What ALIX board would you recommend if wireless is going to be used?
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Hi guys,
Since my first day with pfsense I have been having wireless issues with stuck beacons which seem intermittent but nothing seems to make them go away.
I have heard from some that ALIX2C2 is not a very suitable choice if wireless is going to be used because it might not supply enough juice.
I also understand that ALIX2D2 did some fixes to make radio cards more stable (3.3V rail stability issues).
Can someone confirm that indeed they use ALIX2D2 and wireless and things are working stable for them (no stuck beacon messages)?
The whole thing has been really frustrating and I am pretty much ready to shell another 100$ to get a replacement motherboard if thats what is going to make things stable for me. -
for me it's cheaper and I get extra ports anyways by attaching a wireless router running a 3rd party firmware, openwrt,dd-wrt,or tomato. I have a alix.2d3, eventually, later I'll get a gigabit simultaneous dual band wireless router to connect to my pfSense box. I highly recommend you to do it this way. it offloads quite a bit of work from pfsense.
I also heard the alix.2c3 had many other stability issues that the alix.2d3 fixed. you may demand credit/replacement from your seller for a replacement board since it probably is not your fault. If they refuse, the threat of bad PR on the forums can make them think twice. Overall I'm quite happy with my 1st alix.2d3. Very few people are still using the alix.2c3, possibly they've gotten them replaced for free minus shipping a long time ago by the 2d3.
good luck.
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For Alix 2C2, you need to solder on some higher capacity resistors for high powered radios card (>200mW) to be stable.
You can get the parts directly from pcengines, if you plan to use standard low powered radios in the 2c2s, then the mod is not needed.
Slam
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Well I talked to LinITX (the guys who sold me the board ) and they pointed out the fact that I am using a microdrive.
This might be causing issues so first thing I am going to replace it with an industrial cf card.
Then if it won't help I will be able to RMA it and get the 2d2 instead.
The only problem is they are gonna get it only in the end of September.
So for now I just hope cf will make things better for me. -
Time for some update :)
I got the CF and replaced the microdrive with it.
Now amount of OUT errors on wireless interface has gone down dramatically (from thousands to 3 after 30 hour uptime).
However stuck beacon issue persists.
The only hardware parts I can still replace are the motherboard (replace it with 2d2 and the power supply).
I dunno but maybe it is software bug after all?