I left for the holidays and while I was gone the temp was 20 degree without windchill. We got lots of snow. I am just guessing at this point that the XR3 is freezing. I am going to go out and check. But has anyone else experiencing this?
I do not have proof yet. I will post if I find proof. Its cold enough right now. Let me know if you guys find this a problem.
It is colder here. We get down below zero F on the cold days. It was -6 one morning two weeks ago. No problems with my RB411AH Xr3-3.7 PtP link. We have seen about 14 inches of snow so far this winter. Had lots of ice and downed power lines on the 24th and 25th.
Tom
yeah, our ptp works. We have multiple ptp. This instance is a ptmp that doesnt have much traffic. So the radio card and the rb cools down. I am just thinking out of the box and asking around. Maybe it is not freezing at all. Seems like if no one passes traffic a long time customers start to disconnect. Weird.
I’m seeing issues here also. We have a number of customers who went down. Unplugging the POE for 2 minutes or so (1 isn’t enough) and they came back up. Still have more people with problems, so we will see what has to be done to fix them. We also have a number of customers whose P throughput went down less than 100 till we rebooted them. Seems related to the cold, but who knows.
We have been down to -20, windchill to -80 or more.
Tom
I am still waiting for the next time we have a problem. Then I will get proof. So far so good. Anyone else have issues in cold temps?
yup, last night R52H was unstable. Tx speed was >22Mbps, but Rx speed nearly <1Mbps. But it perhaps was antenna fault.
You might be in the wrong thread. This is about XR3s.
we used our temperature chamber again, and I can tell you the results for our own RouterBOARD wireless cards:
running in the RB800 the wireless cards continued to throughput traffic in the range from -70C to +65C, the only difference was that when it got near to the mentioned temperature extremes, the transmit speed dropped to 2.5Mbps/2.5Mbps (at start of test it was 8 ). Below -70C the connection stopped because RB800 couldn’t work bellow this limit.
I’m assuming that your test results are similar for all the rb cards. Loss of throughput isn’t our issues. I have had a problem with our 411/XR3 radios since we started using them. We have customers who have been on just fine and then all of a sudden they don’t connect. You can do a scan in the radio, see the ap, but it will never connect. We unplug the poe to the radio, wait 2 to 5 minutes, plug it back in, connects right up.
For some reason, when it got really cold here, radios started dropping like flies, the vast majority of them came back to life after this reboot process I mentioned. It would sure be nice to know what that is all about. Some of the radios even had rssi’s in the 40’s. My installer gets frustrated all the time. He climbs a roof, takes a radio with him, it connects, he calls the office, they tell him the rssi and help him align it. Then he mounts it, runs the cable, and when he goes to plug it in again, it won’t connect, he has to do the 2-5 minute reboot again and then it will connect.
Part of our installation procedure now is to tell the customer that if he has a problem connecting, that he has to do this and it will probably work.
Tom
I still havent recieved a repair ticket from the installer yet for help. Once I do I will get proof. Yes I have the same issue with the XR3 card. Thanks for you input.
John from Natel left a message on my phone saying he had a link go offline. He reset the defaults and still it did not go online. He said the only think he replaced (he did this with out moving the antenna) was the XR3 card. The link went online and it is still online. Its a day later. He also said is not below 0 degress yet either.
I thought this note would help us out.
In my case, removing the radio, replacing the radio, then rebooting would have taken long enough that it would have fixed the problem. If it were not a bad radio but the issue I’m dealing with.
Tom
Rebooting the Routerboard takes cpu and builds up heat to the radio card. This heats up the crystal in the radio card. Causing it to work after a reboot. If its too cold it will freeze too much and a reboot wont fix it. Did I understand what you said?
But would the radio be able to scan and see access points with good rssi’s if the radio were not working correctly?
Tom
When the crystal freezes, yes the only thing you will able to do it scan. You will see the ap at good signal. When the crystal freezes it breaks the transmit power. The transmit power goes very low and cant reach the ap. So it cant connect even at a good signal.
ok, I understand what you are saying about the transmit not working. This would make sense this time of year, but it also happens in the summer months also. But, you may be on to something about the inability to transmit maybe.
Tom
I do not have problems during the summer. If you do not have a good enough signal.(-75). The XR3 falls a sleep during no traffic and drops 10dbm. So now you have -85 and it may disconnect. Does this help? I can improve you system with an antenna array and get you our 10 miles.
402-534-2502 ext 22
cell 402-641-7692
No, it is not the sleep thing, they just won’t connect, even though they can scan an access point at a good signal. It is happening in the summer, but it has been happening a lot more since it has been brutally cold here.
I just got word that one of our access points (411a/R52) that is running really bad. Seems all the rssi’s are down on every client and at the access point. It is probably at -40 or more wind chill at the top of the elevator. We’ll see how it turns out, we might have to drive there and reboot the ap and see what happens.
I hate this Winter, we have had lots of ice, snow, and frigid temps. Pretty hard to work outside not to mention all the problems.
Tom
I am using the RB411 boards with XR3. I havent had a problem since I setup a continuous bandwidth test(256kbps) to one customer from the ap. Try that and let me know if this works. If it does help you too, even in the summer. I think we might be on to something.