At four years old, this must be some of the very first generation of
802.11b gear ever made.  It might be possible that it incorporates a battery
or similar device that has become exhausted, but it may equally be that some
faulty connection has come loose.  Business gear is usually depreciated over
about three years, so at five you might expect to be replacing it anyway.
  The Cisco 340s are very nice -- I've been working with them and I believe
they're what Cisco did with the technology they bought from Aironet.

David Gillett


On 25 Feb 2003, at 10:16, Rob Cilia wrote:

> Hi Everyone!  I have a problem with my wireless access point and I would
> appreciate any info/comments if you have any expertise in this area - I'm
> not an expert but I've kept it running for 4 years without a problem.  It's
> about 4 years old, it's an Aironet AP4800-E 2.4ghz DS 11mbps Ethernet access
> point, supports 802.11b standards and is connected to our existing wired lan
> and provides wireless network access to my warehouse users that use old
> model ibm thinkpads running win98, email, internet and as400 terminal
> emulation. The access point is pretty much dead - stopped working sometime
> yesterday morning.  The unit powers up and I can gain access to it only for
> @15-20 seconds by telnet or by browsing to it's ip address.  I thought at
> first that the unit had somehow lost it's settings and that's why the
> wireless users couldn't connect to the unit.  But from what I can tell by
> telnet'ing or browsing to the unit when I power it up, the network settings
> are intact, the SSID is intact, ip address, subnet, dns settings, etc. are
> all fine.  I can perform bried diagnostics like radio signal strength which
> runs for a few seconds so it seems that it can work but just quits after a
> few seconds.  It doesn't power itself off, it remains powered on and the
> signal led remains lit (not flickering, just constantly lit), the LAN and
> radio led do not remain lit and black out after 15-20 seconds (they're both
> normally rapidly flickering) and that's it.  Has anyone seen this kind of
> behavior from a wireless access point?  Is 4-5 years the lifespan of such a
> unit?  I am getting a used replacement Cisco 340 series access point in a
> couple of days from our other office and I will ask local mgmt to foot the
> bill to pick up a few more ap's just for redundancy purposes and to add
> better coverage in our whse.  Any info is appreciated, TIA...Rob,wpg.
>
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