I had to put up a new AP today to replace one that failed. The problem now is that not all of my clients can associate or see the new AP. The old AP worked fine, it was a Wrap board with 2.8.27 and using a 2511mp card. The new AP is a RB153 with 2.9.46 using a 2511mp card.
Most of my clients use Tranzeo TR-CPE-15's a few CPQ-19's and CPE-90's. What I am seeing is that the CPE15's work fine and the CPQ-19's see the AP but are having a hard time associating, I seem to have to keep booting and rebooting until it catches. The CPE-90's dont see the AP at all. What gives? Am I going to have to go back to Wrap Boards and 2.8.27 to get them to work?

Upgrade to 2.9.46 and then under the advanced tab change hardware retries to 7

The New AP RB153 is at 2.9.46 and there is no Advance Tab settings for Hardware retries.
Montana

The 2511 radio card is a Prism, not Atheros card and will not have a hardware retry setting.

Ok, I have repaired the old ap which is a wrap board with 2.8.27. I did replace the old 2511 with a new 2511 because it was weak. I have put it up and I am now getting the same problem that I had with the new AP. I am think that the new cards must have something different in them than the old cards. The new cards show a Firmware of 1.1.0/1.7.4 compid 0x8013 and the old cards show the same information. I dont know, but this non-compatability issue SUX. I cant afford to replace 20 customer radios just because they dont like our Prism AP cards. What options are there and is there a known fix?

Why are you using a prisim based card for your ap? Wouldn't it make more sense to use an Atheros based card?

The 2511 is what we started out with and it works. I have tried the SR2's and I find that sometimes I have problems. This is not to say that SR2's are bad, it is just that 99% of my clients and AP's are Prism based and I never had a problem with them. If I change over to Atheros cards what's to say that I'll have problems with my Prism based clients? If it wont work one way, what make me think it will work the other? If they say they are 802.11 compatible then by golly they should be held accountable.
After I changed back to the old AP that is running 2.8.27 and I still cant get the cpe-90's up then I think that it is not Mikrotik but something else. Im not 100% sure that it is the Prism card but more alone a driver issue, but not sure where. Like I said it worked fine in the past with 2.8.27 and 2511 cards now it doesnt. The only thing different now is that I had to put in a new 2511 card and everything in gone in the toilet. I even used another new 2511 card and it is doing the same thing. Ill let everyone know what fixes it. Thanks all
Mike

Put on the new card the mac that was before on the wrap ap. ( on the wireless card, of course)
And return and tell us..

Is there any knowledge/experience behind your suggestions? Everyone I've seen has been off the wall.

Do tell WHY the MAC address would make any difference.

I don't know about tranzeo.
I use many dlink products. Part of them, seem to connect to the ap only by MAC, and really don't care about ssid at all.
I changed many ap's, and on all of them i had to change the mac of the new ap to the old one, ( for example on burned cards, or on dumb ap's changed to MT), before my clients connected. They have no connect list ( the clients) enabled. They just connect by mac. Some weird kind of bridge or something, don't know, and i don't care, as long as they are rock solid connected. ( for your information some have realtek and some have TI chipsets. Those with atheros chipset don't care about mac. The rest seem to do care.
So, try and see what happens.
( For me, it could be only the firmware of the specific ap/cpe i own, but it's the latest on their website.)
( again, this is my experience. I tried and for me it was this specific issue. You could have same issue. But you have to find out. )

See ya.

[edit:] If it wouldn't be for the speed but the stability, I myself would be still using prism cards. And why ? Same router, ONLY wireless card changed, from atheros ( many models, don't want to put a shadow on anybody) to prism ( senao 2511 CD ext2 with pci adapter), and i have signal better with 7 to 10 db. And much better coverage. That is something. Something big. But 11b.

Best rgds.

Montana,

I bought a batch of Prism cards 6-8 months ago and noticed a problem with CPE-90 clients no longer being able to connect after changing out APs. The CPE 200s connected as usual. I'm not sure about the CPQs. I have tried not to buy many of those. I tracked it down to the newer Prism cards. I don't know if it is the firmware or hardware. The chipsets are slightly different. I tried to find some old cards still in stock with my vendors but couldn't. No more Tranzeo stuff for me other than the old CPE200s. Everything I buy now is MT at both ends.

Note: If you can change channels, try several other frequencies. In my testing I could repeat the problem in the shop but only on certain channels. I contacted MT support but I really don't think this is their problem.

Hi Chucka, I tend to agree that it is not Mikrotik. As the only difference is the AP card. I have ordered some replacement radios and plan to trash the CPE-90's that I have. I finally got a hold of Tranzeo support and they were WORTHLESS I think that your on the right track with the cards. When I have the time I'll put them on the test bench. Thanks for the input.

I have a mix of CPQ's CPE200's and CPE-80/90 connecting to SR2's without a problem. Also haven't had the problem with the compex cards...

Montana,

The CPE200s and the CPE80s work fine. It was the CPE-90s that refused to connect with the newer prism cards. I have 36 CPE-90s spread out across 6 of my towers and I think one old Prism card left as a spare. I have handful of newer Prism cards that won't work. Tranzeo seemed to lose interest in the problem when they found I wasn't using Tranzeo APs. This is frustrating, I have over 200 of their units deployed. Now all I buy are Mikrotik boards for CPEs.

I have a new tower in a high noise area and installed one of the new Prism cards on it as a test. I can't use CPE-90s on this tower or even a RB-133 with an atheros radio. They just won't connect. To be honest, I've only tried one RB133/Atheros and it wouldn't connect. So I haven't done much testing with the Atheros radios on this tower. The CPE-200s work fine, as usual. My problem cards are all 00:02:6F:44:xx:xx and newer. What are the 4th set of digits on your mac?

JWCN,
I have 2 towers running SR2 cards too with the newer software and no problems, but less than 20 clients on each. I may have to go to the SR2 or R52H if I run out of spare 2511mp cards that work. I really prefer the 2511 cards on towers with a lot of CPE200s though.

What frequency are you running the AP at?
Could be that the client's country setting does not allow the frequency that the AP is on. (If you can't see the AP)
But if you can see it, but not connect, check out the MAC as said before. With our old senao units, my technicians had the bad habit to scan for ap's and then click on the one to connect to. Then when the AP card need to be one day replaced, the MAC obviously changes and then you have to go to all clients too set the MAC to 00:00:00:.... for it to connect.
Then there are always the problem of an antenna or cable that could have gotten some water or other damage...
Ekkas

All my equipment is set up for U.S. frequencies. Channels 1-11. I always enter the SSID in each unit as it is deployed. The CPE-90s will not connect on channel 11 and I don't remember the other channels. This has been several months ago. I think it was about 1 in every 3 channels would work. I had too many customers on this tower to fool around. I reinstalled the older 2511 card from the original AP and everything started connecting correctly. Nothing else made any change in the situation. I discovered the weird channel quirk later during testing.

I would like to use all MT if possiable but my main problem is there is just one person servicing <400 clients and 14 towers in a 50 mile radius. Thats me. I just dont have the time to build CPE's . I also have a LOT of customers that are, "dumb as a box of rocks" that think I am the cure for all of there computer problems, wireless or not. I hate to be rude to them but get a life internet is not everything.
Mike