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Question of the Day: Was the Airlink flyover too low?
Mikrotik nap ac Lite
- Thread starter Jbn222
- Start date
Hamish McPanji
Honorary Master
Do you have it already, or are you looking to buy? The WiFi on the mikrotiks is particularly schit in my experience
Speedster
Honorary Master
You sure the buffering is due to WiFi?
Wasabee!
Executive Member
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If the wireless is bad and the OP is far away it could be.
Agreed, the WiFi on Mikrotik devices suck. For an AP I'd really recommend Ubiquiti instead.
The perfect combo: RB2011 or RB3011 with a couple of Ubiquiti UniFis. This is our go to for anything about 50Mb.
Very good combo. The RB2011 is getting a little long in the tooth, but to most end users it doesn't matter, they will never use a 2011 to its full capacity anyway, even if they have Gigabit internet.
Speedster
Honorary Master
Sure, but if the wireless is good and he's close then maybe it's not. Anyway, the fact that he mentions it buffers during peak times makes me think it might not be the wifi.
I'm writing this post from work. Part of today's todo list is to reset 4 x 2011s that have been replaced with 3011s and prep them for ewaste. We're finding that customers struggle with them once speeds go over 200Mb, even on Vuma with their DHCP setup that places a lot less stress on the CPU than PPPOE.
Then there's the very valid "long in the tooth" comment. We've been connecting clients to our own fibre for many years. One of the 2011s on my bench still has the internal power socket. It's probably been out there for five years and should be replaced in any case. Mikrotik aren't known for using mil spec caps on their boards, and prevention is better than cure.
More or less to be expected. I started to move my RB2011's to "Switches" as they make fairly ok switches that can handle Gigabit speed. Not the best use for them, but as its only a home environment it makes much more sense for me to reuse mine as small switches (its not pretty however, no 1U will ever be a pretty solution).
I suspect most 2011's are close to EOL at this stage, internet speeds have increased dramatically since they were released locally. Have you considered using RB4011's? The RB4011 has decent performance and is more than capable of beating my CCR (Definitely beats the RB3011 hands down) I use at home.
Connected directly with cable.
Received it with original installation of 10/2 but since upgraded to 20/2 when I started streaming.
Speedster
Honorary Master
a router isn't going to solve your problems
I find the ac Lite better than an expensive ASUS that it replaced. 10m from the device, I get -80dbm whereas the ASUS was -90 and intermittent
I use it with 20/2 and it has proved 100% reliable in 14 months
I use it with 20/2 and it has proved 100% reliable in 14 months
We were early adopters of 4011s. We bought many of them, replaced CCR1009s and 3011s. Half of them have been pulled from our network and are being rolled out to "safe" clients who have air conditioned server rooms.
"4011" is now a bit of a swear word in this company.
Problem 1: They DO NOT like Bidi SFP+. This we discovered the hard way. We don't sell gigabit service on SFP ports. The layer 1 needs to be more than 1Gb to guaranty 1Gb to the client.
Problem 2: They don't like being in a cabinet in a pop on a mountain where the POP is in direct sunlight. Board temperature jumps up to 75', the router locks up and customers "bel en skel". A 1036 with SFP+ doesn't even reach 50' in the same environment.
Problem 3: The design is just stupid. If you put it in a network cabinet with a rackmount aircon in the bottom, you get this blast of cold air coming through the "wings". Equipment above the 4011 doesn't benefit much from the a/c. Customers get seriously the hell in when you give them the good news that the network cabinet in a 250 seat call centre needs to be redone to accommodate the new router that has to sit at the very top.
However, the 4011 with WiFi is a totally different beast. The first one I installed gave me a 280Mb download on speedtest over the WiFi. Strangely, that one doesn't give issues with Bidi SFP+.
My personal opinion is that Mikrotik rushed that product to market without enough testing.
The first round of 2019 load shedding taught us that GSM Commanders are actually useless in the event of a power failure, if the GSM network also goes down. We now use "canaries" on all our sites that are monitored by PRTG. PRTG then sends push notifications, emails and SMSs if the canary goes offline. First we took all the old RB750s and RB1100s back to sites and plugged them into "dirty" power. The canaries are becoming more and more "up to date". We're now using still workable 2011s and hAP lites on our new POPs and at our SLA clients' sites.
"4011" is now a bit of a swear word in this company.
Problem 1: They DO NOT like Bidi SFP+. This we discovered the hard way. We don't sell gigabit service on SFP ports. The layer 1 needs to be more than 1Gb to guaranty 1Gb to the client.
Problem 2: They don't like being in a cabinet in a pop on a mountain where the POP is in direct sunlight. Board temperature jumps up to 75', the router locks up and customers "bel en skel". A 1036 with SFP+ doesn't even reach 50' in the same environment.
Problem 3: The design is just stupid. If you put it in a network cabinet with a rackmount aircon in the bottom, you get this blast of cold air coming through the "wings". Equipment above the 4011 doesn't benefit much from the a/c. Customers get seriously the hell in when you give them the good news that the network cabinet in a 250 seat call centre needs to be redone to accommodate the new router that has to sit at the very top.
However, the 4011 with WiFi is a totally different beast. The first one I installed gave me a 280Mb download on speedtest over the WiFi. Strangely, that one doesn't give issues with Bidi SFP+.
My personal opinion is that Mikrotik rushed that product to market without enough testing.
The first round of 2019 load shedding taught us that GSM Commanders are actually useless in the event of a power failure, if the GSM network also goes down. We now use "canaries" on all our sites that are monitored by PRTG. PRTG then sends push notifications, emails and SMSs if the canary goes offline. First we took all the old RB750s and RB1100s back to sites and plugged them into "dirty" power. The canaries are becoming more and more "up to date". We're now using still workable 2011s and hAP lites on our new POPs and at our SLA clients' sites.
Two years we bought a 1100DX4 Dude edition. Dude kept on falling over on it, so we moved Dude back to a CHR. That router is now our "LAN switch" in Teraco Isando for our servers up there - as it as two power supplies. That really is like taking the Ferrari to the corner store to buy milk, but the router doesn't have any SFPs and we didn't know what else to do with it.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks for the response, incredible insight into how hard it is to choose the correct router for a network, and why the RB4011 isn't that good. Hopefully they bring new revisions with better thermals some day.
Unfortunately that is the best case for a "not useful" Mikrotik, its better than throwing them away (Those 1100DX4's are expensive).
Make sure nothing else is using up bandwidth, and make sure the "Line" and the ISP account is upgraded as well. Without knowing specific details the best advice would be to make sure you don't have other devices using all your bandwidth, and to make sure you are actually getting 20Mbps. The HAP AC Lite should still be able to handle 20Mbps easily without breaking a sweat.