Asus RT-AC68R Settings in 2019

[ScottNY]

I have been having some Wi-Fi connection issues lately and am looking for a good "recommended settings" guide, but they are all several years old. Many are also not applicable to NY City signal density. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I'm running the latest firmware, 384.12, but I have seen so many different recommended settings that at this point I may have done more harm than good. I want to go back and make sure my settings are appropriate for my router and Merlin's current software, both the default settings [if there were explanations that would be amazing!] and the recommended settings that might be different.

Thanks!

P.S. Merlin - I am pretty sure I donated years ago, but if not, I most certainly will. I'll check PayPal. Everyone using your firmware should donate a little something...

 

[L&LD]

I have been having some Wi-Fi connection issues lately and am looking for a good "recommended settings" guide, but they are all several years old. Many are also not applicable to NY City signal density. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I'm running the latest firmware, 384.12, but I have seen so many different recommended settings that at this point I may have done more harm than good. I want to go back and make sure my settings are appropriate for my router and Merlin's current software, both the default settings [if there were explanations that would be amazing!] and the recommended settings that might be different.

Thanks!

P.S. Merlin - I am pretty sure I donated years ago, but if not, I most certainly will. I'll check PayPal. Everyone using your firmware should donate a little something...

You may want to look at my signature for the M&M Config and possibly even the Nuclear Reset guides. They will at the very least get your router to a good known state and allow you to proceed from there with confidence that any changes made and observed are real (and not random interactions from doing any previous 'dirty' firmware upgrades).

The 'recommended settings' haven't changed for many years. Disable everything you don't need and follow the suggestions for the few settings that should be changed from defaults after an M&M Config.

If the router and your network respond as required at that point, either leave well enough alone or, proceed to change/add one option at a time closely monitoring the network to ensure that each step allows the network to perform as needed. Make sure you also test by doing a reboot and letting the router sit idle for 10 minutes before thoroughly testing again too.

 

[Val D.]

I have been having some Wi-Fi connection issues lately...

I believe all you need to do is to check if your router is fighting for a channel bandwidth with some of your neighbors' routers. If it is so (and most likely it is), just change the channel to a different one with more available bandwidth and less interference, if possible. There are free tools to find out what is going on on the WiFi battlefield. Acrylic WiFi for Windows, WiFi Analizer for Android/iOS, etc.

 

[ScottNY]

You may want to look at my signature for the M&M Config and possibly even the Nuclear Reset guides. They will at the very least get your router to a good known state and allow you to proceed from there with confidence that any changes made and observed are real (and not random interactions from doing any previous 'dirty' firmware upgrades).

The 'recommended settings' haven't changed for many years. Disable everything you don't need and follow the suggestions for the few settings that should be changed from defaults after an M&M Config.

If the router and your network respond as required at that point, either leave well enough alone or, proceed to change/add one option at a time closely monitoring the network to ensure that each step allows the network to perform as needed. Make sure you also test by doing a reboot and letting the router sit idle for 10 minutes before thoroughly testing again too.

Thank you. At least now I feel I am back in control of my router and can troubleshoot a lot more sensibly.

 

[ScottNY]

I believe all you need to do is to check if your router is fighting for a channel bandwidth with some of your neighbors' routers. If it is so (and most likely it is), just change the channel to a different one with more available bandwidth and less interference, if possible. There are free tools to find out what is going on on the WiFi battlefield. Acrylic WiFi for Windows, WiFi Analizer for Android/iOS, etc.

Thanks, took your advice on this. I live in NYC [incredibly dense interference]. It seems that every time I find a good channel using the Wi-Fi Analyzer app, the next time I look, it is not a good channel choice. If I set the Control Channel to Auto, it not only doesn't ever seem to change the channel, it doesn't seem to be on a good channel, either. Any thoughts?

 

[Val D.]

Any thoughts?

The situation around my place is exactly the same. My router sees >40 networks on 2.4GHz band. Many sources recommend to stick to 1-6-11 channels, but I found the only usable channels are 4 and 8. The router can push about 50Mbps on those 2 channels, nothing faster. For that reason I don't use 2.4GHz band at all and moved all my devices to 5GHz band. It takes some time and money to upgrade/replace the entire network to support AC 5GHz, but it is worth it. On channels 36-40-44-48 (80MHz wide) my devices connect between 433-1300Mbps (depending on number of streams) and now everything is working properly. Speedtest shows full 250Mbps ISP speed on every single device and I can transfer files between computers with >20MB/sec at any given moment, reaching speeds up to 90MB/sec between 3x3 clients and something wired to the router.

 

[joegreat]

I'm running the latest firmware, 384.12, but I have seen so many different recommended settings that at this point I may have done more harm than good. I want to go back and make sure my settings are appropriate for my router and Merlin's current software, both the default settings [if there were explanations that would be amazing!] and the recommended settings that might be different.

My 2 cents:

1st cent) Reset to Defaults is the best starting point (as said already above) for any optimization: user changeable options AND hidden settings will be set to Asus best options!

2nd cent) Read the Router Guide for Faster Internet (the Additional Optimization Tips and Tricks where quite enlightening for me) where you will find all the WLAN options explained - but: only in case you understand the implication AND you need to change it, you should dare to go away from default settings!

And finally: My top recommendation would be to switch to 5GHz WLAN (again already stated above) - less range (with less other WLANs) but better speed.