ASUS AC66U Settings.....Frustrated!

[BC525]

First, I apologize for being the "newbie", but I'm done with flipping settings to see if they work, not really knowing what they are in the first place. I would really like to hear what some of everyone's settings are for the best performance. I'm not saying I get horrible performance, but when my neighbors' 2WIRE is almost as strong in my house as my router (and his house is a good 100 feet from mine) I think I have issues...

The other question I have, is how (or what to use) do you actually test your throughput? I go to the traffic manager and watch it for a while...heck at best it will spike to 150KB/s. I have a wireless N adapter on the laptop and max out @ 144MBs? Neither of those are close to their potential?

The amount of settings on this router make it difficult for a 'novice network guy' to really tweak it for the best performance...

Anywho, any suggestions (other than to go suck start a shotgun) would be helpful and very appreciated!

Thanks,
~M

 

[Grievous Angel]

Are you on the latest firmware?

Have you done a channel scan to be sure you aren't in major conflict with your neighbors?

I have virtually default settings--I change the 2.4 band to 20mhz, turn off B/G protection . . but that's about it.

Sounds to me like your problem may be interference related.

I've had my AC66 for almost a year and it's been reliable and fast--but I don't live in a crowded area. I would have recommended inSSIder before--but it's no longer free. There are apps for your phone that you can detect other wifi, and make sure you set your channels away from your neighbors as best as possible.

As to the amount of settings--I think this is a good thing. You don't have to change any of them, really. I'm glad they are there if needed, though. This was my frustration with the Airport Extreme . . while very reliable, it was inflexible.

But maybe you should look into something like that if you want to "set it and forget it."

 

[BC525]

Just had to switch to the latest Merlin Firmware as the latest firmware on ASUS site will not mount the USB HD...

As for the band, don't know any different, so I'll try 20mhz for a while. But in regards to the channel...well I've tried that, I do a scan of the local area and find that there are a few channels not being used by neighbors, like 7. Well, when I set the router to only use 7 the signal is very weak. Unfortunately, the best channel my phone app sees is 14 and well, that's not an option in the firmware....

Grrrr.....

Are you on the latest firmware?

Have you done a channel scan to be sure you aren't in major conflict with your neighbors?

I have virtually default settings--I change the 2.4 band to 20mhz, turn off B/G protection . . but that's about it.

Sounds to me like your problem may be interference related.

I've had my AC66 for almost a year and it's been reliable and fast--but I don't live in a crowded area. I would have recommended inSSIder before--but it's no longer free. There are apps for your phone that you can detect other wifi, and make sure you set your channels away from your neighbors as best as possible.

As to the amount of settings--I think this is a good thing. You don't have to change any of them, really. I'm glad they are there if needed, though. This was my frustration with the Airport Extreme . . while very reliable, it was inflexible.

But maybe you should look into something like that if you want to "set it and forget it."

 

[microchip]

Just had to switch to the latest Merlin Firmware as the latest firmware on ASUS site will not mount the USB HD...

As for the band, don't know any different, so I'll try 20mhz for a while. But in regards to the channel...well I've tried that, I do a scan of the local area and find that there are a few channels not being used by neighbors, like 7. Well, when I set the router to only use 7 the signal is very weak. Unfortunately, the best channel my phone app sees is 14 and well, that's not an option in the firmware....

Grrrr.....

You shouldn't be using overlapping channels, and chan 7 is one of them. http://www.metageek.net/support/why-channels-1-6-and-11/

 

[BC525]

But that's the reason for my inital post...I know that if I knew better the settings can be tweaked to improve performance...but there-in lies the problem, I know enough to break it! That's where the knowledge of this forum comes into play...or at least I hope!

Thanks,
~M

 

[BC525]

Interesting, thanks for that!!

You shouldn't be using overlapping channels, and chan 7 is one of them. http://www.metageek.net/support/why-channels-1-6-and-11/

 

[microchip]

But that's the reason for my inital post...I know that if I knew better the settings can be tweaked to improve performance...but there-in lies the problem, I know enough to break it! That's where the knowledge of this forum comes into play...or at least I hope!

Thanks,
~M

Well, performance on wireless can be tricky at times to improve. The only thing you can really do is enable/disable advanced options on the 2.4 band and test each time you enable or disable one of the options. In regards to chans, non-overlapping ones are recommended even if you have neighbors who also use it. That said, there is not really much you can do besides the above mentioned. Adding better antenna's is often a placebo. WiFi transmit power cannot be booster more that a max setting, but even if it could, there are people reporting that it acts as a placebo too

I don't really have any more tips I can suggest, unfortunately (prolly cuz I'm tired and can't think fully)

 

[BC525]

No worries, it's a start. It seems that no matter what I do I can't get a connection speed greater than 144Mbps in Windows...and watching my traffic monitor is depressing....I would love to actually be able to see that the router is even capable of reaching the advertised potential...UGH!

Well, performance on wireless can be tricky at times to improve. The only thing you can really do is enable/disable advanced options on the 2.4 band and test each time you enable or disable one of the options. In regards to chans, non-overlapping ones are recommended even if you have neighbors who also use it. That said, there is not really much you can do besides the above mentioned. Adding better antenna's is often a placebo. WiFi transmit power cannot be booster more that a max setting, but even if it could, there are people reporting that it acts as a placebo too

I don't really have any more tips I can suggest, unfortunately (prolly cuz I'm tired and can't think fully)

 

[microchip]

No worries, it's a start. It seems that no matter what I do I can't get a connection speed greater than 144Mbps in Windows...and watching my traffic monitor is depressing....I would love to actually be able to see that the router is even capable of reaching the advertised potential...UGH!

it's certainly is, I got an AC66U myself and I can tell you it's a beast and a workhorse. WiFi range is also the best I've ever had thus far from a router.

Anyways, you didn't mention which WiFi card you're using and what it's capable of. I'm suspecting more putting the blame on the card than on the router. Maybe there are also some Windows settings (maybe on the card itself) that may have an impact on the speed. I don't know since I don't use Windows

 

[BC525]

The card is an Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300 AGN.

As much as I'd like to blame the card, it's not just on this pc...regardless of what I connect with I can't get that traffic manager to get above 2750KBS and it only gets there when a speed test is run, even though the speed test comes back at 18-20MBS...

Gets back to not having the means to truely test what the speed capability is. I understand that streaming things from the internet don't actually persist a constant speed, but it just doesn't add up and I'm sure some of that comes from my lack of understanding....I guess I could try to move something large to or from the USB drive to a pc and watch the traffic monitor...at least that would test the router's wirelss only and remove AT&T from the equation (internet)?

it's certainly is, I got an AC66U myself and I can tell you it's a beast and a workhorse. WiFi range is also the best I've ever had thus far from a router.

Anyways, you didn't mention which WiFi card you're using and what it's capable of. I'm suspecting more putting the blame on the card than on the router. Maybe there are also some Windows settings (maybe on the card itself) that may have an impact on the speed. I don't know since I don't use Windows

 

[microchip]

Wait, I'm a bit confused. About which traffic manager you're talking about? The router's one or the Windows one? In case of the router, it's been reported to "lie" about but I don't remember whether it was only on the traffic volume or also on the bandwidth

 

[BC525]

Haha...hell, I'd say I don't believe neither.....Windows Connection Speed stays at a solid 144.0Mbps

The Traffic Monitor on the router will spike to 2750 during a speed test, but aside from that the most I can get out of it is 400-500KBs when streming Netflix or anything else for that matter...I'll try tomove a large file through it to see what it says...

Wait, I'm a bit confused. About which traffic manager you're talking about? The router's one or the Windows one? In case of the router, it's been reported to "lie" about but I don't remember whether it was only on the traffic volume or also on the bandwidth

 

[BC525]

OK, so here's what I'm talking about (and I'm sure I don't understand as this just doesn't make sense to me):

I just downloaded a 700MB avi file from the USB HD connected to the router..according to Windows connection speed status, the pc is connected wirelessly at 144Mbps. The download averged 6.5 MBs (according to the details of the copy window) and the traffic monitor on the router was pretty much in line with that (~6500 KBs).

So, that's it? I thought Wireless N was supposed to be 300-450 Mb/s which according to google's megabit to KiloByte convesion is 37500-56250 KB/s. Just doesn't make sense that my router tops out @ 6500KB/s.

Like I said, I'm probably confused and should be happy to transfer a 700MB file in 2 minutes, but damn I read people saying how fast this thing is and that just doesn't seem fast to me?????

 

[theveterans]

OK, so here's what I'm talking about (and I'm sure I don't understand as this just doesn't make sense to me):

I just downloaded a 700MB avi file from the USB HD connected to the router..according to Windows connection speed status, the pc is connected wirelessly at 144Mbps. The download averged 6.5 MBs (according to the details of the copy window) and the traffic monitor on the router was pretty much in line with that (~6500 KBs).

So, that's it? I thought Wireless N was supposed to be 300-450 Mb/s which according to google's megabit to KiloByte convesion is 37500-56250 KB/s. Just doesn't make sense that my router tops out @ 6500KB/s.

Like I said, I'm probably confused and should be happy to transfer a 700MB file in 2 minutes, but damn I read people saying how fast this thing is and that just doesn't seem fast to me?????

You need Intel 7260 to fully benefit from ASUS RT-AC66U. With that card, you can transfer around 50 MB/s and get a 700MB file transfer in around 15 seconds.