WAP-200 issue?

DHawthorne

I recently replaced a bunch of consumer WAP's on a job with the AMX NXA-WAP200G to improve connections with my MVP's on the job. Mostly, all is well, but I am having trouble with one of them - it drops off the house network after 30 to 60 minutes or so. I can still access it wirelessly, but it won't talk to the rest of the network. Rebooting it solves the problem...for the next 30-60 minutes.

It's too early around here to call tech support, but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas - I have three access points in the house, and they are configured identically, except they are on different channels. Since the wireless portion remains up, the panels don't reconnect to any of the other points (which are fine), but the panel can no longer talk to the master. I am in a difficult spot here, having talked the customer into spending an additional $1200 for the upgrade, which is now less reliable (for different reasons) than his old $250 gear was.

Thomas Hayes

Hi Dave
Have you tried to swap channels with this unit and another WAP-200 that your using? or even locations?

DHawthorne

I tried another channel, but didn't have the luxury of swapping units, since the homeowner and his signifigant other were home, he had a client in the house needing Internet access, and other family members were using different parts of the system - in short, I couldn't do that without taking something else down, and the problem area was the least critical in those terms. The channel should not have been material though - it was connecting via wireless, just not talking to the house network. Ditto for location, it's the hardwired side with the problem. I even tried re-configuring it in repeater mode, but it wound up cycling the connection on and off every two minutes, so in one of the up times I put it back to normal.

I did get a hold of Tech Support though - and they said this was a known issue with old firmware versions. I'm reloading the firmware just in case, even though it reports current. They tell me it may just be a bad unit -rotten luck for me, but it happens.

alexanbo

Before the current firmware came out I had similar problems. Tech support mentioned that the WAP's were sensitive to high temperatures and that was what I think .556 was put out to fix. I haven't seen the problems since upgrading to .556

Marc Scheibein

Check also firmware versions of master (v2.31.137) and MVP (v2.46.38). There were some improvements in TCP handling.

DHawthorne

I wound up pulling it. All firmwares are up-to-date, and I even reloaded them to make sure a load didn't get corrupted. It's working fine now on the cheesy Motorola WAP that was originally there, but I'm also back to the original issue of poor signal quality. It lookslike a defective unit, and Tech Support agreed.

At least, this time, my customer is being good natured about it.

LegacyUser

it may very well be a faulty unit.

i currently have an MVP-7500 that operated for months, now it dies within a day or so.

losses wireless. but my notebook wap services continue to work fine. so it's not the wap (in fact there are two in the house, both are fine)

this unit will go back today. i am also returning the desktop stand/recharger. the junction point between the two units is getting very hot. either the wireless is card is right behind that point in the case and overheating,or some power supply problem may be the cause.

DHawthorne

Originally posted by RichardHamilton
it may very well be a faulty unit.

i currently have an MVP-7500 that operated for months, now it dies within a day or so.

losses wireless. but my notebook wap services continue to work fine. so it's not the wap (in fact there are two in the house, both are fine)

this unit will go back today. i am also returning the desktop stand/recharger. the junction point between the two units is getting very hot. either the wireless is card is right behind that point in the case and overheating,or some power supply problem may be the cause.

I had a panel that that was getting real hot too, and the electromagnet finally failed. Getting it shipped for repair as I type. But it seems to me they all get kind of hot.

AlexArtist

My company has a client, who has 2 AMX WAPs, latest firmware, controlling 2 MVP-7500's. The dang WAPs seem to lock up partial. Causing the master to not be able to communicate to the modero, but it can see them as online.
This is super frustrating. All i know is that if i unplug the WAPs for awhile, 10 mins, and plug back in, the modero's connect again. It seems like the WAPs (at this clients) easily overheat. I don't know why, just thought i'd share this.

GSLogic

Make sure there are no other WAP in the area that are on the same channel as yours. Sometime ago we did a job where the the room was flooded with different WAP channel. I had to try different locations and channels on the AMX WAP until I found one that worked.

Irvine_Kyle

Not to dog the WAP-200 but I've had similar issues with them. We started spec'ing this no name WAP brand called EDIMAX, works fantastically for touchpanels for some reason. I went out to a job that was having serious wireless issues and pulled all the existing WAPs, plugged in one of these EDIMAX and bingo! All the touchpanels were online, on a single WAP. Of course we added in more and seperated channels and what not, but I just thought that was awesome, one WAP and like 10 MVPs all online and happy.

DHawthorne

We've moved away from the AMX WAP's. We've been using the Netgear with fantastic results, covering twice the area at least than your average generic consumer WAP. They are considerably less expensive than the AMX, and the performance is as good.

AlexArtist

That's amazing that you say that DHawthorne, because my roommate, (Computer Repair God) was highly suggesting Netgear WAPs because he finds them very stable for his clients. I'm really interested in them now. Thanks for writing about them.

GSLogic

I've found that the AMX WAPs work very good and the coverage area is greater than all the others WAPs we've tried.

Spire_Jeff

Not sure where this comes into play, but in the past I've had troubles with the Linksys WAPs. It seemed that the minute you put more than one WAP on a network they would all go crazy and would require rebooting roughly once a week (happened in our office).
I also recall hearing (may have been a rumour) that the AMX WAPs are a result of colaboration with Cisco (they own Linksys).
Lastly, I know a guy that works at a large company. He is setting up a network with a few Linksys WAPs and I mentioned the problems I had in the past with them. The guy said he would check with their Cisco reps. (They have more than one Cisco rep dedicated to service the company). As of yet, I haven't heard a response regarding the issue and after a week of no response, they guy told me that normally means that there is most likely some sort of issue.

I leave it to you to draw your own conclussions and I must say that this is all personal experiences as I recall them and I make no claims as to the validity of this information in any way other than how it presented itself to me in the situations I am relaying.

Jeff