RT-N56U 2.4ghz range/speed problems

[ori88]

I was so excited to get my new RT-N56U today which replaced 3 bridged WRT54G's. 5ghz performance is great (I think) when I'm right next to the router, internal lan transfer speeds at 5Ghz were 120Mb/sec and 48Mbs at 2.4ghz. Speedtest.net runs were approx 20Mbs and 16Mbs respectively.

The problem is when I go 1 floor up on 2.4ghz, my speed goes down to 4-6Mb and it was formerly at around 10Mb (connected to main WRT54G). Worse yet, when I connect an iphone, ipad, or android, i'm topping out at around 2.5Mb! And finally...I go up to the 3rd floor, where I used to get around 6Mb I'm now getting 2Mb.

It seems as though I'm getting much better range on 5Ghz then I am at 2.4ghz, which shouldn't be the case. Is this thing configured wrong?

btw, I'm on 1.0.1.4 firmware

 

[stevech]

ensure it's in the 20MHz mode in 2.4GHz.
Try disabling 11n in 2.4GHz; the 11g mode probably yield better results in penetrating floors.
In 5.8GHz, it may drop to 11a mode which is essentially the same as 11g in 2.4GHz. The propagation loss is higher by about 6dB in 5.8GHz (laws of physics), but it could be that the router (and client?) have 3-6 dB more power output in 5.8GHz in 11a mode. Look at specs.

And your reduced throughput could be due to a client device with a weak signal TO the router, causing lower air link rates and/or higher retransmission rate for error correction. Could also be competition for air time due to other WiFi systems or a source of interference that's not WiFi - try either channels 1, 6 or 11 in 2.4GHz.

Some buildings have some floors that are more than 3/4" or 1" plywood subfloors. Sometimes their concrete or concrete on a steel pan. It's more difficult that walls of drywall.

 

[ori88]

Thanks for the reply. I don't think it's the house because my old WRT54G's range was significantly stronger at 2.4ghz, then the Asus. I will try changing the settings as advised to see if that makes a difference. I also opened a ticket with Asus last night, but no response yet.

 

[aphexacid]

I tested out that same router in my condo, which seems to have some major 2.4ghz congestion, and it wasnt great at all. On my balcony, i could barely pick up a signal compared to my WRT54GL on 2.4. Linksys E4200 was much better, but i still didnt get the ground breaking signal upgrade i was expecting after owning the wrt54gl for 7 years.

 

[ori88]

So after doing some extensive testing, here's the only configuration that works for me with this router:

2.4Ghz
N Only, 20mhz

5Ghz
N Only, 40/20mhz

Any other configuration and the mobile devices (iphone4, ipad2) take a pretty big hit in performance going from 10Mbps down to 1-2Mbps on 2.4ghz. Can anyone explain why?


I have a large house and used to covered it using a WRT54G with 2 WRT54G (DDWRT) repeater bridges. It seems to me the range of the Asus isn't much better than the WRT54G (with 7dbi high gain antennas). But the speed is definitely better.

Since I can't run the same repeater bridges (G vs N), I bought the Powerline AV 500 from Netgear. These things work like a charm! I had low expectations getting only 3-4Mbps and an unstable repeater bridge configuration. But with the Powerline, I can consistently stream 10Mbps.

Next..I'll need to check whether this is a bug in the Asus product...or whether I need to run with these settings on the Cisco E4200 and the Netgear WNDR4000.

Looks like 1.0.1.5 is out so I'll need to try that. I'm also unimpressed by Asus support! I opened a ticket last Thursday and there has been no response!