...and for those looking for some pixie dust for their RT-N66U...

[RMerlin]

...I built an RT-N66U firmware that uses the SDK6 driver. This is the same driver as used by the RT-AC66U (without the 802.11ac support, obviously). This is highly *EXPERIMENTAL*. I only tested it for a bit to ensure that it was at least allowing my laptop to connect to it, and that channel configuration worked.

The version can be found on Mediafire in the Experimental folder for the RT-N66U.

Just to be safe, make a backup of your configuration before flashing!

I'm interested in hearing about:

- Wireless performance (please do an actual file transfer test - the link speed is half-meaningless as power management can make it go up and down based on traffic)

- Are you having better or worse success in connecting to the 5 GHz band (please specify the model of your wireless adapter)

 

[Jettubby]

Would you need an NVRAM clear coming from version xxx.26 to this one to test?

 

[RMerlin]

Would you need an NVRAM clear coming from version xxx.26 to this one to test?

Most likely, both because of the big jump from 270 to 374, but also because of the quite different wireless driver.

Don't forget to save a backup of your settings before, in case you have to revert back to your previous FW version.

 

[Jettubby]

Most likely, both because of the big jump from 270 to 374, but also because of the quite different wireless driver.

Don't forget to save a backup of your settings before, in case you have to revert back to your previous FW version.

Will do and I'll let you know if I get to play around with it in the next day or two. BTW: know of any good network file transfer speed test app for android? I'd like to test not only desktop 5G but the 5G on my NoteII.

 

[RMerlin]

Will do and I'll let you know if I get to play around with it in the next day or two. BTW: know of any good network file transfer speed test app for android? I'd like to test not only desktop 5G but the 5G on my NoteII.

I never did any real wifi performance benchmark on my mobile devices since that 65 Mbits link isn't leaving much room for improvement anyway.

 

[bluepoint]

Will give it a try later today.

 

[RogerSC]

Okay, flashed this new one, and it looks fine to me for basic routing and wireless on my rt-n66u. Have done light testing with several speed tests, web surfing, email, forum reading, the usual *smile*. Also disconnected the wireless adapter and reconnected it (Linksys AE3000, Ralink-based) a few times on 5GHz., connected easily at 450Mbps each time. And IPv6 is also working fine.

The only thing that I noticed was that the wireless signal doesn't seem as strong in my living room as the last time I looked (with 372.31), two or three bars off both the 2.4GHz. and 5GHz. wireless on the Roku. A significant drop. Need to look into that, I'll go back to the previous firmware I was using and check that later today. I did power-cycle the router when I saw that, didn't help.

Will do more testing later today *smile*, time for bed.

Update: Got real curious, so just went back to 32_Beta3, and found that I had regained a couple of bars of signal strength for both 2.4GHz. and 5GHz. in my living room, as I had expected. Other than the signal strength loss, the new firmware (SDK6) seemed good.

 

[wouterv]

Installed 3.0.0.4_374.32_0-SDK6 over 3.0.0.4_270 on my RT-N66U.
After the upgrade I noticed the wireless settings on 2.4 GHz were back to default (channel bandwidth 20/40 instead of 20 only, and auto channel instead of fixed).
Did a hard reset and entered my setting manually again, including my HE 6 in 4 tunnel.
This all went flawless, 2.4 GHz no issues, IPv6 working as before.
Next the great moment to see the behaviour on our 5 GHz clients, without deletion and remaking their wireless profile:

• Ralink RT3592.
• Intel Centrino 6205.

Unbelievable...both work flawless too, no connection issues, no speed issues sofar. It may be too early to say, the 5 GHz behaviour really seems fast...faster then ever, time to connect, time to react, connection speed, all smooth.
For now I will keep this build and possibly revert the next days with an update after the family started to do their things, including use of various smart phones and playstation.

Are there any specifics I can do to really test the IPv6 firewall behaviour?

[EDIT] I Noticed a remark of Roger about wireless signal strenght, it seems indeed that at least on 2.4 GHz the signal is a little less then it was before (hard to really tell, as it depends on many variables). I will keep an eye on this, also for 5 GHz.

 

[doomedahab]

Just flashed this one. Curiously, I am now seeing much more 5 ghz channels compared to the old SDK drivers. Previously, I could only select up to channel 64, now I can select the full range up to channel 161. After flashing I noticed the control channel selection was back to Auto (had it on ch44 before flashing) and I actualy am connected to channels 157+161 now.

Anyway, first impressions on the 5 ghz band are very positive: WLAN download speeds are phenomenal: up to 29 MB/s with a very stable throughput averaging 27,5 MB/s or so. up 5-6 MB/s compared to the .270 drivers. Upload is at least as high as with the .270 drivers: around 22 MB/s

Connecting to the 5 ghz is quick, no change form the .270 drivers as far as I can tell.

Before I forget: I'm on a Centrino 6250 wireless adapter.

I will be sticking with this one for the time being for sure! Thanks Merlin!

 

[chief_os]

it`s much more stable for me then 374.257

Intel Centrino 6205 connects at 300 Mbps link and real transfer speed (LAN<->WLAN) is down: ~200 Mbps, up: ~150 Mbps
Broadcom 43224AGN connects at 300 Mbps too and real transfer speeds is similar to Centrino adapter.

(on 374.257 link rate and transfer speed was very unstable: on Centrino - 150-180 Mbps [real speed 50-60 Mbps], on Broadcom - 81 Mbps [real speed 40-50 Mbps])

All tests were made when my laptop was ~ 5 ft. from router without any obstructions

But as RogerSC said the wireless signal doesn't seem as strong as when using the 270 driver-based FW. It is critically for me, because now typically I`m using my laptop far away from router (through two concrete walls).

So, Thanks, Merlin!
I hope you continue to work on this experimental version of FW

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks for the feedback folks - keep posting more. Please remember to always specify which wireless adapter you are using.

Going to the newer SDK is what Asus is already looking at, as evidenced by the experimental FW they sent to a few users recently. No ETA yet as to when this would happen.

The range drop could be caused by some tweaks required in how the FW initializes the driver on the RT-N66U (since the 5 GHz radio isn't the same as on the RT-AC66U). Hopefully something Asus will be able to tweak in the future.

 

[RMerlin]

After flashing I noticed the control channel selection was back to Auto (had it on ch44 before flashing) and I actualy am connected to channels 157+161 now.

This is normal. SDK6 doesn't store channel settings the same way as SDK5, so you were back to factory default values for those settings.

 

[bluepoint]

I concur with most of the observations. Throughput and stability in SDK6 is comparable to SDK5 but it needs improvement in range for both bands most noticeable shorter range in th 2.4GHz.

RT-N66U
Netgear WNDA3100v2 N600

 

[RMerlin]

For other developers/tinkerers out there, I pushed the SDK6-adjusted branch to Github:

https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-merlin/tree/sdk6

Switch to the sdk6 branch, then compile the RT-N66U firmware from inside the release/src-rt-6.x/ directory. If you get a model mismatch error, delete the .config file from that directory first, then issue a "make cleankernel clean" before trying again.

The sdk6 branch changes the target.mak profile for the RT-N66U to flag it as using BCMWL6, and symlinks were added pointing to the AC66U wireless drivers. There was a few webui changes too to hide the 80 MHz option.

 

[wkweksl]

Just flashed over 374.31 without clearing NVRAM and happy to report that I'm getting similar throughput on iPad 3rd gen (~40Mbps) on 5G compared to the 5.00 drivers. Will run on this build for stability checks. Thanks for the quick experimental build, Merlin!

 

[jlake]

...I built an RT-N66U firmware that uses the SDK6 driver. This is the same driver as used by the RT-AC66U (without the 802.11ac support, obviously). This is highly *EXPERIMENTAL*. I only tested it for a bit to ensure that it was at least allowing my laptop to connect to it, and that channel configuration worked.

The version can be found on Mediafire in the Experimental folder for the RT-N66U.

Just to be safe, make a backup of your configuration before flashing!

I'm interested in hearing about:

- Wireless performance (please do an actual file transfer test - the link speed is half-meaningless as power management can make it go up and down based on traffic)

- Are you having better or worse success in connecting to the 5 GHz band (please specify the model of your wireless adapter)

The issue with my Linksys AE2500 Broadcom BCM43236 is not just a "link speed" issue. I have tested with file copy and the speed is half. For example, I compared 374.257 with your latest .32 (which uses the older driver).

I haven't tried your experimental firmware.

The dude from Asus was trying to tell me that I just had a link-speed issue and not a performance issue. Which is simply not true because I just got through testing it (again) an hour ago.

 

[geko53]

Thanks for the feedback folks - keep posting more.

Just flashed that pixie dust , everything went fine, although in 5G band all channels are open now (regardless of the limitations in Europe).

My devices (iPhone 4, HTC one, Galaxy Note 10.1, Asus Notebook N56V, PC with Linksys WUSB600N Adapter) connect very fast on both bands (so far possible), I didn't recognize a loss of signal strength as it was reported by some other testers.

When connecting with my Galaxy Note 10.1 the transfer rates on both bands are rather slow (5 Mbit/sec on 5G, only 4 Mbit/sec on 2.4G when transferring data from the tablet to the USB storage at RT-N66U).

Speed increases significantly when using my notebook (Asus N56V) with the atheros WLAN Adapter (AR9485WB-EG): here I come up to 52MBit/sec on 2.4G when transferring data from notebook to USB storage at RT-N66U.

With my desktop PC (Linksys WUSB600N Dualband USB adapter) in another floor (some 12 meters and 2 concrete walls away from the router) I get 33 MBit/sec on 5G and 49 MBit/sec on 2.4 G - despite of the distance I have a sufficiant signal strength on both bands.

Ciao
Gerald

 

[Zirescu]

I saw an improvement in the 5GHz range significantly based on the output from WiFi Explorer on the Mac Mini. The improvement resulted in SNR of 29dB, from previous of 24 dB.

But when I changed the channel options from the defaults in SDK6 to what I had previously I could not longer connect to the 5GHz network even though I could see it in WiFi Explorer. Once I changed the settings back to the default as shown in the GUI [(N+AC),20MHz, Auto] it was able to connect again. Previous was [N,40MHz,161].

Speedtest.Net results: 19Mbps Down, 2.45Mbps Up
Prior to update: 13-14.8 Mbps Down, 2.45Mbps Up

The 2.4GHz SNR decreased from 31dB down to 21 dB, [N,20MHz,11]. Which isn't a big deal for me as my most used devices use the 5GHz radio.

One thing to note is that my Router is in the basement and the mac mini is up two floors.

I took a number of screen captures which I could share upon request.

Mac Mini Wireless Card Info
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x10E)
Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.100.17)

 

[RMerlin]

But when I changed the channel options from the defaults in SDK6 to what I had previously I could not longer connect to the 5GHz network even though I could see it in WiFi Explorer. Once I changed the settings back to the default as shown in the GUI [(N+AC),20MHz, Auto] it was able to connect again. Previous was [N,40MHz,161].

Did you try deleting and recreating the wireless profile on the computer that had issues when changing channel?

 

[Zirescu]

Did you try deleting and recreating the wireless profile on the computer that had issues when changing channel?

I hadn't originally but just tried this now and it still didn't work. I even changed the SSID so that any prior settings wouldn't interfere. The response that the mac sends back is "Connection timeout", when starting from a new profile and when it was trying to connect from the original profile it would return "A connection timeout occurred."

Interestingly the iPad 2nd Gen, Apple TV and LG WiFi dongle connects without any issues.