Asus AC68u slow and inconsistent USB 3.0 transfer speeds

[mightyberry]

Hello,

So I own a Asus AC68u router with Merlin 380.59 firmware and a Western Digital My Passport Ultra attached to it via USB 3.0. The USB 3.0 noise reduction is set off.

Normally I get transfer rates while copying files from the drive to my PC of around 40-50 megabytes per second (large files). Than when I need to reboot the router either from the webui or command line the transfer gets stuck at around 27 megabytes per second are won't go any higher, even for a second. Basically the transfer rates are similar to what I get wen the drive is connected to a USB 2.0 port
Sometimes when I reboot the router by removing the power cable or using the power button the transfers go up again... until the next reboot. I simply don't get it.
Has anyone came across a similar issue?

And yes I understand that router is not a NAS and I can't expect that level of performance.
Right now after doing a factory reset to official asus firmware and than flashing the latest Merlin (setting up everything from scratch) I get transfers around 48MB/S with Transmission and DLNA running in the background. This is perfectly fine for my needs.

But I'm certain that once I reboot the router from the UI, the transfer will again be stuck at 27 MB/S. So basically I would like to know how to keep this level of performance.

Regards,

 

[westmc]

I had a similar issue with my 68P. I was running stock for a while and consistently got about 50/30 R/W over wireless. I switched to 380.58 and it suddenly dropped significantly. I had other issues as well and went back to stock (380.2695) and it went right back to 50/30. I then went to 380.59 beta 2 and it dropped to an extremely consistent 21/4 over wireless and wired. I spent a few hours trying different firmware versions trying to track down the issue and even with numerous factory resets and going back to 380.2695, the speed stayed at 21/4. After a few reboots of the router while on 380.2695, speed suddenly went back to normal. I then tried 380.59 beta 2 again and it was running at about 40/20 (due to a known issue with samba). I upgraded to 380.59 last night and it went back up to 50/30. I'm sorry that I can't help with giving info on the cause or the fix but I definitely experienced the same issue.

 

[L&LD]

Hello,

So I own a Asus AC68u router with Merlin 380.59 firmware and a Western Digital My Passport Ultra attached to it via USB 3.0. The USB 3.0 noise reduction is set off.

Normally I get transfer rates while copying files from the drive to my PC of around 40-50 megabytes per second (large files). Than when I need to reboot the router either from the webui or command line the transfer gets stuck at around 27 megabytes per second are won't go any higher, even for a second. Basically the transfer rates are similar to what I get wen the drive is connected to a USB 2.0 port
Sometimes when I reboot the router by removing the power cable or using the power button the transfers go up again... until the next reboot. I simply don't get it.
Has anyone came across a similar issue?

And yes I understand that router is not a NAS and I can't expect that level of performance.
Right now after doing a factory reset to official asus firmware and than flashing the latest Merlin (setting up everything from scratch) I get transfers around 48MB/S with Transmission and DLNA running in the background. This is perfectly fine for my needs.

But I'm certain that once I reboot the router from the UI, the transfer will again be stuck at 27 MB/S. So basically I would like to know how to keep this level of performance.

Regards,

If you haven't performed a reset to factory defaults followed by a minimal and manual configuration to secure the router and connect to your ISP, then these type of issues may be hard (or impossible) to track down.

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/no...l-and-manual-configuration.27115/#post-205573


Follow the appropriate steps in the link above to make sure your router is in a known state. Then monitor to see if the issue continues afterwards.

 

[mightyberry]

So i followed the guide to the letter. After completing the last step I disabled the USB 3.0 noise reduction, plugged in the drive and re-enabled network shares. At this pointy the transfer rates where about 44MB/S so good. I did a reboot to confirm that it will stay this way and it did.

In the morning (12 hours later) I did another reboot just to check if everything will be ok and the transfer rates dropped to 27MB/S again. The router was doing nothing during the night and the only setting I changed in the morning prior to reboot was the 2,4Ghz channel.

This is just weird...

 

[L&LD]

Is your drive externally powered, or powered off the USB port?

 

[mightyberry]

It's a 2,5 inch USB powered drive.

 

[L&LD]

It's a 2,5 inch USB powered drive.

Do you have a 'Y' cable to connect to both of the USB ports (one, only for power)?

http://www.vantecusa.com/CMS/support/faq/question/59

 

[Kanuki]

Are you using NTFS or EXT3/4 for that drive?

 

[mightyberry]

The drive is connected only through a USB 3.0 single plug and its formatted to EXT4.

So the situation at this point looks like this:
On Friday I did the following - the drive was always plugged in:
-flashed the latest official Asus firmware 3.0.0.4.380.3264
- once it came back - restored factory defaults by the reset button at the back of the unit
- flashed latest Merlin firmware 380.59
- once it came back - restored factory defaults by the reset button at the back of the unit
- did a complete setup (connected to ISP, disabled media serwer, set time zone, wifi channels - basically everything that was pointed out in the guide provided by @L&LD)
- rebooted the router by turning it off using the power button at the back.
- after it came back I enabled the JFFS partition with format on the next boot
- disabled the USB 3.0 noise reduction (the router rebooted to apply the changes)
- finally installed EntwareNG, Transmission and MiniDLNA.

At this point I get stable 48MB/S transfers from the router to my computer. I can reboot the router as much as I want by either using the power button or just removing the power plug and it will be fine (tested a number of times). The transfers will stay on the mentioned level.

However I'm sure that when I at least once reboot the router from the gui or reboot command through SSH it will get stuck on the 27MB/S transfer rates. The only way to solve this is to follow the procedure above.

 

[malusoculus]

I have the same problem: Latest Merlin, 380.58, and a SSD disk on USB3.
Transfer speed to the SSD would drop significantly after some period of time.

'Reducing USB 3.0 interference' option is showing Disabled.
I found that to get the full speed it is enough to change 'Tx power adjustment' slider slightly and Apply the changes.

 

[stambeccuccio]

'Reducing USB 3.0 interference' option is showing Disabled.
I found that to get the full speed it is enough to change 'Tx power adjustment' slider slightly and Apply the changes.

I confirm

 

[mightyberry]

Yup, the USB 3.0 interference reduce was disabled, while TX power was set to maximum. After decreasing it to 85% on both bands I got a boost in transfer rates of about 4MB/S (how come?).
But the restart issue still persists...

 

[mjp93]

Yup, the USB 3.0 interference reduce was disabled, while TX power was set to maximum. After decreasing it to 85% on both bands I got a boost in transfer rates of about 4MB/S (how come?).
But the restart issue still persists...

After going through lots of discussion on speed issues on this device i finally came to this thread, only active thread.

I m planning on buying ac68u, but i m afraid of this issue. Should i stick to my plan ( assuming that custom fw will solve the issue) or go for netgear r7000?



Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Simon T]

OMGGG! This issue has been driving me crazy for the best part of 6 months. I used to get 80mb read and 65mb write to my Samsung usb3 1tb drive (router was clocked to 1200,800) then I did a firmware update a few months ago and it dropped to 27mb read 25mb write. I've tried everything to get the speeds back and nothing can get the speeds back (flashed new firmware, factory reset, usb interference is off, down clocked) I've tried stock fw and I'm currently using the latest merlin 380.59 all with the same terrible usb 3.0 speeds. I'm going to give the tx power adjustment a try to see if that fixes it. I'd love to get my super fast 80/65 speeds back as I use the drive to decompress huge files and its so damn slow right now.

 

[mjp93]

OMGGG! This issue has been driving me crazy for the best part of 6 months. I used to get 80mb read and 65mb write to my Samsung usb3 1tb drive (router was clocked to 1200,800) then I did a firmware update a few months ago and it dropped to 27mb read 25mb write. I've tried everything to get the speeds back and nothing can get the speeds back (flashed new firmware, factory reset, usb interference is off, down clocked) I've tried stock fw and I'm currently using the latest merlin 380.59 all with the same terrible usb 3.0 speeds. I'm going to give the tx power adjustment a try to see if that fixes it. I'd love to get my super fast 80/65 speeds back as I use the drive to decompress huge files and its so damn slow right now.

Bro, I just bought new ac68u , and teriffic speeds!!
I am getting 6MB/s - 7MB/s with my WD usb 3, over 2.4/5G

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[mightyberry]

Right so there appears to be a workaround for the issue.
Basically if you reboot the router from the GUI or reboot command from shell it will always get stuck on USB 2.0 speeds (at least my unit).
If you reboot the router via the power button on the back it works fine, but if you want to overclock, for some reason it is not applied at boot.

However if you reboot the router by removing the power cable, wait 10 seconds and power on - everything is perfect. Transfer rates average at about 50MB/S (with Adaptive QoS turned on - without around 60MB/S) and overclock is applied properly. It's not a solution, but at least it works reliably for the moment.

By the way, how stupid it is to run the 380.56_2 software these days? I noticed I get better transfer rates all around compared to newer versions... how big of a security hole am I getting into?

 

[Snoopotic]

Hey guys, this seems to be an issue on the AC68u. see the test on http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...1900-first-look-netgear-r7000-a-asus-rt-ac68u

 

[mjp93]

Right so there appears to be a workaround for the issue.
Basically if you reboot the router from the GUI or reboot command from shell it will always get stuck on USB 2.0 speeds (at least my unit).
If you reboot the router via the power button on the back it works fine, but if you want to overclock, for some reason it is not applied at boot.

However if you reboot the router by removing the power cable, wait 10 seconds and power on - everything is perfect. Transfer rates average at about 50MB/S (with Adaptive QoS turned on - without around 60MB/S) and overclock is applied properly. It's not a solution, but at least it works reliably for the moment.

By the way, how stupid it is to run the 380.56_2 software these days? I noticed I get better transfer rates all around compared to newer versions... how big of a security hole am I getting into?

how are the speeds now?

 

[mightyberry]

I really can't tell as some weeks ago I bought an AC88u + a NAS so I don't have the old router.
It was simply too much of a hassle to reboot the router each time by the power button and hope the nothing breaks after a firmware update.
Now everything is perfectly stable.

 

[mjp93]

I really can't tell as some weeks ago I bought an AC88u + a NAS so I don't have the old router.
It was simply too much of a hassle to reboot the router each time by the power button and hope the nothing breaks after a firmware update.
Now everything is perfectly stable.

SAMBA:
Wired: upto 15MB/s(R) and 8MB/s(W)
Wireless: upto 10MB/s(R) and 7MB(W)

FTP:
Wired: upto 37-39MB/s(R/W)
Wireless: upto 17MB/s(R/W)

What u think of these speeds? If u remember.