First of all, I want to say that this forum is great. I’ve been lurking for a couple weeks now and finally got a question to ask.
We are just starting to installs at customers houses (currently 73) and we are starting to have to deal with service calls. Do any of you have a checklist you follow for tech. issues. I. E. check the radio signal, have the user check for ip address, etc. I’m not sure what kind of troubleshooting needs to be done before we send someone out to the house. Thanks in advance for the information.
- Log into the AP and look at the sessions tab to determine how the AP sees the SM. I am looking for a signal level between -75 and -65dB (as much as possible…they won;t all fall into the 10dB range). If the power level at the AP is lower than -75, I bump up the power on the SM until it maxes out. After than a higher gain antenna is required. Read the threads regarding too much gain at the AP side.
2. Log into the SM and look at the status tab to dermine how the SM sees the AP. Again I am looking for -75dB or better. If the level is too low, then more gain is needed. No such thing as too much gain at the SM side of the link - the SM only needs to see the AP.
3. Look at the ethernet stats and see if the out octects is substantially higher than the inoctets. If they are, the customer probably has a virus and is spewing. We set the SM’s to 3 second refresh so that we can watch things change. If they are spewing, you can watch the outoctects count up without the inoctects changing much.
4. Assuming all of the RF levels are good, I have them reboot the router, computer, and radio. If they run for a while and then get progressively worse until it stops working, that is usually related to virus, but not always. sometimes new interference can creep in and kill a previously working link.
Usually the problems that we encounter are related to viruses spewing data and locking up the routers.
Hi Jerry,
On My AP side i see many SM with a dB of 54 - 67
is 54 too hot on the AP ? we use 5.7, and the sm only have low / normal gain so cannot really control the gain.
any suggestions ?
You might risk trying to change the really hot SM’s to low power mode. Remember if it drops off its a truck roll.
when you do your installs, and the link is really hot, try it in low power mode before you leave.
Less is more.