Netonix Forums

I'm having a strange issue at a new tower site. For some reason I'm getting errors on ports and two devices (both AF-5X) are only linking up at 100 mbps.

The cabling is Toughcable Carrier and all the lines pass a cable test with a Fluke. What's interesting is that the SNR readings from the AF-5X's show 29 db on every pair, which should be good.

What could be causing this?

Keefe

I would say simple diagnostic practices would be good here.

Possible causes and tests:

1) Bad port in switch, swap to another port in switch and see if it links at 1G on another port, if it does you may have a damaged or bad port in switch. If not then you have a bad cable, end, radio, or noise on the line.

If it fails to achieve 1G on another port you are down to bad cable, end, radio, noise on wire.

Do you have your tower grounds bonded to electrical service ground? If not you can have noise on line from ground current flowing across your Ethernet cables.

Here are some good posts on grounding:
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1816
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=188
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1429
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1786&start=30#p13447
https://community.ubnt.com/t5/airFiber/ ... rue#M31070

Also do a cable diagnostics on the switch port with no cable and you should get all OPEN on all 4 pairs.
Next with POE OFF plug in your 1G laptop and see if you get a 1G link.

The switch is good, I can connect my laptop into the ports and get 1 gbps links.

The radios are good. I can bring them to the base of the tower and they'll link at 1 gbps.

I followed your guides and ran a #2 copper to the top of the water tower. At the top of the tower every pipe, radio, and dish is tied into the ground using split bolts and pipe grounding clamps.

At the base of the tower my #2 is bonded to the towers electrical panel main ground and a ground bus in my cabinet. I also pounded 2 8' ground rods into the ground outside the water tower and bonded them to the grounds in the tower with #2 wire.

Well your grounding sounds good.

Then you are down to:
Bad cabling
Bad ends
Noise on line from something.

You could still have a bad radio with a sketchy Ethernet port.

Now to be fair you could also have a sketchy port in switch but this can be easily eliminated by moving to another port.

The radio requires a swap out to test.

A sketch port may work fine up until a certain length of cable.

Depending on the Fluke Tester you have it will pass bad cable. If it cost less than $2,000.00 it may not be that reliable.

So the Fluke tester passes these lines but this is what the Netonix cable test shows on these two ports:

Port 4

Pair 1 Status (Pins 1,2) (Pos) (Orange) Ok
Pair 2 Status (Pins 3,6) (Neg) (Green) Ok
Pair 3 Status (Pins 4,5) (Pos) (Blue) Ok
Pair 4 Status (Pins 7,8) (Neg) (Brown) Open

Pair 1 Length 206.69 ft / 63 m
Pair 2 Length 206.69 ft / 63 m
Pair 3 Length 206.69 ft / 63 m
Pair 4 Length 3.28 ft / 1 m

Port 5

Pair 1 Status (Pins 1,2) (Pos) (Orange) Abnormal termination
Pair 2 Status (Pins 3,6) (Neg) (Green) Ok
Pair 3 Status (Pins 4,5) (Pos) (Blue) Ok
Pair 4 Status (Pins 7,8) (Neg) (Brown) Short

Pair 1 Length 206.69 ft / 63 m
Pair 2 Length 216.53 ft / 66 m
Pair 3 Length 216.53 ft / 66 m
Pair 4 Length 3.28 ft / 1 m

Here's the other thing. How come your cable test shows that pair 7/8 is 1 meter long yet the two AF-5x's show a SNR on that pair?

Here's the other.

Once again a SIMPLE Advanced search yielded these posts:
Search for: "+Cable +Diagnostics"
Author: "sirhc"

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2269&p=16142&hilit=+cable+diagnostics+power#p16162

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2269&p=16134&hilit=+cable+diagnostics+power#p16134

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2269&p=16091&hilit=+cable+diagnostics+power#p16091

But what is the actual issue here?

keefe007 wrote:But what is the actual issue here?

And I would know what that the actual issue is caused by how and why?
How would I even remotely know what your issue is here at this site?
I told you all the possible causes, now it is up to you to figure out which one and why.

I can not figure this out from here but if I was there I already told you what I would do to figure it out.