Bad batch of 881W Firewalls?

[lajackson]

I have six 881W and I have had the wireless go out on them. . . .
What seems to happen is that the flash or something get corrupted and they have to repair it.

Revelation comes in funny ways. Sitting in Church Sunday bemoaning the poor wireless coverage, I remembered this post and realized this is exactly what had happened to our 881W. The WiFi had quit, and the other two access points were not able to pick up the slack.

So last evening, I called the GSD and explained the problem. They checked that they could ping the firewall, and then said they needed to "download some information to the firewall" which would take about 15 minutes. At about 12 minutes they said the download was complete, and that the firewall would need about 20 minutes to process the new download. They asked me to call back if WiFi did not come up after that time, and we said good night.

About 15 minutes later, the firewall WiFi was on and working.

[drepouille]

I was in the Ward Clerk's office this morning, where the 881W is located. I got a strong signal from the 881W firewall there, although not the full five bars, even when my laptop was 12 inches from the firewall. When I walked into the chapel, my connection dropped out.

I installed a utility named inSSIDer on my laptop so I could see all the wireless signals in the area. I saw that both the 881W firewall and the 1041n wireless access point were using channel 1. The PROBLEM is that several neighbors are ALSO using channel 1. When I am in the chapel, the 2.4GHz signal on channel 1 from the neighbors is stronger than the signal from the firewall in the clerk's office, so I lose my connection.

The inSSIDer utility shows that neighbors are using channels 1, 6, 9, and 11. I called the Global Service Center, and asked if there is a way to change to a different channel. They said that the 881W firewall SHOULD automatically detect which channel is available, and change to that channel. Well, that is not working in this case. The 881W firewall has chosen channel 1, because it looks like an "available" channel in the clerk's office, even though it is not an available channel in the main chapel.

If we must have a usable signal in the main chapel, someone will have to install a 1041n in the main chapel. I can't see any way around that. We have to be careful, since the 881W only has four ports, and two of them are in use by the existing 1041n and the clerk's computer.

Maybe it is a blessing that wireless devices can't connect in the main chapel.

[ldsrussp]

I'm in a bash Cisco mood so I'll contribute to this. Heck yeah we've had issues with them. All of our buildings now have had at least 3 of the 881s and one is on it's third. They are complete junk in my opinion. I recommended you surge protect it's power supply in (kinda no-brainer there) but also it's ethernet ports as these things can't take even the tiniest surge without dying. The AP dying inside is something Salt Lake claims was a firmware issue but that's it's unfixable once it's gone. Not sure about that one but anyways....

Makes me feel bad to switch these things out like lightbulbs but I guess it's the only way the Church will eventually figure out Cisco is not the company they used to be as they see all these firewalls getting replaced so often .... Might be we now get them so cheap it's not an issue but is very aggravating for members as the network just can't be relied on.

[johnshaw]

I'm in a bash Cisco mood so I'll contribute to this. Heck yeah we've had issues with them. All of our buildings now have had at least 3 of the 881s and one is on it's third. They are complete junk in my opinion. I recommended you surge protect it's power supply in (kinda no-brainer there) but also it's ethernet ports as these things can't take even the tiniest surge without dying. The AP dying inside is something Salt Lake claims was a firmware issue but that's it's unfixable once it's gone. Not sure about that one but anyways....

Makes me feel bad to switch these things out like lightbulbs but I guess it's the only way the Church will eventually figure out Cisco is not the company they used to be as they see all these firewalls getting replaced so often .... Might be we now get them so cheap it's not an issue but is very aggravating for members as the network just can't be relied on.

Just as a counter to this... I have 9 meetinghouses and have had no issues with them from a hardware perspective (we had a lightning strike fry one, but FMG not protecting it with surge protection was the reason plain and simple) - We've had 11xx-G model WAP's running for 5-7 years in 3 meetinghouses with FHC's and the remainder have had them for a bout 5 years. have never had to replace a WAP either.