What is the current most recommended combination of routerboard and N wireless card(s) for office N access point?
No wireless links this time, rather a bunch of laptops with n cards; need as much throughput as possible, as we tend to copy large (GB) files quite often.
i doubt if mikrotik has sort this n issue out yet, still having some hiccups from d last i read in this forum. send mail to support@mikrotik.com and let us have the response on the forum. wish you all the best.
if you want 1 radio: rb411AH + r52n
If you want two radio: rb433+ 2x r52n
It’s office AP, does it need 2 radios?
Also, what are the issues with N in AP context?
Two radio output mere power and use two different channels. It is better for outdoor applications.
For an office one radio si sufficent.
Using R52n (if you have problems with n) you could change band: 2.4Ghz b, 2.4Ghz g, 2.4Ghz b/g, 2.4Ghz b/g/n, 2.4Ghz n
I dont know issues using rb411h + r52 b/g/n as an access point.
We are using RB411AH with R52N in an office environment. It is very unstable. I have written several times to these forums about this, and have been experimenting since buying this bundle with no success.
Hmm… So what do you guys use if MT doesn’t work well?
I hardly believe everybody switched to DLink now…
I have no troubles with N.
Hardware capability and routerOS are light years ahead any Dlink device.
But assembly a radio could be not always so simple (you mus choose a good antenna).
What is a good N wifi antenna setup?
I would also like to know that, regarding an office setup. We are using two MikroTik AC/SWI rubber ducky antennas with the RB411 indoor case.
For an office the antenna really isn’t going to matter much any rubber duck antenna will work.. Just make sure its for the correct frequency.
L-Com, streakwave, practically any wireless distributor should carry either a dual band or single band rubber duck. (2.4GHz or 5.8GHz)
A single radio is fine, R52n supports MIMO so if you want to take advantage of MIMO get two antennas. You can use two radios if you want to have 2.4 and 5.8GHz in the office. Just depends on what you’re trying to support.
Any of the RBs will work, if you’re pushing GByte sized files then you may be better off using the H model boards they have faster CPU’s.
Anyway that’s my 2 cents…
@Congo – I’ve got the same setup only in an outdoor environment (dual pol ARC 5GHz antennas) 8mile point to point link and its pushing well over 75mbps UDP.. That’s testing to the board, if I were testing through it I’m sure throughput would be higher.
Oh, that’s confusing… So do we have N problems on routerboards, or any of RB will work?
I don’t see the confusion.. I was referring to your original post that said you need to be able to transfer gigabyte sized files… Well the more traffic you push through the board, the higher the load on the CPU, might be best to have the power there if need… The RBH have a higher clock speed than the standard RB so I was suggesting the H models to provide for your bandwidth needs, better to have more power than not enough in my opinion.
I’ve only used the R52n cards in the RB411AH, but there’s no reason to assume they wouldn’t work as expected in any other routerboard model. Again I was simply stating the “H” model routerboards (talking routerboards not minipci radios) have a higher clock speed and are suited for more demanding applications.
I was referring to the ongoing controversy in replies: unstable, slow, problematic vs. “no problems at all”.
Is there any common patters of usage or config between those who said MT is unusable as office access point due to instability and other issues?
Did anyone say anything about actually using a Routerboard with R52n indoors? Because some people have outdoor point-to-point .11n links running fine (from all the comments it seems they are the minority 
), and they say it should be okay indoors too. Has anybody tested this with for example notebook clients? Because I have, and the results are poor. I am not debating about the power, but rather the wireless side. I tend to think R52n is the problem (or the wireless driver maybe).
I am not an ISP, and currently only use RBs indoors for wifi and for wired routing. It seems more and more people consider using them for non-ISP applications. We also give lots of them to clients who don’t have the bucks for an enterprise grade product.
I use 802.11n all day, every day..
I use an atom based AP. (Blackbird) (shameless plug)
I run high output SR71-E cards..
I have a client that is deploying these at over 100 FBOs in the US..
“Runs great, lasts long time”..
If you are TOO close to an 802.11 with it turned all the way up, your client can get swamped and it wont talk…
back off a bit or try turning it down a bit..
What? Blackbird SR71? It makes one cool access point, isn’t it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird
Play on ID numbers…
http://www.flexrouters.com
Is there any trick to make it running stable, or SR71 just do better job then R52 for “local” N connectivity?
he is just trying to sell it
generally, all RouterOS devices perform with similar stability, just the power and price changes. for a small number of users you would be good with RB411 and R52N