Asus AC1900 (AC68) router only & 3 x Eeros 5s in bridge to help bufferbloat?

[amd7674]

Hi Guys,

Happy New Year all and THANK you Merlin and others to keep this forum going.
So I went to dark side with 3 EEROs for the last 6 months or so and overall it is plug and play experience. I also subscribed for secure paid feature as well...LOL
However recently I'm experiencing horrible bufferrbloat issues. So.... I'm so glad I still have my old Asus router and it is still supported by Merlin !!!!! (THANK YOU SIR )
So I dust it off and installed the latest 386.4 on it. From my understanding all I have to do is configure Asus router to my preferences and disable both radios (2.4/5) then using EERO app configure it in bridge mode.
Is anyone running similar configuration? Are there any Asus modem settings recommendations?

I'm planning to run AIProtection on Asus router to replace Eero's secure service. To help bufferbloat (my current situation) apparently I have to use Adaptive QoS and lower download/upload speeds to about 90% of my current speeds.
I would like to try to use CAKE but I don't believe it is supported by AC1900 (AC86) which is not powerful enough.

Also I've never run any ad blockers or scripts on the asus router, are there any recommendation to use?

Any help would be much appreciated and THank you in advance for all your feedback ;-)

EDIT: just to add all 3 eeros are on 1GB ethernet wire backhaul

Cheers.

 

[Tech9]

download/upload speeds

First, what speeds we are talking about?

 

[amd7674]

First, what speeds we are talking about?

500/20 per my ISP profile, however I'm reaching ~800-900 down and ~20 up when running different benchmarks.

 

[Tech9]

I have 500/30 ISP and AC1900P can't keep up with AiProtection and Adaptive QoS enabled. You may need something faster. Don't trust online bufferbloat tests too much. The result is under line saturation conditions. You may not have bufferbloat at all with normal Internet use.

 

[amd7674]

I have 500/30 ISP and AC1900P can't keep up with AiProtection and Adaptive QoS enabled. You may need something faster. Don't trust online bufferbloat tests too much. The result is under line saturation conditions. You may not have bufferbloat at all with normal Internet use.

Thanks. Did you try running it without AiProtection? In the past I used AC1900 on this profie without issues, however I only used AiProtection. I never used QoS before.

 

[Tech9]

I have to test again* to give you the exact numbers, but I believe the CPU was close to 100% at around 400-450Mbps or so. With Trend Micro components disabled it can do full Gigabit wired, if NAT acceleration is enabled. If you have Wi-Fi enabled and busy, the numbers go below 400Mbps. BCM4360 radios use the CPU, no built-in dedicated processor like in BCM4366E, for example. I still believe your bufferbloat test is not very accurate. This site in particular never produced any consistent results on my ISP line. If you want, enable Bandwidth Limiter only (with values under 300Mbps, it disables NAT acceleration) and test for bufferbloat again. You may see very consistent low ping just because your ISP line is not at saturation speeds.

* - I don't have the router running at the moment, it's just one of many I play with

 

[amd7674]

I have to test again* to give you the exact numbers, but I believe the CPU was close to 100% at around 400-450Mbps or so. With Trend Micro components disabled it can do full Gigabit wired, if NAT acceleration is enabled. If you have Wi-Fi enabled and busy, the numbers go below 400Mbps. BCM4360 radios use the CPU, no built-in dedicated processor like in BCM4366E, for example. I still believe your bufferbloat test is not very accurate. This site in particular never produced any consistent results on my ISP line. If you want, enable Bandwidth Limiter only (with values under 300Mbps, it disables NAT acceleration) and test for bufferbloat again. You may see very consistent low ping just because your ISP line is not at saturation speeds.

* - I don't have the router running at the moment, it's just one of many I play with

Thanks again. I wouldn't be using wifi on it (both radios would be disabled), eero pods would take care of wifi. Kids didn't complain about PC gaming this afternoon and I was too tired tonight to test it. I'm surprised with your take on AC1900, because as far as I remember at one point I was on 1000/20 profile and I had no issues (wireless nor wired) with AiProtection enabled.

 

[Smokey613]

I recently switched to this same setup albeit with 2 eero pro units. I have a 100/10 service, so it is much slower than yours. I only have 2 wifi 6 devices, both iPhones. With my service I don’t need wifi 6 and the 2 eero pro units cover my needs very well. I am running AiProtect with Traffic Analyzer turned on but Apps analysis turned off. No QoS enabled at the moment.

I use a TorGuard dedicated IP vpn connection that stays up 24/7 to bypass geo restrictions for one Firestick for sports programming for my wife. The other 2 Firesticks use the regular isp path.

I have the NextDNS client installed and it works great. I have been surprised how well this 1900P handles everything.

I am glad I never got rid of it even though I have tried numerous other solutions over the past 2 years. The 2nd gen eero pros wifi work better than anything else I have tried but their other “services” are somewhat lacking. I have a 3rd unit for a spare.

I now feel I have the best of both worlds for my situation. The 1900P and the 2nd gen eero pro are both noted for their reliability.

 

[Tech9]

RT-AC1900P is my favorite Asus router. It's made better than newer models.