Is there any device that stays connected 24/7/365 (just for guidance, not strictly)?

I am asking all of YOU because the wiki displays A LOT of devices, but testing just 2 of them, Huawei E220 and Vodafone K3765, with any firmware, either Vodafone or the original Huawei, either the stable 4.xx for Mikrotik or the RC5.xx, after a few days the devices are going down and there is no way putting them back online, only "initializing" and "resetting link". If unplugging and reinserting, then it's ok, the connection is good, but imagine hiring people to do this on mountain top every 1-2 days. Is the miniPCI-E the way? USB, or miniPCI-E? Should i never get back to 411U and just forget and forgive? Should i return the boards for RMA?

Thank You, i really need a 3g solution, i have a lot of BEER for the working one and a NO VISA travelling in the EU.

I also had problems with usb 3G Modems in a RB433 and x86 machine they would have the same problem
the modems would go down and have to reboot or unplug and reinsert to get them going again.

Then bought a RB411U and a Sierra Wireless MC8780 miniPCI-E card a lot better then the usb dongles.
never had a problem since.

Thanks, i'll give Sierra Wireless a try. Anyone else luckier than me, regarding this problem? If a reboot could solve the problem on RB411U... but the USB port stays powered during the remote reboot.

Thanks for Sierra Wireless tip. I have been thinking what 3G modem to get for more serious need that I have with one oncoming project.

You may have read my postings about Huawei E160E and yes, it is too unreliable for serious use. But works for me for occasional manual backup connection in my home office.

I also had problems with usb 3G Modems in a RB433 and x86 machine they would have the same problem
the modems would go down and have to reboot or unplug and reinsert to get them going again.

Then bought a RB411U and a Sierra Wireless MC8780 miniPCI-E card a lot better then the usb dongles.
never had a problem since.

Hi, can You also help us with the firmware version number of your Sierra Card, revision, RouterOS version, other important details, etc? I don't want to hit the wall again, my head is already in pain. And you had no connection problems, it just stays connected for weeks/months? I will hardly try to buy this model, depending on your answer to my final question, because the MC8780 is now legacy, and hard to find.

Thank YOU

RB411UARH

You can reset the power on the USB port aswell.

RB411UARH

You can reset the power on the USB port aswell.

How are you doing it? The RB411UAHR needs external power adapter for USB. If so, how do You reset the power? Any of Your answers, i have only RB411U.

[admin@RB411U] > /system resource usb power-reset
ERROR: USB power reset not implemented on this hardware

[admin@RB411U] > /system routerboard print
routerboard: yes
model: "411U"
serial-number: "2801014F****"
current-firmware: "2.29"
upgrade-firmware: "2.29"

[admin@RB411U] > /system resource print
uptime: 23h37m2s
version: "5.0rc11"
free-memory: 18848KiB
total-memory: 29712KiB
cpu: "MIPS 24Kc V7.4"
cpu-count: 1
cpu-frequency: 300MHz
cpu-load: 2%
free-hdd-space: 32556KiB
total-hdd-space: 61440KiB
write-sect-since-reboot: 408
write-sect-total: 952891
bad-blocks: 0%
architecture-name: "mipsbe"
board-name: "RB411U"
platform: "MikroTik"

RB411UARH

You can reset the power on the USB port aswell.

Just remembering that RB411UAHR would need external power for usb and STX is first board that implements power reset feature. Or have I missed some hw changes somewhere?

I think that good modem should not need that kind of trick to work.

Hello again, i just ordered 4 pcs MC8780, found them in Germany. I'll keep You informed about the results, but please notice that the praised MC8780 is end of life, and hard to find. Hope it will work.

Thanks ghiooo but those old models are not good for me. I also found those old models cheaply in ebay.

In Finland we have 2100 MHz and 900 MHz 3G networks in use. 2100 MHz is used only in cities and 900 MHz in other areas. From Sierra Wireless 3G modules I would be needing quite new model that supports 900 MHz 3G band.

Will these current Sierra models (MC8792, MC8355 or MC8305) work with RouterOS? I found only some year old forum posts about problems with them. Are someone using them successfully?

Also at least some HP and Dell cards supports both of these 3G bands and are not listed in hw page either.

Seems that I have to trial and error what will work.

I have now done some testing with Nokia CS-17 usb modem, since I wanted to test some other brand than Huawei stick. Support for this Nokia stick is probably coming to ROS 5.0. Thanks to Mikrotik for adding it! (If someone interested datachannel=2 and infochannel=4)

Sadly I have to report that CS-17 has same kind initalizing...connecting loop issue as with huawei. It seems that stick goes into some error state, PPP-info showing error status and no operator or network. And only way to recover was to disconnect stick to make power reset. I have sent supouts to support if they get something useful information from them.

Otherwise it has now worked for two days and 15 gigabytes of data transferred through it, so it's ok for soho where you can do that manual power reset if needed (or if you have SXT with power reset feature). So I will continue testing some days and start to look where to get Sierra card.

Hi,

I have the exact same problem, i need a robust solution like yours mikko.

I have tested some Sierra Wireless Airlink and Teltonika products (3G routers), but teltonika had some problem with robustness and Sierra wireless are to expensive...

Right now i was aiming to test Mikrotik solutions. I would like to test 2 approaches:
1 - Solution with USB stick and board 433UARH;
2 - Solution with board 411U and onboard SIM with MiniPCiE 3G Modem (Sierra Wireless).

I have problems in both of this approachs:

Solution 1, i´m not sure how the previously mentioned power reset for the 433UARH works. Does any one knows if there is really a power cut (how does this feature works)? Because this is what is needed for the all the restart process of the USB stick. Otherwise the USB stick won´t be able to recover from the zombie state. I know that this is not an elegant solution, but if guarantees 100% recovery, i find it at least minimally robust. There is another negative point with this approach, the router board 433UARH is a little bit expensive, 120€...

Solution 2, is more elegant and cheaper (RB411U - 60€) at least without the Sierra wireless card. But i can´t seem to find the Sierra wireless cards at cheap prices anywhere else then ebay. Does anyone know a place that resells this cards at affordable prices...? There is still another point, i´m not sure that this solution is 100% stable...

Can you help me with this ideas?

Regards

Hi,

Just noticed that there is a version RB411UAHR cheaper then the RB433UAHR.

Does any one know if it comes with the USB power reset/ power cut ?

Regards

Helpful thread so far. I see the new ROS has support for USB reset but not sure how to activate this on the 411U. Is this only accessed via the command line interface or can it be accessed from the GUI?

That USB power reset feature is only in latest models, SXT for now I think.

I have been thinking try to make some self made usb power reset implementation. Basically it should be easy by few electronic components and short usb extension cable (parts costing few euros). And by using userled as trigger it would power reset usb stick every boot or if you set userled on and off.

The bad thing is that would most probably void warranty. But mine is out of warranty already. And that is not so elegant to have some extra cable with some components.

And there is RouterOS issue with disconnecting and reconnecting usb sticks on running router. Usb channels change their order. This is reported to Mikrotik support.

Hi ppl,

Ghiooo do you have any news on does trials of the MC8780?

I have here with me the RB411UARH and a MC8755.

I have been making some trials, until now seems like the Sierra wireless MC8755 has been detected, but i´m having problems establishing a connection.

I don´t know if it´s the network parameters wrong or if i have to do more then enabling it to get a connection...

I´m running out on ideas does someone has a sugestion?
BS85 can you give a hand on this, i read that you were able to put the mini PCI-E to work...

Best regards

Hello, the guys who sold me the Sierra Wireless cards made a confusion, the model is MC8790 and it works perfect, until now. (see here http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php ... 86#p259886 )

See here, maybe there is something helpful, try to change the data and info channels, start with the info channel, after each modification in the GUI (advanced mode) you should press info to see if any message comes. Then change the data channel number.

Good Luck!

I just got Sierra Wireless MC8792 card and it seems to work (tested with RB411U and ROS 5.2). Now I have to consider what antenna I will use. Do anyone have a good antenna recommendations for indoor and outdoor use? Must support 900 and 2100 MHz bands.

For quick indoor test I used Mikrotik swivel and it seems to pick 900 MHz 3G ok even it is not designed for that frequency. Sierra card with that swivel shows few dBs less than my phone. But can't say how reliable these reading are.

Hi Mikko,

How did you chose the DATA CHANEL and INFO CHANEL?

Can you post the print of your setup for the following commands please:

- ip route pr
- ip firewall nat pr
- system resource usb print
- interface ppp-client print

Thank you

LS

You can see how many channels device supports and try which channels support AT commands.

/port print
/system serial-terminal usb2 channel=x

(channels are numbered from 0 to number of channels reported port print minus one)

After opening serial terminal type AT and press enter. Those channels that support AT commands sould reply OK. You can quit serial terminal by pressing ctrl-a and then q.

Then I just tried what of these channels work with ppp. If your device supports more than one AT channel it should be able to show info during connection by using different channels for data and info. You can use same channel on both data and info but then info would work only when not connected. Since channel can be used only one function at time. If device supports more than one channel it is handy to set different channels for data and info. Then you can monitor eg. 3G signal level during connection.

But remember to close info window before closing winbox if you use it. Otherwise it will leave infochannel open and it would not work before restart. I have reported this bug about month ago.

With Sierra MC8792 info seems to work only in channel 3 and data works any of these three channels.

My test setup has nothing special. Just those channels set to ppp, masquerade added to firewall and some rules to drop direct traffic to router from ppp.

I also had problems with usb 3G Modems in a RB433 and x86 machine they would have the same problem
the modems would go down and have to reboot or unplug and reinsert to get them going again.

Then bought a RB411U and a Sierra Wireless MC8780 miniPCI-E card a lot better then the usb dongles.
never had a problem since.

After you have use RB411U and a Sierra Wireless MC8780 miniPCI-E card for two years, do you still have the problem with them now? or it is pretty reliable for serious use? What kind of problem do you have since you have it?
Thanks, I am planning to buy both if it is work pretty good.

I also had problems with usb 3G Modems in a RB433 and x86 machine they would have the same problem
the modems would go down and have to reboot or unplug and reinsert to get them going again.

Then bought a RB411U and a Sierra Wireless MC8780 miniPCI-E card a lot better then the usb dongles.
never had a problem since.

After you have use RB411U and a Sierra Wireless MC8780 miniPCI-E card for two years, do you still have the problem with them now? or it is pretty reliable for serious use? What kind of problem do you have since you have it?
Thanks, I am planning to buy both if it is work pretty good.

Same here - I am desperately trying to find a stable combination here.... BS85, are you still out there?

I know this is an old thread but thought my information may be useful for anyone else out there that is still using the RB411U + Sierra Wireless miniPCI-E 3G card combo.

I have 110 units in field running 24/7/365. I have several models of the Sierra Wireless miniPCI-Ecards in use and none of them are perfectly stable. My units are spread over a geographical area larger than 7.5 million square kilometres with just myself and another tech responsible for keeping them online. Apart from the expected issues with reception signal strength, rare component failure (had some faulty pigtail cables) and Telco stuff ups, I still get regular issues with the router boards where the board loses its port settings and therefore the 3G connection fails. I also occasionally get the resetting link loop mentioned in this thread.

Powering the router off and on, sometimes several times with increasingly longer power off intervals will recover most routers but sometimes you must attend the router and log in locally via ethernet to fix the interface.

Roughly it would break down like this:-
110 units
A normal to bad day might see around 9 units lose connectivity.. 5 of those would eventually auto-recover
The remaining 4 units will need to be powered off and on to recover... 3 of those will recover at the first attempt
That last unit will recover after multiple power off/on... 70% of the time under 3 cycles, 20% of the time more than 3 cycles, 10% physical attendance required.

I don't have technical staff at our sites so I rely on non-technical staff (not directly responsible to me) who are willing to turn the power switches on and off a few times for me. When Physical attendance is required a tech is sent. It's expensive and frustrating!

Sierra wireless cards I use are listed below:-
8775 - Revision 2_0_6_0 or greater - I originally had mostly this card but ended up replacing all the lower revisions entirely. In reality I won't be buying anymore because of there over 30% rate of being problematic.
8780 - I only have 8 of these so statistically difficult to rate the model individually - they seem stable.
8795 - Only 10 in total sprinkled through the fleet again difficult to say but only have one that seems temperamental.
8781 - I have 78 of these and they are the most stable card I could find for the right per unit cost but they still fail to remain stable at a rate of around 5%.

So the search for that elusive dead stable combination continues.

For those interested.. What possible solutions do I have? Well we are developing a small piece of electronics, that will "plug and play" to the router units.. monitor internet connectivity and when necessary properly switch the router power off to recover the 3G connection... sort of an external 3rd party watchdog that actually does a proper "hard" reboot of the router instead of the "soft" reboot performed by the ROS software watchdog. It's a bit of a hack but I really need to improve stability.. especially since the plan is to provision several hundred more sites, that we already have, with the same remote telemetry systems as this first 110.

Thanks for listening

I know this is an old thread but thought my information may be useful for anyone else out there that is still using the RB411U + Sierra Wireless miniPCI-E 3G card combo.

I have 110 units in field running 24/7/365. I have several models of the Sierra Wireless miniPCI-Ecards in use and none of them are perfectly stable. My units are spread over a geographical area larger than 7.5 million square kilometres with just myself and another tech responsible for keeping them online. Apart from the expected issues with reception signal strength, rare component failure (had some faulty pigtail cables) and Telco stuff ups, I still get regular issues with the router boards where the board loses its port settings and therefore the 3G connection fails. I also occasionally get the resetting link loop mentioned in this thread.

Powering the router off and on, sometimes several times with increasingly longer power off intervals will recover most routers but sometimes you must attend the router and log in locally via ethernet to fix the interface.

Roughly it would break down like this:-
110 units
A normal to bad day might see around 9 units lose connectivity.. 5 of those would eventually auto-recover
The remaining 4 units will need to be powered off and on to recover... 3 of those will recover at the first attempt
That last unit will recover after multiple power off/on... 70% of the time under 3 cycles, 20% of the time more than 3 cycles, 10% physical attendance required.

I don't have technical staff at our sites so I rely on non-technical staff (not directly responsible to me) who are willing to turn the power switches on and off a few times for me. When Physical attendance is required a tech is sent. It's expensive and frustrating!

Sierra wireless cards I use are listed below:-
8775 - Revision 2_0_6_0 or greater - I originally had mostly this card but ended up replacing all the lower revisions entirely. In reality I won't be buying anymore because of there over 30% rate of being problematic.
8780 - I only have 8 of these so statistically difficult to rate the model individually - they seem stable.
8795 - Only 10 in total sprinkled through the fleet again difficult to say but only have one that seems temperamental.
8781 - I have 78 of these and they are the most stable card I could find for the right per unit cost but they still fail to remain stable at a rate of around 5%.

So the search for that elusive dead stable combination continues.

For those interested.. What possible solutions do I have? Well we are developing a small piece of electronics, that will "plug and play" to the router units.. monitor internet connectivity and when necessary properly switch the router power off to recover the 3G connection... sort of an external 3rd party watchdog that actually does a proper "hard" reboot of the router instead of the "soft" reboot performed by the ROS software watchdog. It's a bit of a hack but I really need to improve stability.. especially since the plan is to provision several hundred more sites, that we already have, with the same remote telemetry systems as this first 110.

Thanks for listening

Hi,

I have come to the exactly the same observations on identical hardware you mentioned (even same FW), but we also use Novatel 850D. We are also operating on a very wide area all across EU with many different ISPs. Like you said, there are still no stable solutions from Mikrotik. The biggest issue I see is when the routerboard stops communicating over USB (port cannot be acquired) - still present on RoS 6.10 and only reboot helps since RB411xx don't have USB power cycle function. I can accept that modems fails, loss of signal etc., but I cannot accept that nothing was done on Mikrotik side to check this problem that I first reported back in 2011. Eventually we started using 2 workarounds:

1. Timer that reboots router once per day (usually at 00:00)
2. We stopped using mini-pcie or USB 3g device and moved to serial 3G modem

Hope this helps.

br,

bysaRD

Hi bysaRD

Any recommendations on serial 3G modems? The last time I did a price comparison I found about $100 price difference to the mikrotik package we have. With the number of sites I have left to set-up that per unit difference adds up scarily fast.

Something like this: http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/3 ... 96113.html

You can get these for 59$/piece and they are stable. We don't use ac/dc adapters that come with these modems but instead bought other 7.5V ac/adapters which are higher quality.

Something like this: http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/3 ... 96113.html

You can get these for 59$/piece and they are stable. We don't use ac/dc adapters that come with these modems but instead bought other 7.5V ac/adapters which are higher quality.

Which is the max data rate can be achieved with this serial interface?

Something like this: http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/3 ... 96113.html

You can get these for 59$/piece and they are stable. We don't use ac/dc adapters that come with these modems but instead bought other 7.5V ac/adapters which are higher quality.

Which is the max data rate can be achieved with this serial interface?

I seem to be getting just over 12mbps. Not sure what others get, it seems to vary quite a little. Same modem with the antenna in the same spot I get ~35mbps.