RouterBOARD 200 FAQ

General Questions

What is RouterBOARD 200

The RouterBOARD 200 is an embedded PC board for multipurpose router equipment. It was designed to be as versatile as possible, yet keeping power consumption as low as possible.

How much does it cost?

Please see this page: http://www.routerboard.com/prices.html

How can I buy it?

You can order RouterBOARD kits and all necessary accessories by contacting sales@mikrotik.com

Can I purchase just the board?

see Individual Prices section in the pricelist. Contact sales@mikrotik.com to order.

I would like to design my own case. Are the reference drawings available?

Yes. Please see the reference drawings here: http://www.routerboard.com/rb200.html#links

What is the warranty for the RouterBOARD?

MikroTikls SIA warrants all RouterBOARD 200 series equipment for the term of one year from the shipping date to be free of defects in materials and workmanship under normal use and service. All parts will be repaired or replaced with similar or functionally equivalent parts by MikroTikls SIA during the warranty term, except in case the returned parts have mechanical, electrical or other accidental or intended damages caused by improper use or due to wind, rain, fire or other acts of nature.

Parts (or the system) must be shipped pre-paid to our facility in Riga, Latvia. All items must have a Return Material Authorization (RMA) which you can get by contacting us via email, telephone or fax. Parts shipped to our facility without a valid RMA, or are not to be repaired or replaced due to the mentioned conditions, or are proved to be free of defects in our lab will be returned to Customer at Customer's expense canceling the given warranty. We will return repaired or replaced items to Customer's location at our expense, extending the warranty term for the time the items are being shipped to and from our facility, and replaced or repaired.

Technical Overview

What is the difference between RouterBOARD 220 and RouterBOARD 230?

Compared to the RouterBOARD 230, the RouterBOARD 220 does not have full-sized PCI slot, PCMCIA slots and USB port. It also has only one Ethernet port compared to two Ethrnet ports on the RouterBOARD 230.

Can I use PCI and MiniPCI slots simultaneously?

No, currently only one PCI slot can be used. Note that you could damage equipment if you use both slots at a time.

Can I use both CompactFlash and ATA drives at the same time?

Yes, you can connect both devices. Please note that one of the devices should be configured as ATA Master, and the other - as ATA Slave. For ATA drives this configuration can be done on the drive itself, but for CompactFlash/Microdrive devices, the respective jumper is JP2 (CompactFlash is ATA Master if the JP2 is closed).

What CPU can I put on the board?

The CPU is already soldered on the board. It is AMD Geode SC1100 266MHz.

Does the board support hot-plug?

Only PCMCIA/CardBUS and USB devices can be hot-plugged. PCI, MiniPCI, CompactFlash, ATA/IDE and memory slots does not allow hot-plugging.

How can I connect to it?

Until an Operating System has been loaded, use onboard serial port to manage the board. The default serial port settings are 9600bit/s, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. To use serial console, you will need a null-modem serial cable (see the pinout in the RouterBOARD Users manual) and a serial terminal program, like HyperTerminal for Windows or minicom for Linux.

How can I boot an Operating System on it?

You can boot from a CompactFlash/Microdrive device or from mini IDE 2.5'' disk drive (like for notebooks). You can choose whether the CompactFlash storage medium will be recognized as ATA Master or ATA Slave device.

It is also possible to boot the RouterBOARD from network using EtherBoot protocol. EtherBoot protocol is a free alternative to the PXE protocol. See RouterBOARD 200 Users manual for more details.

What Operating Systems are supported?

MikroTik RouterOS (starting from version 2.7), Linux (version 2.2 and later were tested), OpenBSD (version 3.4 was tested), FreeBSD (versions 4.9 and 5.1 were tested) and DOS (MS DOS 6.22 was tested) are supported. You might also be able to use other Operating Systems - the list only shows the ones that have been tested by us.

Can I connect monitor, keyboard and mouse to the RouterBOARD 200 series computer?

You can use a standard PCI video card to connect monitor, and USB port to connect a keyboard and mouse. Note that only RouterBOARD 230 can be user in this setup and RouterBORAD 220 has neither full-sized PCI slot nor USB port. Note also that only one USB port present on the RouterBOARD 230, so to connect both keyboard and mouse, you can either use a USB hub or choose a USB keyboard that has a connector for mouse.

Can I connect a full-sized 3.5'' ATA hard drive to the RouterBOARD?

No, because the power supply of the RouterBOARD might not handle the load of a full-sized hard drive spinning up (peak power consumption is 2A at +12V for most desktop hard drives), and also because the 44-pin ATA/IDE connector does not supply +12V DC required by full-sized hard drives.

Can I power the board from -48V DC telecom power?

Yes. Connect GND power wire to the positive contact of the board, and -48V wire to the negative contact. Positive contact is the center pin in the power jack, and the nearest to the power jack square (◘) contact on the J12 power header (there is a small '+' sign near it). Please beware not to connect power to the J16 intrusion detection jumper (marked as CIN on the board) or to the capacitors located nearby at the both sides of the J12 power header.

Can I power the board from solar batteries?

Yes. The board takes about 6W with two radios running. Note that the board supports 20V to 54V DC powering, so to power it with 12V DC solar batteries, you should link two batteries in serial.

Where can I plug Power over Ethernet in the RouterBOARD?

The RouterBOARD supports Power over Ethernet only on the first Ethernet port (the one that is near the DB9 RS232C serial port)

Troubleshooting

When I connect power to the board, it does not make a sound nor flash a LED

Please check whether the power-source choice jumpers are in correct positions. For 20..54 V DC powering to the power plug or power header, switch the JP4 and JP5 jumpers into 1-2 position. For 48V DC Power over Ethernet powering, switch the JP4 and JP5 jumpers into 2-3 position.

Also check that the JP6 jumper is in 1-2 position and that J18 and J11 power outputs are open.

When I connect power to the board, it does nothing, but all its LEDs stay on

Please check that JP1 (Reset) jumper is open.

I am experiencing uncommon behavior (instability) of RouterBOARD

First, upgrade the BIOS and check if the RouterBOARD is still unstable.

If it is, try to disable pci back-off parameter in BIOS setup.

Common practice, how to choose the pci back-off parameter value:

Keep enabled if you are using Atheros PCMCIA cards
Enable on newer RouterBOARD 200 boards (with 266MHz CPU clock) with Atheros MiniPCI cards in RouterBOARD 14 (4-port MiniPCI-PCI) adapter
Disable on older RouterBOARD 200 boards (with 233MHz CPU clock) with Atheros MiniPCI cards in RouterBOARD 14 (4-port MiniPCI-PCI) adapter
Disable it if you are using newer RouterBOARD 200 boards (with 266MHz CPU clock) with external PCI Ethernet cards.

All of these practices has been defined experimentally, so they may or may not apply to your particular case.

What to do if my CMOS settings are resetting each time I power-off my board?

First, check that the CMOS reset jumper JP3 is in the 1-2 position. If it is, then try to replace the CMOS battery. The correct battery type is CR1620 Lithium Coin.