AC-88u Firmware Performance

[trameltanz]

All, i have an AC88U

About a year and a half ago i got this router brand new. First thing out of the box i flashed merlin.

It worked well for a short period of time, several months, then i upgraded it to a newer Merlin release.

1. 5ghz wireless performance began to degrade. Had to flash several times to get it to stabilize.

2. Getting poor performance from speed tests and inconsistent results both wired and wireless.

I finally snapped and borrowed a netgear r7000 about a week ago. It was rock solid but i really moved from netgear because their performance stinks and the firmware is glitchy.

So i tried Dd-WRT two days ago and it practically bricked my ac88u. Once i started changing subnets and wireless settings it turns my router into a piece of crap. Dropping connections, inconsistent pings, etc...

So i tried to go back to stock last night, merlin, anything but that DD-WRT junk. Long story short, i used the Asus recovery utility and the recovery mode of the router to flash Merlin's release from around July of this year.

After a reboot from recovery, wait 15 mins, set it up, wait 15 minutes, reset it with the reset button, then set it up again i have gotten its AWESOME performance back.

This is the SECOND router that has degraded performance over time. The first one was the same model, i had it two years (bought 4 yrs ago), and it started to geek out the same way. Went ddwrt to test the hardware but it almost bricked it again, flashed back, but not with the recovery mode. The hardware was deemed defective so i bought the recent one(88u). I really thought that this was normal but at the time it just didnt seem right.

Anyway, just throwing this out there for any feedback on the flashing process, performance degradation, and/or ddwrt compatibility.

I really cant express my gratitude to Merlins work and dedication and i hope we can get some good feedback from the community.

Thank you in advance for anyone offering commentary.

 

[royarcher]

All, i have an AC88U

About a year and a half ago i got this router brand new. First thing out of the box i flashed merlin.

It worked well for a short period of time, several months, then i upgraded it to a newer Merlin release.

1. 5ghz wireless performance began to degrade. Had to flash several times to get it to stabilize.

2. Getting poor performance from speed tests and inconsistent results both wired and wireless.

I finally snapped and borrowed a netgear r7000 about a week ago. It was rock solid but i really moved from netgear because their performance stinks and the firmware is glitchy.

So i tried Dd-WRT two days ago and it practically bricked my ac88u. Once i started changing subnets and wireless settings it turns my router into a piece of crap. Dropping connections, inconsistent pings, etc...

So i tried to go back to stock last night, merlin, anything but that DD-WRT junk. Long story short, i used the Asus recovery utility and the recovery mode of the router to flash Merlin's release from around July of this year.

After a reboot from recovery, wait 15 mins, set it up, wait 15 minutes, reset it with the reset button, then set it up again i have gotten its AWESOME performance back.

This is the SECOND router that has degraded performance over time. The first one was the same model, i had it two years (bought 4 yrs ago), and it started to geek out the same way. Went ddwrt to test the hardware but it almost bricked it again, flashed back, but not with the recovery mode. The hardware was deemed defective so i bought the recent one(88u). I really thought that this was normal but at the time it just didnt seem right.

Anyway, just throwing this out there for any feedback on the flashing process, performance degradation, and/or ddwrt compatibility.

I really cant express my gratitude to Merlins work and dedication and i hope we can get some good feedback from the community.

Thank you in advance for anyone offering commentary.

I have the same router with merlin firmware and it's rock solid.I did have some issues a while back so I did the L&LD nuclear reset and it's been great since then.I did upload a merlin firmware that didn't have the trx after it and had to reflash it with the trx file

 

[Bogey]

I started the ‘Merlin experience’ with a 68u, that one ran ok for about a year. It got bricked after lightning hit my neighbor’s home.
Then I got the 87u. Performance degraded overtime, random reboots increased. I contacted Asus and the seller, it turned out to be faulty and received a refund. I used the refund to buy the 88u. I added a usb powered laptop cooler underneath it. The temperatures are in winter:
2.4 GHz: 39°C - 5 GHz: 46°C - CPU: 55°C
In summer a fraction higher.
Overall my 88u is rock solid. I run diversion, skynet, link aggregation. Only thing that caused trouble was the USB3 port that I set to USB2 mode. No problems since.

 

[royarcher]

I started the ‘Merlin experience’ with a 68u, that one ran ok for about a year. It got bricked after lightning hit my neighbor’s home.
Then I got the 87u. Performance degraded overtime, random reboots increased. I contacted Asus and the seller, it turned out to be faulty and received a refund. I used the refund to buy the 88u. I added a usb powered laptop cooler underneath it. The temperatures are in winter:
2.4 GHz: 39°C - 5 GHz: 46°C - CPU: 55°C
In summer a fraction higher.
Overall my 88u is rock solid. I run diversion, skynet, link aggregation. Only thing that caused trouble was the USB3 port that I set to USB2 mode. No problems since.

I think I must have had mine for about 3 to 4 years now running merlin firmware for most of it.It gets used a lot, there is someone streaming on one or two TV's for probably 12 to 15 hours a day while someone else is net surfing and it very rarely misses a beat

 

[sbsnb]

All, i have an AC88U

About a year and a half ago i got this router brand new. First thing out of the box i flashed merlin.

It worked well for a short period of time, several months, then i upgraded it to a newer Merlin release.

1. 5ghz wireless performance began to degrade. Had to flash several times to get it to stabilize.

2. Getting poor performance from speed tests and inconsistent results both wired and wireless.

The first RT-AC88U I had the 2.4 GHz radio died after about 4 weeks. The replacement has been rock solid for the past 14 months or so. My uptimes are always as long as it is between Merlin releases. The range is great. I can stay connected to 2.4GHz on my router from up to 100 meters away in a suburban environment with at least 50 other APs visible. The single router covers my entire house and 1/2-acre property and then some.