hit for us. So why the crappy reliability, how does RouterBoard get away with it, and are these boards now good for anything more than expensive landfill?

There are adapters available which split power from data.
Just power over ether1 and use ether2 to communicate.

Hello Folks!

I have now changed the ethernet cable and made it take another route to, it did not help, no 100Mbit/S full duplex, it autoneg to 10 full duplex half of the reboots....

I had Cat6 shilded with some aluminium foil.
Now I have CAT5E for outdoor use with some aluminium foil.

RB450G <-1 meter- POE adapter---30 meters--->RB600A

Well, after restarting the RB600, it is 50/50, half of the times you got 100FDX and other half you got 10FDX.

So there is no difference.

I now simply reboot till it neogates till 100FDX, not so funny operation.

If I put FIX 100Mbit/s the ethernet link fully fails.

I use both the half mode poe adapter and the newer that is said to be for gigabit, no difference.

I start to think about fallback to old solution using separate power cable up in the mast now, a tricky operation which includes digging on new and drilling lots of extra holes here and there.

I have RB600 spare board, bur I am in doubt it will help, since someone told me, either the nic works or it do not work.

In my case this happens in presence of FM towers.

Hi Folks!

Okey that makes sense, so my ethernet cable start to work as FM antennas and then interference makes it failback to 10MBit/s full duplex,
My ethernet cable has some 10-15 meters where it is exposed for potential FM radio signals.
It makes even more sense since I can notice very very few error packages, all other NIC:s has zero.

And yes, about 4-5 km away there is an Television and FM tower for our local city.

I will try to shield my ethernet cables and ground them in the server room.

If that does not work, I have option to use fibre cables up in my mast.

We have also decided to test with another RB600 board, on same cable with and without POE and see if that helps.

Hello Folks!

Report from "grouding" operation, it did not help!

I believe I did all what could be done regarding shields and grounding.
I did add one ground spot and put wires from all devices to ground spot in the server room using THICK grounding wires.
Also I replaced all TP cables between various routers and swithes with shielded FTP CAT5E and FTP CAT6 ones with metal on the RJ45 connectors. Cable down from mast was grounded to the ground spot using that little wire in the TP cable.

I guess next I have to do is to try with another RB600 board to see if that works.
And last resort will be to put fibre wire up in mast.

Hello Folks!

We did fully redo all the grounding in entire site all accordingly to the book.
That helped, the RB600 did now connect at 100MB/s FDX.

After some weeks, the RB600 become unavailable at some random timepoints, then yesterday it become unavailable and dissappair from the network, not even restarts and so on worked.

Climbing up in mast, I discovered that RB600 was on, and healthy, all sectors was fully operational.

Yesterday night I did replace the RB600 with a new RB600, then it worked directly.

I will now put up ethernet cables to all ports in RB600 and also put up redundant power lines in addition to PoE, also we will put up one redundant RB600.

In the faulty RB600 all NIC:s work exept the PoE nic, can it be fixed in some way, are there fuses ? or is it just to ditch the board ?