Fiber Remote errors

Question

Fiber Remote errors

telebub (Vendor)

(OP)

9 Aug 09 09:20

Ok all, we are at our wits end on this one. We have installed a fiber remote at a college that will not run clean. This is an 81C on Release 25. Below are the errors we take periodically:

% XMI000 92 : OIF: switched to prim
% XMI000 92 : OIF: no active link
% XMI000 92 : OIF: switched to prim
% XMI000 92 : OIF: no active link
% XMI000 92 : OIF: switched to prim

So far we haven't developed any sort of pattern as to when these errors occur. Currently I'm on a theory of them only occurring when Core 1 and Clock 1 are active so I have locked in Core 0 and Clock 0 until they reappear. The only time we have been able to keep it up and clean is when we take the remote cabinet to the switchroom and direct connect it to the network card. That automatically makes you think "Ahh, the fiber is bad". Well, now we aren't so sure. Below are the steps we have taken to try to get this remote running clean:

1. We have replaced the network card, controller card, and both EOI boards on each end twice.
2. We have replaced the fiber jumpers on each end.
3. We have moved the network card from the left slot of Loop 92 to the right slot. (there are no more Superloops left without moving some cards around)
4. We have replaced the power supply in the remote cabinet
5. We have had the fiber cable contractors come out and test the fiber and they assure us it is clean and gave us the readings from the test equipment.
6. We moved the remote cabinet to another building that has an existing fiber remote that has always run clean. The new remote cabinet took errors in that building as well over that fiber
7. As stated above, we have taken the remote cabinet to the switchroom and direct connected it to the network card. It hasn't given errors in this setup but now we aren't sure we left it there long enough.

Have any of you seen these errors before? Based on the steps we have taken, do any of you have any other ideas?

War Eagle!
Lions Baseball '09!

Wane47 (TechnicalUser) · Answer 1 · 2009-08-09 10:45:38

are you running multimode or singlemode fiber between the main site and far end site and what is the fiber distance between them. There are distance limitations on fiber with multimode(about 5 miles I think) and single mode(15 miles). Are you using multi ipe box or NT1P61/NT1P62.if multi ipe, the following is right from the manual.

Single-mode Fiber Remote Multi-IPE Interface units are compatible with multi-mode fiber-optic link at the appropriately calculated attenuation limits. However,
multi-mode Fiber Remote Multi-IPE Interface units are not compatible with the single-mode fiber-optic link.

When you take it back to the room and it works, you have proved the eqipment is good. The next question is was it engineered correctly (Ie: distance and fiber type).

The best advice is read the manual and see if you have met the requirements before you start looking for grelims.

telebub (Vendor) · Answer 2 · 2009-08-09 11:05:10

Multimode and it is about a 1/4 mile. I can walk out of the switchroom building and see the other building where the remote is. We have an existing fiber remote in the building next door and it has worked fine for years. We moved the new fiber remote to that building and it took errors over the same fiber that the other one runs clean on. These are NT1P61/62 cards, not the multi IPE boxes. I have seen the remote work for more than a day and half cleanly before it took errors and I haven't left it in the switchroom that long so I can't say for sure it wouldn't eventually take errors there.

War Eagle!
Lions Baseball '09!

Wane47 (TechnicalUser) · Answer 3 · 2009-08-09 16:17:37

if you are using the cables that go from the face plate of the card to the backplane, take them out and go straight to the face plate of the card. every connection is another point of failure. I assume you have replaced the fiber cross connects. If you done all that, the cards are all that are logically left.

There is always a chance one of the regular cards is bad on the shelf. You can test that by removing the cards after hours and see if that clears it.

telebub (Vendor) · Answer 4 · 2009-08-09 17:31:16

Thanks for throwing ideas out there Wane. We have replaced all cards involved twice and replaced the fiber jumpers on each end. We are going directly from the fiber backbone to the front of the cards. We even replaced the power supply on the remote Option 11 cabinet side. Keep the ideas coming if you have anymore.

War Eagle!
Lions Baseball '09!

telebub (Vendor) · Answer 5 · 2009-08-10 17:34:39

If anyone is interested, here is the fix:

Nortel came out with product bulletin 2007008232 on July 17, 2008. This bulletin informs that the NT1P63CAE5 optical card which was supposed to work in either a multimode or single mode environment, didn't work when used multimode. They came out with a new vintage of the card with part number NT1P63CBE5. The bulletin states to continue using the NT1P63CAE5 for single mode remotes but use the new vintage card, NT1P63CBE5, for multimode remotes.

There is also a product bulletin 2009009375 that describes how to RMA the bad vintage and get it replaced with the new vintage. This bulletin came out March 12, 2009.

War Eagle!
Lions Baseball '09!

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