Asus AC87u dropping out

[wfhmaster]

Add my name to list of people who have had the experience of all networking failing including wired, however, wifi names still offered (but unable to connect).
Asus offered to RMA but it's my only router at the moment, so can't. I setup an outlet timer to restart it every night and it's been stable for a couple months.
When messing with it previously I had formed an idea that maybe after a certain amount of time, something like 20-30days of uptime after a firmware update/NVRAM reset it would start to happen again. Almost like a memory leak in an app or OS. I suspect it could the something at the OS level. I'm just waiting for something better to come up (same feature set) so I can get rid of it, it's been nothing but a PITA.

Is there anyway to tshoot this kind of failure? Some kind of logs we can look at within the OS? I would love to figure out the issue. The unit would be great if this one thing was solved.

 

[Haggster]

Add my name to list of people who have had the experience of all networking failing including wired, however, wifi names still offered (but unable to connect).
Asus offered to RMA but it's my only router at the moment, so can't. I setup an outlet timer to restart it every night and it's been stable for a couple months.
When messing with it previously I had formed an idea that maybe after a certain amount of time, something like 20-30days of uptime after a firmware update/NVRAM reset it would start to happen again. Almost like a memory leak in an app or OS. I suspect it could the something at the OS level. I'm just waiting for something better to come up (same feature set) so I can get rid of it, it's been nothing but a PITA.

Is there anyway to tshoot this kind of failure? Some kind of logs we can look at within the OS? I would love to figure out the issue. The unit would be great if this one thing was solved.

I'm just hoping that this is a software and not a hardware issue. As mentioned, my temps are low (it's actively cooled 24/7 as well), but I also reboot every morning via cron job. So I reboot at 5AM and when I got up 5 hours later, the symptoms you just described above were there. So I actually don't even know for how long after the reboot it was working properly. It also means it cannot be traffic related as I'm obvously doing nothing wifi related when I'm sleeping (had no computers running either, just maybe two tablets on standby, plus a phone and my set top "box" which is always connected - all 2.4GHz wifi).

I've now set the clock speed back to 1GHz after running the router overclocked to 1.2GHz without any issues for almost a year, just to be sure.

Have you modfied the clock speed in any way?

 

[My_dogs_White]

My modem is a ZyXel VMG8324 which I use in bridge mode, so the AC87 does the PPPoE login. However the modem just keeps running and never gives me any problems or disconnects. I think the last time I turned it off was in April this year.

One thing to consider is your ISP! I had all kinds of issues with my AC87... the solution in my case ended up being a static ip. So now I recommend looking at this when I see people posting issues that are close to what I was experiencing. A tech with my ISP told me bridge mode often doesn't work. The only true bridge mode is a static ip. I don't pretend to have a clue when it comes to networking. I'm just passing on what eventually worked for me. Good luck, once you get the router working it's rock solid... I promise. Don't give up!

 

[Haggster]

One thing to consider is your ISP! I had all kinds of issues with my AC87... the solution in my case ended up being a static ip. So now I recommend looking at this when I see people posting issues that are close to what I was experiencing. A tech with my ISP told me bridge mode often doesn't work. The only true bridge mode is a static ip. I don't pretend to have a clue when it comes to networking. I'm just passing on what eventually worked for me. Good luck, once you get the router working it's rock solid... I promise. Don't give up!

Thanks! You know what? This might be it. The following background: It's actually 5:50AM here right now and I was surfing the web around 5AM when my router is scheduled to do it's daily reboot - so the AC87 takes around 2-3 minutes to boot back up after triggering a restart, which is why I waited - and what happened? The same issue as last morning. Even though I set the clock speed back to stock before (so it has absolutely nothing to do with overclocking). I had to turn the power off and on again to fix this.

I then assumed that this might happen after ever soft-reboot now (i.e. without turning the router off physically)... so I logged on via ssh, triggered /sbin/reboot and waited - but the router came back up without issues.

Now, if my ISP changed something from their side, like assigning a new IP once after every 24hrs - which would only happen once a connection has been terminated, then this would be the explanation: The AC87 reboots after 24hrs, thereby creates a new logon session with my ISP when it's coming back up - and the new session results in a new IP - which apparently causes this problem. However since the IP is likely valid for 24hrs, I won't face the problem again until tomorrow.

The only problem is that I have no proof that this is indeed the case.


EDIT: If the above assumption is true, then I just need to maintain a second cron job to reboot the router again, e.g. 10 minutes after the original one. And no static IP will be needed.

 

[Puppa]

My network includes 29 devices and is extremely taxing on the router. I've had the same problems with my RT-AC87R from the day I got it, regardless whether I'm using Merlin or stock firmware. It seems that it simply cannot handle the workload. Turning a lot of features off is the only way I can keep it going well. To some extent, the RT-AC3200 shares this same trouble, but I can leave more features turned on and still function on that one. I can cover up some of the glitches which can take the form of packet loss by ensuring that my channels do not change and neither do my wireless device IP addresses.

SPI, for example, carries a heavy cpu load with it, enough that it sucks about 2/3 of my 100Mbps download throughput as measured by speedtest.net (down from 100Mbps to 39Mbps). In AP mode, SPI is off, so using the RT-AC3200 as my main router and putting the RT-AC87 as an access point keeps things far more stable for me.

I'm not advocating you turn off SPI, which is the firewall, just pointing out that the CPU in these things just can't seem to keep up with lots of devices and heavy traffic. QoS is another cpu bandwidth sucker, but not as much as SPI.

So it seems that the CPU bandwidth of these things is a major limiting factor. Even for $300, there are only so many things one little 32-bit ARM cpu can do.

 

[cc666]

My network includes 29 devices and is extremely taxing on the router. I've had the same problems with my RT-AC87R from the day I got it, regardless whether I'm using Merlin or stock firmware. It seems that it simply cannot handle the workload. Turning a lot of features off is the only way I can keep it going well. To some extent, the RT-AC3200 shares this same trouble, but I can leave more features turned on and still function on that one. I can cover up some of the glitches which can take the form of packet loss by ensuring that my channels do not change and neither do my wireless device IP addresses.

SPI, for example, carries a heavy cpu load with it, enough that it sucks about 2/3 of my 100Mbps download throughput as measured by speedtest.net (down from 100Mbps to 39Mbps). In AP mode, SPI is off, so using the RT-AC3200 as my main router and putting the RT-AC87 as an access point keeps things far more stable for me.

I'm not advocating you turn off SPI, which is the firewall, just pointing out that the CPU in these things just can't seem to keep up with lots of devices and heavy traffic. QoS is another cpu bandwidth sucker, but not as much as SPI.

So it seems that the CPU bandwidth of these things is a major limiting factor. Even for $300, there are only so many things one little 32-bit ARM cpu can do.

Why dosen't the Netgear R7000 have this problem?

CC

 

[Haggster]

BTW, I didn't get the problem again after this morning's 5AM scheduled reboot.

I added another scheduled reboot at 5:10AM yesterday, so in case the problem was there after the first one I guess it got resolved after the second reboot. Will keep an eye on it though.

Luckily I don't mind this daily downtime of 10 minutes since it requires no manual action from my side, but I can imagine it would bother some people who need to have their unit operational 24/7.

 

[Puppa]

Why dosen't the Netgear R7000 have this problem?

CC

I have one of those too. And it does have the same problem. Actually, that one is even worse than the RT-AC87R. (based on stock firmware)

 

[Stevemcclure]

Thank you all for your replies, I have come to the conclusion that having 2 units doing this, people reporting on this thread with this problem, and other articles I have seen browsing the web with it dropping out like this that there must be some sort issues going on with the router itself.

I shall be sending it back and am looking at getting something else, I have been looking at the ASUS AC68U which should meet my need in regards to being on sky fiber broadband, that uses the MER authentication, which of course merlins firmware supports.

What are peoples opinions on the ASUS AC68U? I have heard it is a solid router but would like some opinions first.

It is a shame about the AC87U, as when it works it works really well, unfortunately had 2 more drop outs this evening with only 2 iphones connected to it, went and booted up the pc to try and log into the router but network was unrecognised on the lan.

 

[Revelstone77]

add me to the list also. I was running rock solid since moving to Merlin's firmware until recently. started sporadically, and has now progressed to every evening. totally inaccessible. power cycle is the only cure. nothing to speak of in the logs. I am going to try a total clear and reflash before I go back to my N66u. crazy stuff.

 

[mattiL]

I woke up this morning only to find my 5 GHz network missing in action.
The 5 GHz led was dark and the web GUI told me 5GHz was disabled.

Uptime before todays restart: 9 days 13 hours
Firmware: Merlin 378.55
Temperatures: 42/50/71 C (this is the normal temperature for my router)

In the router log I could see a new, frequently repeating, message filling the log:

Sep 19 06:47:58 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: DHCPREQUEST(br0) 192.168.1.61 2c:1f:xx:xx:xx:xx
Sep 19 06:47:58 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: DHCPACK(br0) 192.168.1.61 2c:1f:xx:xx:xx:xx Matti-iPad
Sep 19 06:48:11 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:12 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:20 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:23 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:31 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:31 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: DHCPREQUEST(br0) 192.168.1.226 b4:52:xx:xx:xx:xx
Sep 19 06:48:31 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: DHCPACK(br0) 192.168.1.226 b4:52:xx:xx:xx:xx android-9517275fd67587c1
Sep 19 06:48:34 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:45 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:45 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:53 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:56 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:49:04 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:49:07 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:49:18 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:49:18 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured

I thought the router would have to be replaced, but after having it powered off for 5-10 minutes the wifi 5 GHz started again!
It has now been running for about one hour without errors.

Some screen shots attached.

 

[sfx2000]

Sep 19 06:47:58 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: DHCPREQUEST(br0) 192.168.1.61 2c:1f:xx:xx:xx:xx
Sep 19 06:47:58 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: DHCPACK(br0) 192.168.1.61 2c:1f:xx:xx:xx:xx Matti-iPad
Sep 19 06:48:11 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured
Sep 19 06:48:12 dnsmasq-dhcp[460]: BOOTP(br0) 00:26:86:00:00:00 no address configured

Looks like the QTN SoC is crashed... the 00:26:86 OUI belongs to Quantenna...

Again, this goes back to the QTN bootloader waiting for user input - as noted by the 00:00:00:00 part of the MAC Addr - makes sense that they would use BOOTP to config the QTN (remember, this is an AP inside an AP/Router), and it's in a bad way...

Looks like a SW bug to me... but a tough one to debug without JTAG and a firmware image to step thru... could be bootloader itself, or corrupted QTN firmware.

Interesting...

 

[ohzee00]

I have had my ac87u just over a year and the entire time I have sporatically had it lock up exactly as stated above.
This is across different firmware versions which I am currently running merlins latest.
Sometimes it can go weeks maybe even months , but at some point it happens.
I just now had this happen again. Nothing in the logs on the device or to my external syslog server.
Everything just quits working. Can not ping the router either.

I bought the 2 yr insurance when I bought this so tomorrow I am going to upgrade. Was just hoping a newer model would come out before I had to do so.
That one with all the antennas is ugly.

 

[sfx2000]

I have had my ac87u just over a year and the entire time I have sporatically had it lock up exactly as stated above.
This is across different firmware versions which I am currently running merlins latest.
Sometimes it can go weeks maybe even months , but at some point it happens.
I just now had this happen again. Nothing in the logs on the device or to my external syslog server.
Everything just quits working. Can not ping the router either.

I bought the 2 yr insurance when I bought this so tomorrow I am going to upgrade. Was just hoping a newer model would come out before I had to do so.
That one with all the antennas is ugly.

the RT-AC68 series are still on store shelves, and they're pretty stable...

if one wants to stay in the ASUS camp..

 

[ohzee00]

Thanks. I actually had 2 of those units before upgrading to the latest. I needed 2 to cover my garage behind the house.
Once I got the 87 tho it had such good range I only needed the one. Not sure if it was the beamforming or the antennas.

I want to stick with Asus. May have to try the 3200.

 

[mike2h]

already posted this in merlins forum but wanted to get on the band wagon here to- get sporadic drops-assume its the 5ghz radio - recently I have been having to manually reboot to get the 5 radio working, this seems to b getting more frequent.
hopefully this is fixable-soon.

 

[fafot]

Same here. Sometime it holds for a week and sometime it drops 2-3 times in 15 minutes. The average is about 3 days, but as noted above when the load is heavy it drops more. I think it has nothing to do with the software. I am using Marlin 378.53 and was just about to upgrade to 378.55 but after reading this thread I am going to try the static IP first.

 

[Jong]

Static IP did not help me.

 

[mike2h]

same here

 

[Stevemcclure]

Just an update to anyone following this thread.
Someone on another thread suggested turning off the traffic analyser/app statistics in the router settings, I have done this and the router has not locked up since doing so. Uptime now is 5 days 22 hours. Max I ever had was 3 days, may still be early days but it is worth a try.
Would be good to see if this works for others too.


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