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Velocity
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WIreless radiocards loosing wireless on routerboard

Sat Apr 22, 2006 5:49 pm

Tower setup ;

23mtrs height

At 20 meter a RB500 ( came with 2.9.11, now 2.9.20 ) in mikrotik outdoor box. ( with 3xCM9 radio )
At 21 meter a18dbi panel 5hz for backbone
At 23 meters 1 omni 9dbi 5Ghz and a omni 12dbi 2,4Ghz mounted to pole ( diameter 50mm)

first time ;
the tower was powered up the 2,4Ghz radio worked for a couple of days and died on wireless side.
- replaced radio, measured the cables , nothing found

Second time ;
After a couple of days again the 2,4Ghz radio died on wireless side.
- replaced radio, measured the cables , replaced pigtail, placed radio in other slot on router board.

Third time ;
After a couple of hours checked, and yes again the 2,4 radio died on wireless side
- replaced radio, replaced antenna, replaced cable, grounded the tower and mikrotik box.

Fourth time ;
Within a hour, again the radio on 2,4Ghz died on wireless side.
- I’m out of ideas , how can give me some hints

Could it be that the 9db 5Ghz blows away the 2,4 radio ?, as the Omni’s are next to each other ?
Could it be a software issue ? witch disables the wireless side ?
 
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rickard
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Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:30 pm

Hi

is it standard CM9 cards or R52 cards from MT ?
//Rickard
 
tully
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Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:08 pm

It is a common problem that the pigtail u.fl connector sleeve can touch a capacitor and short the radio -- and it dissappears from the PCI bus. Check this.

Also if the board really overheats, usually the PCI bus dissappears first. Maybe add some ventilation holes if you think it is getting really hot. Or replace the RB500 board to see if there is simply a defect with that board. If you are overclocking to 330MHz, then you should go back to 266MHz.

John
 
Velocity
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Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:58 pm

Thanks for quick replying

The CM9 cards are original Wistron , last one i put in was a clone 5212

I use these types in all my towers , never had any prblem with clone or original cards, but to be sure it isnt a bad series of CM9's i placed a older 5212 the last time wich i used in my laptop so i knew it was a good one.

i will check if pigtailsleeve touches the circuit, but don't think its the problem as the cards works further fine, only the wireless part dies.
( i checked dead cards in antother system to be sure )

Could overclocking ( the board is indeed running at 330Mhz ) damage wireless part of a radio card ?

I think i may go for the last option you mentioned tully, replace the whole board.

only strange thing is that other two cards are running fine for days now,
Last edited by Velocity on Sun May 07, 2006 11:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
 
jarosoup
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Sun Apr 23, 2006 5:07 am

What are the specs of the power supply you are using?
 
Velocity
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Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:03 am

Power suply is a original 48V from Mikrotik with a 15meters UTP cable to the routerboard.
 
jarosoup
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Sun Apr 23, 2006 9:06 pm

Is anything grounded? If so, do you have more than one ground point?
 
Velocity
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Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:08 pm

the tower has three 8meters concrete poles in the ground as fundation.

last time we drilled one grounding pin next to the tower , and connected it.

also we connected the grounding of the mikrotikbox to the tower.

so everything is extra grounded.

still the radio died at its wireless side after a while
 
Velocity
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Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:58 pm

Well think CM9 number 5 has died on wireless, still works a little (very weak signals on a scan from all AP's in range )

before i put in number 5 i changed position of omni 5Ghz to a lower point in the tower, so 2,4ghz and 5ghz omni are not in opposit of eachother anymore, also i discharched myself 3 times to the tower just to be suree

didnt helped either :cry:
 
jarosoup
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Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:39 am

What I was getting at with the grounding is the possibility that with more than one ground, you can have a differential between your grounds, which can cause voltage and equipment failure. Try to isolate all of your grounds to one point only (this may require you isolate your ap from the tower and it's ground ). With this many fried cards, you either have a bad board (which is very unlikely with this kind of problem), a bad power supply and/or ethernet/power run, or you've got a ground loop. I bet it's your ground. Does this board with radios installed work fine when tested on the bench?
 
Velocity
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Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:38 pm

thanks for helping me out here guys,

will try your sugestion jarosoup ;

ordered new radios and boards, when the arive ;

- i'm going to try if i can measure some differential between grounds.
- isolate antennas from tower
- isolate radiobox from tower
- measure if there are strange voltages POE/ground etc.
- replace board/radios and put the old board on the bench for testing.

still i cant believe it do, because other radios are still running fine.
i believe, if a strange voltage is on the tower the should be blwn out to.
 
Velocity
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Sat May 06, 2006 11:40 pm

found a quote to put in this topic, could be useful to anyone

Another point, MT boards have isolated onboard power supplies (very good practice) which means earth-potential-differences indoor to outdoor aren't a problem. Not true on some other boards, where you can get "earth loops" or worse if you ground the outdoor earth/antenna - which you should do of course.

Worth reading up on 802.3af specs to know more ...

and this link could be of interest,

http://forum.routerboard.com/viewtopic. ... 9e0234bf6f

but i dont say its my problem here, i will test it as my new cm9 cards and routerboards have arrived today, so i can test the old board.
 
Velocity
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Sun May 07, 2006 11:29 am

[quote="Velocity"]Thanks for quick replying

The CM9 cards are original Wistron , last one i put in was a clone 5212

I use these types in all my towers , never had any prblem with clone or original cards, but to be sure it isnt a bad series of CM9's i placed a older 5212 the last time wich i used in my laptop so i knew it was a good one.

i will check if pigtailsleeve touches the circuit, but don't think its the problem as the cards works further fine, only the wireless part dies.
( i checked dead cards in antother system to be sure )

Could overclocking ( the board is indeed running at 330Mhz ) damage wireless part of a radio card ?

I think i may go for the last option you mentioned tully, replace the whole board.

only strange thing is that other two cards are running fine for days now,
 
Velocity
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Sat May 13, 2006 3:20 pm

well we replaced RB500 with doughterboard and the broken CM9
hope it goes well now. ( running for couple of hours now )

also we measured with a microAmpere meter if there are any strange voltage streams, and INDEED there was some between tower and ground.

dont know if it did broke the CM9 several times, but now we have isolated everything from the tower, and measured between antenneground and tower/ground to check isolation.

from now on , we ISOLATE antenna and check ALWAYS with micro-amp/volt meter.

COAX/connectors we always check with Ohm megger, also a nice way to see if moisture has came into the connector.

will put the RB500 board on the bench for testing do, keep you updated.

Thanks for helping so far ...
 
jarosoup
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Mon May 15, 2006 8:16 pm

Glad that has (hopefully) fixed your problem. I'm curious if any of your old hardware still works on the bench?
 
Velocity
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Fri May 19, 2006 9:55 pm

hello !, yes i'm back with another (almost) dead cm9 card ( #5 so far )

- last time we replaced routerboard/daughterboard, cm9 ,pigtails, cable, antenna
- we isolated everything from earth/tower etc, well read up

worked for almost a week i believe, i'm going crazy here....

only thing, it started to rain a couple of days ago, could make a connection between tower and antenne ( wich is isolated from tower )....
 
FASSIA
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Sat May 20, 2006 1:19 am

It`s a very strange problem.

But I thing that you should check your power supply, I bet that it`s the main cause which produces you that problem.

In the WISP where I work, recently we have a very similar situation. We have a RB532 (MT 2.9.18 ) with the daughtboard and on it we put two 400mW 2,4GHz cards and a CM9 card (3 cards altogether).

So, we have a problem with our power supply (24V. - 2,5A), because it drops only 17V instead of 24V. So, the RouterBoard reset every time it reach the login prompt. Finaly, we change the power supply and could login correctly, but we found that the configuration of the 2,4GHz cards had been lost and we could not see the CM9 card in the wireless submenu.

I thing that the firmware of the CM9 card probably blow up because of the continous "auto-resets", but I don`t have any idea why the routerboard lost the configuration of the other cards.

Right now I`m doing test with two routerboards, one have MT 2.9.4 and the another have 2.9.24 The older one, lost the wireless configuration, the other one not. But I dìdn`t do any test with the CM9 cards, I don`t want to loose another one card! jejejje

well, I hope that info helps you

bye!
 
cibernet
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Sat May 20, 2006 7:47 am

We have a RB532 (MT 2.9.18 ) with the daughtboard and on it we put two 400mW 2,4GHz cards and a CM9 card (3 cards altogether).
Too much.... you can put MAX 2 SR cards on ONE RB... (and without the doughterboard...) or you could blow up the regulator on the RB...


Regards....

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