I’ve been using 8 RIC522E’s in 4 ptp links of various distances. The last night the temperature dropped below -30C, and two of the RIC522E’s stopped responding (at two different places, two different links). This happened around midnight last night. The routers started working again 1130 this morning when the temperature slowly went up to about -20C.
Around 2100 this evening, when the temperature went below -30C again, the same RIC522E’s went offline again.
Both of the routers have worked flawlessly a little less than a year. Both are running 2.9.39. This is the first time the temperatures have dropped below -25C.
Shouldn’t the RIC522E manage -30C? Can we do something to keep CPU running at full load to generate more heat? Is there anything else we can do without replacing the routers?
One thing you should definitely check is the cpu-mode setting in the RouterBoards’ BIOS in the RICs.
You can choose between power-save and regular (don’t nail me for the exact name of the options…).
They come configured to power-save mode usually. When expecting temperatures well below 0°C, you are advised to change the cpu-mode to regular. That way the CPU will self-generate more “heat” which helps to keep things running in nights like you described…
Thank you! They were all set to cpu-mode power save and I just put all of them to regular, i’ll report back on how this goes.
(In 2.9.39 this setting is located here: system routerboard settings)
Is there any reason why I shouldn’t put all the mikrotik’s we buy in cpu-mode regular, except for the fact that they use a little more power?
The temperature is seldomly above 25C in summer, and often well below -20C in the winter.
Also, is there anything else I can do to make them generate more heat?
You should have been at the Krakow MUM, zhark! Not many participants from up north to see there, just 2 of us!
There was a polish guy that had a presentation about his network near Warzaw. Last winter he had -42C in the tower and all his 3 P4s boards in a steel cabinet had stopped functioning. Then he “wrote some funny scripts to get the CPU load up to 100%”
Hehe, I should get a copy of one of those funny scripts, right now I’m just folding my hands and hoping that the routers will make it through the night when set to cpu-mode regular.
Update 19:45: I’m using the bandwidth tool to make the it send constantly at 19mbps to generate as much heat as possible from the radio.
Update 10:54: Wooohooo! It made it through the night.
