Good Day.
Im wondering if someone could give me some pointers.
I have a 3.2Ghz PC on one of my high sites that function as a repeater and client distribution.
Currently i have 3x rb52h
1xXR5
2xSR5
MiniPCI’s IN Two RB14’s
Now what seems too happen is this PC has begun locking up sometimes and ive yet to pin point the problem.
At first i thought PSU, Replaced that.
Ram, Replaced that.
Cleaned ALL components will alcohol and even siliconed parts in place in case of expansion/contraction related contact problems.
The Main Backbone link runs off the XR5 and is set in 10mhz mode.
What ive now concluded or at least think is happening is that is it DIRECTLY related too throughput.
Once There is alot of traffic on the Backbone link (XR5) if it remains constant for a hour or more the board locks up.
Any advise? Ive now reduced the XR5 power in hopes that works.
What sort of power does it need then?
Ive got a 450w PSU at the moment, it did have a 300w initially.
So there is 6 radios in the pci slots ? Maybe it is problems with power - power to the pci cards. I dont know what the maximum draw is on the pci bus. It could also be an IRQ conflict. Have you disabled serial, parallel, usb, floppy, ide 2, etc in the bios ?
Could be power to PCI bus…
Yes 6 Radios.
And Yes everything has been disabled. Serial,Parallel/Sound/SATA/FD And Even USB if im not mistaken.
Ok update..
Ive replaced the motherboard/cpu/ram.
Ive replaced the XR5 aswell.
Ive added a new rb14 and moved the xr5 and sr5 to it.
The other RB14 has 1x r52h
The Last one has 3x r52h
Problem still exists. wtf!
I’ve read that the rb14 isn’t recommended with the SR5:
“Should not be used with SR5 or SR2 400mW miniPCI”
My guess is that this is because of power draw. I will look to find you something that woujld let you inject power into that 3.3v line to power things externally.
xr5 is almost 6 watts
sr5 is about 4.3 watts
r52h is about 2.64 watts
thats 6 + 4.3 + (2.64 * 4) = 20.86 watts.
my guess is that its taxing the pci bus of power. or it could be so much interefence from the radios causing the mobo to go haywire. just guesses…
How would i know the limits of the PCI bus?
Also im pretty sure this unit used to work fine with this configuration, or worst case with one sr5 less and all R52H’s with SR2’s.
Also note i did try limiting the XR5’s power to 26dbm instead of the default 28dbm.
This made no difference.
Out of desperation i will now replace the XR5 with a SR5, but worried about comparability…
Ive heard rumors that an SR5 to XR5 link will be unstable…?
Also will replace the 450w name brand PSU with a 350w brand new cheapo, and replace DOM, and two last remaining RB14’s. If this doesn’t solve it im jumping off that damn building!
Managed to find replacement for XR5 so i didn’t have to worry about compatibility.
Didn’t solve the problem.
Replaced the LAN card, thought that did the trick, no joy.
Have for fork out for RB600 now.
Ok, forked out for a RB600 , problem went away but not after i had to solve a problem on the RB600 itself of the watchdog timer rebooting the damn board the whole time!
But now i have a new issue. It seems replacing the PC with the router board resulted in clients getting worse signal!
Now i have clients connecting/disconnecting the whole time!
Anybody have advise on that one?
This has really been a painful experience!
my only opinion left is to split that many cards up between more than 1 system… its probably too much interference now : ) I know, I know, you don’t want to hear that. But 6 pretty high power radios in a single case, it’s just asking for problems.
I do in fact have it somewhat split.
The RB600 has 3x rb52h and 1x XR5
Then via LAN it is connected to a RB532 With the two SR5 cards.
The PSU sitution is as follows:
The RB600 has a 16v 3.16A PSU
The RB532 Has a 30v 1A PSU
I have spoken to a few people now and it seems that they confirm using Routerboards instead of PC’s yield lower signal.
Now too me this sounds awfully strange!
Is there not maby a chance that the way the Routerboards are designed the cards are to close to one another and hence inter-fear with each other?
Else i need to find a way to replace the Most NB card of the lot of RB52H cards with a SR2 or XR2, although i will not be able to get my hands on XR2!