1400 Bridge System Software Disabled

[drees]

I configured and tested two BR1410's successfully in the lab. Our installer mounted the units and put the bridges in install mode to align the antennas. After that, one of the bridges (non-root) says something like System Software Disabled and the radio is down. I haven't seen it myself yet, but could this happen from the bridge being set for Install mode? This bridge was apparently placed back in non-root mode but shows radio down and Ethernet up.

[dixho]

All 1410s non-root bridges will shut down its radio interface if they do not receive beacons from the root bridge. Then, it should bring up the radio interface again.

There are a number of possibilities:

1. you purchase a pair of 1410 requires external antenna, but you do not install external antenna

2. you do not configure the distance parameter (i.e. go to the http inteface of the bridge. click on "NETWORK INTERFACES", "dot11 radio 0", "SET UP", and search for distance (in km)

3. You have a faulty root bridge or non-root. Broadcast the SSID on the root and use a Cisco CB21AG or Mircosoft XP SP1 with a 802.11a adapter in the other site. If the CB21AG or XP receives beacon from the bridge, it should detect the SSID. Then, change the role of the bridges (i.e. change the non-root to root), and detect the beacons from the other side.

[drees]

After resetting to factory defaults, the bridges still continued to drop connection. They would associate, then when I tried to see signal strength, they would typically drop again.

I had put 12.3.2JA1 on them to support WPA PSK just as I had on the 1310's that we installed successfully. The 1300's worked great.

I finally back-reved the code to 12.2.15JA and the radios associated and passed traffic great. I'm just missing WPA-PSK functionality. Static WEP for now.

With 12.3.2JA1, I was seeing signal strength numbers like -16 dBm to -20 dBm, which didn't look right. Now with 12.2.15JA, the number is more in line with our calculation of -57 to -62.

Anyway, seems like 12.3.2 isn't fully baked yet.

Lesson learned.

[dsidley]

I had the identical problem not more than two weeks ago.

Two 1410's shipped to me with 12.2(15)JA and worked great out of the box. I was encouraged by Cisco to upgrade to the latest 12.3.2.JA1 as the 12.2(15)had a serious bug.

After upgrading to 12.3.2JA1 the bridges "will not" work in autoinstall mode.

After exchanging several messages and phone calls with a less than technical Cisco TAC person they claimed that they had never heard of this problem before.

I finally decided to cut my losses after wasting two days sending Cisco show-techs, etc and found an easy work-around.

Initially start the bridges with the 12.2.15 IOS and configure both root and remote. Once you have a stable link only then upgrade to 12.3.2(JA1).

We too love the WPA and have found the links to be rock solid if you use the above upgrade methond.

Boooo to Cisco.

Dave Sidley

Enterprise Network

City of Winnipeg

Canada