ASUS failed; [update - replaced]

[lindros2]

After years with this brand (and dicking around resetting and fixing routers) I’m done.
tech support useless. Won’t talk just email and chat.
well, now it’s time (after 8 weeks) to put the screws to them.
For those considering ASUS (doubtful here) - don’t.

 

[drinkingbird]

Good luck with your lawsuit. The only people who will get any money are the lawyers who charge you and get no results.

Look at Netgear or Cisco (consumer stuff, formerly Linksys) or any other consumer brand. You'll find just as many complaints and issues. Long story short, if you want high performance and low price, something has to give. There will be lackluster support and some bugs. The fact that Asus collaborates with Merlin actually yields better code (even their stock code, since they implement fixes for stuff found by Merlin and the users of his code). I give them credit for that.

Personally, I've seen far more problems with Netgear than Asus. Back in the day Linksys was the worst of them all. Has gotten better now that it is under Cisco (even before that they had improved), but my Asus has been great. One strange bug came into the 386 code base that only impacts FIOS users but was able to figure out and resolve that one finally. For a router I got on clearance at Walmart for $25 years ago, I have no complaints about my RT-AC1900.

 

[lindros2]

Agree.
First, we're not talking about one unit - this is now over 50 ASUS units I've seen degrade or stop functioning properly within 12-24 months (as defined by unable to get wired and/or wireless connection, not subjective speed/performance).
Second, ASUS refuses to stand behind their units with regard to warranty service. "Covid" was an excuse, no more.
Third, their RMA process - as evidenced by others who have gone through the process - requires 20-30 interactions with ASUS, is combative on what is wrong and user error, and often provides physically damaged units in return for impeccable units sent to ASUS. This could be remanufacturing fraud, in which ASUS

As I previously recommended ASUS to clients - both individuals and small businesses - I have completely backed away from them.
NETGEAR and LINKSYS (under Cisco) are trash.
Ubiquiti (and the Amplifi / Amplifi Alien) are better, but either require a lot of money and networking skills, or owners deal with "sealed box" (i.e. very few settings can be tweaked). Same with Google (Nest) WiFi.

But as the "prosumers choice", ASUS has come crashing down as using suspect/suspicious radios which are failing - like clockwork - within two years. These are just two of dozens of examples (I have 25+ of the units still in my supply closet):
RT-AC5300 - purchased November, 2018. Failed October/November, 2020 - replaced with GT-AC5300.
GT-AX11000 - purchased June, 2020. Failing March/April, 2022.

 

[bbunge]

Agree.
First, we're not talking about one unit - this is now over 50 ASUS units I've seen degrade or stop functioning properly within 12-24 months (as defined by unable to get wired and/or wireless connection, not subjective speed/performance).
Second, ASUS refuses to stand behind their units with regard to warranty service. "Covid" was an excuse, no more.
Third, their RMA process - as evidenced by others who have gone through the process - requires 20-30 interactions with ASUS, is combative on what is wrong and user error, and often provides physically damaged units in return for impeccable units sent to ASUS. This could be remanufacturing fraud, in which ASUS

As I previously recommended ASUS to clients - both individuals and small businesses - I have completely backed away from them.
NETGEAR and LINKSYS (under Cisco) are trash.
Ubiquiti (and the Amplifi / Amplifi Alien) are better, but either require a lot of money and networking skills, or owners deal with "sealed box" (i.e. very few settings can be tweaked). Same with Google (Nest) WiFi.

But as the "prosumers choice", ASUS has come crashing down as using suspect/suspicious radios which are failing - like clockwork - within two years. These are just two of dozens of examples (I have 25+ of the units still in my supply closet):
RT-AC5300 - purchased November, 2018. Failed October/November, 2020 - replaced with GT-AC5300.
GT-AX11000 - purchased June, 2020. Failing March/April, 2022.

You clearly have some issue causing all those failures. Power problem? All of my Asus routers are still functional. Including the N66U!

 

[lindros2]

You clearly have some issue causing all those failures. Power problem? All of my Asus routers are still functional. Including the N66U!

i have them plugged into UPS (mini or full)

 

[TexasFlood]

You clearly have some issue causing all those failures. Power problem? All of my Asus routers are still functional. Including the N66U!

Same experience here.

 

[lindros2]

Same experience here.

my entire family doesn't have cancer.
Cancer must be the fault of all cancer patients.

Same asinine logic.

Yes, I have AC68U's that are fine.
Yet AC3200, AC5300, and AX11000 have radios failing after two years.

Must be my fault, not the routers.

 

[Maverick009]

After years with this brand (and dicking around resetting and fixing routers) I’m done.
tech support useless. Won’t talk just email and chat.
well, now it’s time (after 8 weeks) to put the screws to them.
For those considering ASUS (doubtful here) - don’t.

I have had a few Asus wireless routers for some time now and they do the job and have outlasted some of the other brands I have had. Infact have two of them now running on Merlin WRT as Access Points within my home network and they are between about 20 months and maybe 5yrs old with my RT-AC3100 being the older one and my current new one is an Asus GT-AX11000, which you mentioned failed, yet I have no problems or degradation with all radios and ports working properly as intended. If you are talking about wireless, that can degrade in performance with more crowding in the wireless spectrum, electrical interference, and other devices. That is just the norm of wireless and part of why it keeps evolving. Doubt you will get anywhere as there has not been any wide spread issues, and for some issue, it can be attributed to user error, as their routers are more geared at enthusiasts, but they still dumb down the basics for the average person.

 

[Maverick009]

Good luck with your lawsuit. The only people who will get any money are the lawyers who charge you and get no results.

Look at Netgear or Cisco (consumer stuff, formerly Linksys) or any other consumer brand. You'll find just as many complaints and issues. Long story short, if you want high performance and low price, something has to give. There will be lackluster support and some bugs. The fact that Asus collaborates with Merlin actually yields better code (even their stock code, since they implement fixes for stuff found by Merlin and the users of his code). I give them credit for that.

Personally, I've seen far more problems with Netgear than Asus. Back in the day Linksys was the worst of them all. Has gotten better now that it is under Cisco (even before that they had improved), but my Asus has been great. One strange bug came into the 386 code base that only impacts FIOS users but was able to figure out and resolve that one finally. For a router I got on clearance at Walmart for $25 years ago, I have no complaints about my RT-AC1900.

Actually Linksys was one of the best brands around in the early days. That is where a lot of firmware customization started with in the consumer space such as DD-WRT, Tomato (which was forked and now ASUS runs a variant), and OpenWRT. If it wasn't for Linksys opening their platform, some of what we see now, might not of come. Also Cisco, purchased Linksys and had them for a short period, but abandon Linksys and sold it now current owners Belkin, which was acquired by Foxconn, as Cisco concentrated back on enterprise/business class hardware, and had nothing to do with Linksys becoming a good brand as it was prior to their initial purchase. They did try to recreate the magic with a new WRT router and expand further into networking, but Linksys brand is not exactly what it once was, and ASUS has sort of taken their spot when it comes to open platform for 3rd party firmware.

 

[TexasFlood]

my entire family doesn't have cancer.
Cancer must be the fault of all cancer patients.

Same asinine logic.

Yes, I have AC68U's that are fine.
Yet AC3200, AC5300, and AX11000 have radios failing after two years.

Must be my fault, not the routers.

Just sharing my experience. I have owned none of the models you listed as having issues with.

 

[Starrbuck]

After years with this brand (and dicking around resetting and fixing routers) I’m done.
tech support useless. Won’t talk just email and chat.
well, now it’s time (after 8 weeks) to put the screws to them.
For those considering ASUS (doubtful here) - don’t.

Cool story, bro.

Please let us know where you end up and how the new experiences are.

 

[thiggins]

Same asinine logic.

Refrain from personal attacks or you will get a time-out

 

[drinkingbird]

Actually Linksys was one of the best brands around in the early days. That is where a lot of firmware customization started with in the consumer space such as DD-WRT, Tomato (which was forked and now ASUS runs a variant), and OpenWRT. If it wasn't for Linksys opening their platform, some of what we see now, might not of come. Also Cisco, purchased Linksys and had them for a short period, but abandon Linksys and sold it now current owners Belkin, which was acquired by Foxconn, as Cisco concentrated back on enterprise/business class hardware, and had nothing to do with Linksys becoming a good brand as it was prior to their initial purchase. They did try to recreate the magic with a new WRT router and expand further into networking, but Linksys brand is not exactly what it once was, and ASUS has sort of taken their spot when it comes to open platform for 3rd party firmware.

I'm talking in the days before DD-WRT, They were awful back then, but yes that's like 20 years ago. I did have a WRT-54G back in the day for the specific reason of being able to run DD-WRT on it. That one was a decent router but I still had to have a scheduled reboot on it.

Honestly haven't paid enough attention (I deal in the enterprise space a lot more than the home), but I see Cisco did sell them off a long time ago. However the Cisco Linksys branded stuff was the most stable of them all from my experience, there is still one running at my mom's house and several friends (without the need for anything faster/newer) still have them going too. They were the only ones that didn't have to be rebooted like once a week, then eventually suffering heat failures after a couple years.

Cisco does still have SOHO stuff, probably still based on the work they did on Linksys. Looks like Linksys is now a mash up of Belkin (Foxconn/Hon Hai) and Fortinet.

 

[TexasFlood]

I'm talking in the days before DD-WRT, They were awful back then, but yes that's like 20 years ago. I did have a WRT-54G back in the day for the specific reason of being able to run DD-WRT on it. That one was a decent router but I still had to have a scheduled reboot on it.

Honestly haven't paid enough attention (I deal in the enterprise space a lot more than the home), but I see Cisco did sell them off a long time ago. However the Cisco Linksys branded stuff was the most stable of them all from my experience, there is still one running at my mom's house and several friends (without the need for anything faster/newer) still have them going too. They were the only ones that didn't have to be rebooted like once a week, then eventually suffering heat failures after a couple years.

Cisco does still have SOHO stuff, probably still based on the work they did on Linksys. Looks like Linksys is now a mash up of Belkin (Foxconn/Hon Hai) and Fortinet.

I remember those days. When Linksys accidentally created the 3rd party firmware environment for their products. I bought my first WRT54G to run Sveasoft. Then mostly HyperWRT and Tomato after that - high level, leaving out a lot of variants & details. I did use DD-WRT at times and it was fine. But it was never my favorite. I loved HyperWRT and mostly stuck to that lineage.

 

[drinkingbird]

I remember those days. When Linksys accidentally created the 3rd party firmware environment for their products. I bought my first WRT54G to run Sveasoft. Then mostly HyperWRT and Tomato after that - high level, leaving out a lot of variants & details. I did use DD-WRT at times and it was fine. But it was never my favorite. I loved HyperWRT and mostly stuck to that lineage.

If I'm remembering correctly, it was the v2 of the 54G that you had to get if you wanted to easily use 3rd party firmware - essentially the cat was out of the bag after someone got the source from V1, so they might as well sell it as a feature and make it easy to do. Smart move on their part as that was probably one of their best selling routers ever.

I believe I started with DD-WRT then moved to Tomato for better/easier VLAN support. Was a long time ago though. Memory is fuzzy. Then I moved onto all enterprise class stuff (Cisco router, switch, access points, call manager, IP phones,, Juniper and Checkpoint Firewalls, basically work would give me end of life stuff that was still leaps and bounds beyond home stuff) and now I'm back to where I started with a simple home router with 3rd party firmware. The cost of electricity, static IPs, and a decent server to run my email and web etc was stupid when I could host it all for like $20 a year. Though that room was nice and warm in the winter and it looked impressive. And it was fun knowing that the original cost of the stuff was well into 6 figures (though current value was much lower, network gear depreciates faster than cars).

I do miss the ability to get very specific and flexible in my configs, know things are very secure, and be able to have full visibility and monitoring of everything. A friend is pretty high up at a security company that specializes in penetration testing, they thought they were going to school me on how bad "home networks" are. I said, have at it. They were pretty annoyed after hours of trying and getting nowhere. I even opened up ping and disabled port scan protections to give them some chance.

 

[thiggins]

Back on topic please, folks.

 

[lindros2]

Ultimately, as per original topic - radios degrade and burn out, I get it.
If I pay $129.99 at Costco for a Netgear router, I know what I'm signing up for. Shiny hard plastic, wobbly feet, and dual band.
But my beef with ASUS is that as they've crept up in price - now >$500 - the radios still burn out (sorry if others haven't experienced this, but I sure have - and my family and clients have) and their support is combative, refuses to get on the phone, and goes through a 100 item checklist which has no bearing on the core issue at hand.
First side-note - I can't pull logs on radio shutting off when I've had to power down the unit and/or reset the unit 10 or 15 times.
But they still push for software-related analysis of a hardware issue.

So here we are.

And second side-note - I didn't want to trust Google Nest WiFi, but my family now has them in four houses (parents x2, brother, and brother-in-law). And you know what? They work (albeit very limited in customization).

What would folks do if they were me? RMA the unit on their dime, be without a critical network device (I work at home) for 2-3 weeks - which maybe will be repaired and also maybe will look like it didn't take a side trip to the front lines of a battleground (others have reported receiving really bad looking units as replacement).

 

[RMerlin]

What would folks do if they were me? RMA the unit on their dime, be without a critical network device (I work at home) for 2-3 weeks - which maybe will be repaired and also maybe will look like it didn't take a side trip to the front lines of a battleground (others have reported receiving really bad looking units as replacement).

Temporarily install an entry-level router, and RMA the defective one if it`s still under warranty, for two reasons:

1) Expensive devices under warranty are generally worth getting repaired/replaced under warranty, even if you have to way shipping one way
2) If there is truly a hardware design issue, getting these faulty devices sent back in for RMA actually helps the manufacturer notice that there is an issue (if there truly is). Companies tend to keep statistics on that kind of thing, and if there is a real tendency for an abnormally high return rate for a product, they will generally act on it.

It's never a bad idea having some form of backup plan (be it an entry level router, or an older router) to use if your Internet connection is critical for you (like when working from home). That entry level router will become you backup plan for the future. Or if you replace it with a brand new high-end router, then the repaired Asus can become your backup plan for the future.

(others have reported receiving really bad looking units as replacement).

Don't forget that people post online their bad experiences, but they don't say anything when it all goes well. So, we tend to get a distorted view of that kind of thing.

Personally I'm at the other end of the spectrum. I've had to RMA things to Asus a few times over the years, both personally and for my job. This included routers, monitors, motherboards and Android tablets The general experience has varied between positive (sent bad device in, got refurbished replacement, end of story) to sometimes impressively positive (like a monitor that was about to get out of warranty, they agreed to replace it with a brand new one to resolve a discolouration issue that it had developed on one corner of the display).

Keep in mind that RMAs are often handled by third parties, so your experience will vary from one country to another. My positive experiences were in eastern Canada.

 

[TexasFlood]

I could go to Microcenter today and spend $600 for a Netgear AXE11000 or $80 for a decent albeit less powerful ASUS RT-AC66U B1. Brand alone doesn't dictate the features / price.

As far as what action to take, RMerlin covered it pretty well. The only thought I'd add is that you can log to an external server which might help in such situations.

 

[noah way]

Have you tested line voltage? High voltage burns out electronic equipment. Are you using a surge protector?

I was pleasantly surprised by the ease of warranty service from Asus. Filled out an online form, sent off the unit, got email updates and new replacement unit in short order.