Asus AX88U missing control channels

[takalti]

Hi all,
Have a bit of a strange one.

I recently bought a second hand AX88U, which I have set as a primary AIMesh router, replacing my AC86U. The 86U is now the secondary node, connected via a ethernet backhaul.

The AX88u only has a very limited set of channels available to select on 5g (36-48, see image below). It does not show channels in the higher ranges at all, regardless of the channel bandwidth setting. I have seen it go as high as 60 on auto.

I have done a SSH region check and it come up as UK-1 and DE, so EU model I guess. I would still think some other channels were available though?

Have the latest Merlin installed, have also tried the latest factory. Clean install for both.

Any help or advice appreciated - cheers!

Edit: should mention I live in Australia.

 

[RedMaligator]

Enable 160mhz to see if channels appear, if not. Goto ASUS and get there ASUS Firmware Restoration utility get the latest firmware and reflash it. Then check it again. If corrected then reflash with latest Merlin. Hope that helps.

Please confirm you have correct download for your device whenever flashing!!

 

[takalti]

ok thanks - yeah the 160 makes no difference. I will try the restoration and hope that works. Will let you know the outcome

 

[RMerlin]

U-NII-3 channels are not available for the EU region AFAIK.

The bootloader region is hardcoded and cannot be changed by the user.

 

[takalti]

understood @RMerlin - not trying to change the region as that is what I get for buying a unit second hand. what I am trying to do is work out why I cant see U-NII-2c. I was hoping it was a config error on my part but my research hasnt come up with anything obvious.
I do need to do a full factory reset anyway as I have a second node to add that wont sync up without it, so maybe that will fix it.

 

[takalti]

Another thing that may or may not be related - my ring cameras will no longer connect to the 2.4ghz net on the side of the house that has the ax88u, but my ac86u node has a strong 2.4 signal. I am using the same channel and settings as I had on my AC86U. I now need to go through my wireless doorbell pro that has it's own 2.4ghz signal.

Hopefully a full factory reset of all routers fixes the issues.

 

[takalti]

hmm - so I flashed to the latest Beta official firmware and have channels back. I am about to do a factory reset so I can connect this other node, then will try Merlin's again.

 

[takalti]

So after some experimenting it seems that I lose the ability to select the additional channels as soon as I add the AIMesh node. I assume that is because my router is an EU one and my Node is Asia/AU.

I can live with it - at least I know when it is happening.

On a side note I was unable to reattach my DSL-AC68U as a node using either official firmware or the gnuton one. Just going to put it in the cupboard and be happy with what I have.

 

[takalti]

Can confirm - the same behaviour with both the official and the merlin fw. The router by itself has all its channels. Add an AIMesh node and it loses the ability to select anything higher than 48.

No real idea why except that the router and node are different regions.

One interesting thing with the 2.4ghz is that the router can select channel 13, where I dont believe I could on the node when it was the router. If I select channel 13 on the router, the node goes to channel 1. End result is that it is possible with this setup to have an ethernet backhaul with both 2.4g transmitters on different channels.

 

[bbunge]

Can confirm - the same behaviour with both the official and the merlin fw. The router by itself has all its channels. Add an AIMesh node and it loses the ability to select anything higher than 48.

No real idea why except that the router and node are different regions.

One interesting thing with the 2.4ghz is that the router can select channel 13, where I dont believe I could on the node when it was the router. If I select channel 13 on the router, the node goes to channel 1. End result is that it is possible with this setup to have an ethernet backhaul with both 2.4g transmitters on different channels.

Call it lowest common denominator. When I add an AC66U_B1 as an AiMesh node the AX86U router no longer has DFS channels to select. While the router will do 160 MHz the node does not have the ability to do DFS and its 5 GHz bandwidth is limited to 80 MHz.