SOLVED [RT-AC3200] Worried about Router Reboots Please Help

[Mark112887]

I previously posted a thread about this issue concerning my other router, I didn't get very much attention because I believe I worded the situation incorrectly, I would appreciate any help that anyone may be able to provide.

Previously I owned an RT–AC66U router and the one thing I always noticed is that I would experience random but occasional reboots. I would keep all features in the router turned off except for MAC filtering and samba share. I was previously told that it is normal to have high RAM usage when streaming but that it should return to normal levels once the activity stops.

The problem that I experienced with the router is that the memory would never go down it would only go up and I believe that this was the cause for my reboots, the longest I have ever been able to go without a reboot was 17 days. Even after a reboot the memory use would still be in the high 70% the only thing that would actually get to go back down would be a full restore and fresh setup of the router.

Has anybody had this problem with this router?

To remedy the issue I recently purchased the RT–AC3200 to see if I would have better luck with a newer device. So far everything has been fine but I have noticed the router slowly creeping up by 1% of RAM usage as each day goes by and I'm worried that I will soon face the same problem again with this device.

Can anyone please provide any insight at all?

 

[Mark112887]

My firmware is 3.0.0.4.378_9135 Is the merlin firmware the official firmware?

How do I disable that

 

[RMerlin]

My firmware is 3.0.0.4.378_9135 Is the merlin firmware the official firmware?

How do I disable that

You can't. It's a bug in the recent 9000 firmwares from Asus. You'll have to either downgrade to a previous version, or switch to the 378.56_2 release of my firmware.

 

[Mark112887]

This same thing happened with my RT-AC66U with every single firmware I ever used. I'm going to try the custom firmware

 

[Mark112887]

Just a little update on my situation. I installed the custom firmware yesterday and while the memory usage did lower significantly I'm afraid that I'm still seeing the same problem going on. Yesterday on November 3 I noticed that my memory would only go as high as 21% and it would drop as low as 19, this morningI see that my memory will go as high as 22 to 23% and drop as low as 21%. The reason I'm worried about this so much is because I just want to find a router that won't reboot on me. I was reluctant to buy the 3200 in the first place due to the high price but I figured it was worth giving it a shot if it would fix the problem. I keep watching it closely because if it doesn't work I want to be able to return it within my 30 day period.

Can anyone possibly provide any more insight?

 

[Puppa]

You mentioned that you've got MAC filtering turned on. Are you by any chance not using WPA2 to secure your wireless connections?

 

[Mark112887]

Mac filtering is my primary method of security, I don't use WPA2

 

[Puppa]

You probably already know, but to any hacker--even one with low skills--MAC filtering offers about as much protection as nothing. Hiding the SSID won't help either, just make things inconvenient for you and eat battery on your mobile devices.

Still worse, MAC filtering can add overhead to the router's CPU as I'm pretty sure it's all software running on the main CPU that checks whether the MAC is allowed or not. Given a large enough list (how big is yours?), this could be the tipping point that's triggering your reboots when combined with some other CPU-loading activity.

I'm guessing you have some legacy device (IP camera?) that made this MAC filtering setting necessary. Look at the status screen off the General info page and note how often the CPUs spike. You can disregard the very first spike when you get to the page--that's just the overhead of setting up the page itself. Is there some specific activity that loads down the CPUs in particular?

Also, please let us know which device(s) are forcing you to use MAC filtering and maybe there's an alternate approach that'll work better.

 

[RMerlin]

MAC filtering is completely useless security-wise. Anyone could sniff your traffic, and clone the MAC of one of your clients.

WPA2 also handles encryption of your traffic. And it's also mandatory for 802.11n, otherwise you typically fall back to 54 Mbps max rates.

 

[Mark112887]

I turned off MAC filtering and turned on WPA2 protection. Prior to turning on password protection I would not get CPU spikes as previously mentioned. However since I turned on password protection I do notice that my RAM usage has jumped roughly 10% and it now seems to be settling at 32% instead of 22%. I'm stressing out because I don't want to end up keeping this router past my 30 day return period only to have it reboot shortly after.

Is it normal for a router to reboot a few times a month or should it just be a stable piece of hardware?

 

[RMerlin]

I turned off MAC filtering and turned on WPA2 protection. Prior to turning on password protection I would not get CPU spikes as previously mentioned. However since I turned on password protection I do notice that my RAM usage has jumped roughly 10% and it now seems to be settling at 32% instead of 22%. I'm stressing out because I don't want to end up keeping this router past my 30 day return period only to have it reboot shortly after.

Is it normal for a router to reboot a few times a month or should it just be a stable piece of hardware?

It shouldn't reboot on itself. Also make sure you did see this post - that might have explained random reboots every few days while you were still running 9135.

 

[Mark112887]

It shouldn't reboot on itself. Also make sure you did see this post - that might have explained random reboots every few days while you were still running 9135.

I'm now on your firmware and its been fine but i haven't really had any long period of time to see what happens. The longest I've gotten while on 9135 is 17 days before the first reboot. after the first reboot it would reboot every few hours to few days, I have to just give it time and wait and see, my hopes are high

 

[Mark112887]

Another little update on the situation. I've been keeping tabs on the memory use and so far it looks like it's doing the same thing, on November 4 I noticed that the memory would go as low as 21% and as high as 23%. Today I noticed that the memory goes as low as 22% and as high as 24%. Is this normal behavior? What I'm worried about is eventually getting a reboot when the memory usage gets high which is the same behavior I was having on the AC66U

 

[Puppa]

I wouldn't worry at 24%. You can track it for a few days, to see if there's a leaky memory problem (I don't think there is--I am aware of one leak that I'll post in a new thread, but that leak will only happen if the wireless section resets independent of a full reboot, something that generally only happens while the Admin--in other words, you--is doing some setting changes). Anyway, at the rate it's going it'll take a couple of months for your memory usage to get to 100%. Theres's a scheduled reboot function in the Merlin firmware that can take care of that sort of thing at a convenient, regular time of your choosing.

 

[Mark112887]

I really want to make sure what it is, if it is a leak I'll know if the memory use is higher tomorrow. If it is a software issue the sooner I find out the better because I can return the 3200 and save the money by going back to my AC66U

 

[Puppa]

I have no experience with the AC66U, but keep in mind that that particular router may not perform as well throughput-wise compared to the AC3200. The AC68P has the same CPU speed as the AC3200 and a very similar chipset, as well as similar total throughput, so you could save about 100 bucks that way, provided you don't care (this seems true) about having the additional 5GHz radio.

 

[Mark112887]

I think there is a very small memory leak in the firmware because it is definitely resting higher than it was yesterday. Who can I get in touch with to see if this can be fixed? In regards to the AC3200 to be completely honest with you I am torn. The features of the 3200 are definitely useful to me including the second 5 GHz band, the issue however is simply that I didn't necessarily have the extra money to purchase the router just to have it, I got it because I thought it would correct my problem. Now that I've realized that it is more so a software issue than hardware I do have a side of me that wants to return the newer router just to save the money but on the flipside I have a side of me that wants to keep it because I know that it was worth the money I spent for it

 

[RMerlin]

The syslog is stored in RAM, along with other logs. It's normal for the memory usage to vary a bit over time. Networkmap will also vary in memory usage based on the devices present on the network at the time of the last scan.

 

[Mark112887]

The syslog is stored in RAM, along with other logs. It's normal for the memory usage to vary a bit over time. Networkmap will also vary in memory usage based on the devices present on the network at the time of the last scan.

I just experienced my first really weird random event with this router. I was sitting here just using my computer as normal when all of a sudden I lost Internet on my desktop computer and all other devices. My desktop computer is connected via ethernet, so the first thing I did was reboot my modem that did not fix the problem so the next thing I did was power cycled the router and my Internet came back.

Very early this morning around 2:30 AM I decided to do a full factory reset the router by clearing both the NV RAM as well as holding the reset button and resetting the router that way, I then proceeded to set up the router completely from scratch manually, so I'm very surprised to see issues like this happening. Could this possibly be a bug in the firmware?

 

[RMerlin]

Could this possibly be a bug in the firmware?

Impossible to tell, since all we have here is a very generic symptom. It's like trying to determine if a PC rebooting itself is caused by faulty hardware, faulty operating system or faulty software. The only way to debug these is through either trial and error, or by hooking to the router's PC board with a debugging cable.