'Aging' routerboards?

RouterOS General
1

2 of my oldest rb433AH boards, in service for some 3/4 years or so started to give strange results.
I also have one rb1000 that can’t even be upgraded anymore since it lacks sufficiant memory space…? (Yes, I did remove evertything possibe from the disk. Only a small package is accepted. But the ‘system’ package give the message ‘unsufficiant memory’)

One rb433AH I actually could revive a bit and is lying on my desk as sort of last resort emergency board.

Last event is a rb433AH working for 3 years now in same spot, in same function. It lost its Ether1 port already over a year ago. The Poe is not delivered by a powersplitter and the data goes in/out through E2.

But since a week or two it can’t gets its time client updated anylonger. Settings aren’t changed, are exactly the same as its clients and are exactly the same as routers higher up in the network (towards my main gateway, which is premium time server for all routers. Second time server is a server from the internet. I use two different one spread over all my boards. They work everywhere, except now for this rb433AH.

This specific rb433AH is not having any firewall filters enabled, nor are adjacent routers preventing the ntp protocol.
I tried to renew all the 5.24 package I use (system package is having the default ntp client), I reset the ntp settings to default and build them again. Router is rebooted several times. All it says it is waiting another 16second for the next attempt… and it tries both given time servers…

Since two days this router now also witout reason starts to disconnect its ethernet port. It needs a reboot to make it working again.

This all happens in normal, dry but not too dry mild weather (so no ESD build up I presume).

We happen to have had a rainshower just now, and the board did nothing else than disconnection itself. Now it is dry it comes back on again and seems to stay on a little longer. But by all means, this is not the first rain shower in 3 year! What is happening? (Time is still not updated tho.)

I also have some rb333. when the work they are very good. But the older they become, the problems they give with unstable working (stalling, of failing ports.)

So, are the boards ‘aging’? Do I need to start thinking of a lifespan of 4-5 year? Is that not a bit short?

2

The most stable boards I have, is old 532.

I have newer had troble with age, on boards from 133 and up. really old old old boards with pcmia slots, the old “home computer casing with wlan cards etc” is gone some years ago.

Capitor is a problem on some board.

3

" rb1000 that can’t even be upgraded anymore since it lacks sufficiant memory space…? "

netinstall should do a trick

I agree with u WirelessRudy lot of boards have ether problems
Most difficult for me was on my RB800 ether1 stop working (no lighting, no storms, no PoE)
just stooped, after a while I sow on same board >7% bad blocks I do reboot
and the board never run again, I cant do netinstall ether1 is not working
this is print screen of my new RB800 2 mounts old
rb800bs.png
as u can see I already have 3.6% Bad Blocks

till now I have about 60 SXT-lite pursuit
1 have ether problem (exactly with pins mechanical problems) - MT support told me its not possible the units are tested before selling
3 from them are starting after 2 min they just stop working (something like freezing)
Ive done netinstall but it didn’t help
I dont even bother to send complain to support

4

turn off logging to flash, and bad blocks are gone. This was really a problem earlier, in boards using CF cards. If you logged to CF, it would not last more than less than a year.

5

I just replaced some 433AH, they were giving strange problems, ethernet not connecting, we tried to flash, upgrade and all that and it still would just kill ethernet, when i opened one and found out that 2 capaciator were bad. looks like over time these do get bad and end up with random ethernet connect not connect issues.

6

Hi,

I have found, at least in our case, that most hardware issues stem from faulty capacitors.
I just visited one of our oldest base stations (about 6 years running 24x7) and an AP running off an RB600 was outputting a hissing noise from the piezo speaker. On visual inspection, it turns out that most of the capacitors are leaking. Although the board is still running, I am sure that capacitor replacement should fix the problem as it has on most of our boards.

BTW, any idea which part is/are the capacitor(s) on some of the RB750/ RB750G boards? Seems like they are ceramic/solid state but I am not sure which they are and their specifications.

Rgds,
Mark.