ASUS RT-AC68U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.374.4561 is out

[jlake]

Could the reboots be caused by a device dropping out of range on the 5GHz band and trying to switch to 2.4 Hz

A samsung and an iphone phone switch between bands all the time and i have no reboots.


I also dont have any hdds conected to the router.


Beamforming is also disabled on both bands.

On your iPhone, does it have iOS 7? Or something older?

 

[RMerlin]

I'm not seeing a RS232 port on my 68U -- you going over USB?

There's a TTL serial header on the pcboard inside the router that's used for debugging.

Check the photos I posted in this thread showing my RT-N66U being hooked over serial while debugging firmware code on it.

 

[jjhowey]

There's a TTL serial header on the pcboard inside the router that's used for debugging.

Check the photos I posted in this thread showing my RT-N66U being hooked over serial while debugging firmware code on it.

Thanks,- but much more complicated than what I was prepared to volunteer for.

 

[KGB7]

On your iPhone, does it have iOS 7? Or something older?

Iphone 5 has original iOS 6.1.4.

Samsung s4 has a custom ROM 4.3, Goldeneye 20 XXUENA4.

My second AC68 router with Kong firmware, is connected to first AC68 router via 5Ghz band.

.

 

[jlake]

Iphone 5 has original iOS. I have not upgraded iOS7.

Samsung s4 has a custom ROM 4.3, Goldeneye 20 XXUENA4.

Probably just a coincidence, but I noticed quite a few people having the reboot problems also had iPhones/iPads. I assume they were using iOS 7 but don't know that for sure. I've never heard of a device causing a router to reboot...but there's a lot of things I've never heard of.

Merlin doesn't have the reboot problem and I know he's said in the past that he uses android/nexus stuff. Probably just a coincidence.

 

[KGB7]

Probably just a coincidence, but I noticed quite a few people having the reboot problems also had iPhones/iPads. I assume they were using iOS 7 but don't know that for sure. I've never heard of a device causing a router to reboot...but there's a lot of things I've never heard of.

Merlin doesn't have the reboot problem and I know he's said in the past that he uses android/nexus stuff. Probably just a coincidence.

Ive been a network engineer for a decade, and what you say doesnt make sense to me to some degree. But, im not a programmer, im a hardware guy, so i lack knowledge in the inner workings of the code.

At the end of the day, i blame Broadcom for providing crappy drivers to Asus and to Merlin, and Asus them selfs being incompetent to resolve basic issues.

At the end of the day, i understand that its getting harder and harder for programmers to develop firmware that will work with so many different types of hardware that is currently available on the market.

The only thing we can do, is explore other options to resolve our issues; one option is using other 3rd party firmware. This is why i have Kong firmware on my 2nd router. Its not perfect, but it gets the job done for my needs.

 

[jlake]

Ive been a network engineer for a decade, and what you say doesnt make sense to me to some degree. But, im not a programmer, im a hardware guy, so i lack knowledge in the inner workings of the code.

At the end of the day, i blame Broadcom for providing crappy drivers to Asus and to Merlin, and Asus them selfs being incompetent to resolve basic issues.

At the end of the day, i understand that its getting harder and harder for programmers to develop firmware that will work with so many different types of hardware that is currently available on the market.

The only thing we can do, is explore other options to resolve our issues; one option is using other 3rd party firmware. This is why i have Kong firmware on my 2nd router. Its not perfect, but it gets the job done for my needs.

For some reason, some people are having rebooting problems and others are not. You have to look at it like a food-borne outbreak. In other words, why did some people get sick at the wedding reception and others didn't. And then after interviews, questionnaires, and a process of elimination, you can hopefully isolate it to the chicken salad.

It seems to affect people regardless of IPv6.

My iOS 7 thought is probably a billion to one, but I was just attempting to share the kind of logic that is probably needed to isolate the issue (without a serial cable-debugger) as to why some people random reboot and others don't. I'm sure y'all will figure out if it's the chicken salad or the broccoli casserole causing the problem.

If someone developed a questionnaire, and posted it, I'm sure the problem could be isolated/identified/ resolved a lot quicker.
E.g.

1. ISP
2. Serial number of router (date of purchase) component change?
3. WAN type
4. And a whole bunch of other possibilities that could possibly cause a router to random reboot.

 

[SeCrEt_BoY]

Using 587 FW and 2 days online... So the reboot issue is FW problem.

Gửi từ SM-N900 của tôi bằng cách sử dụng Tapatalk

 

[KGB7]

For some reason, some people are having rebooting problems and others are not. You have to look at it like a food-borne outbreak. In other words, why did some people get sick at the wedding reception and others didn't. And then after interviews, questionnaires, and a process of elimination, you can hopefully isolate it to the chicken salad.

It seems to affect people regardless of IPv6.

My iOS 7 thought is probably a billion to one, but I was just attempting to share the kind of logic that is probably needed to isolate the issue as to why some people random reboot and others don't. I'm sure y'all will figure out if it's the chicken salad or the broccoli casserole causing the problem.

If someone developed a questionnaire, and posted it, I'm sure the problem could be isolated/identified/ resolved a lot quicker.
E.g.

1. ISP
2. Serial number of router (date of purchase) component change?
3. WAN type
4. And a whole bunch of other possibilities that could possibly cause a router to random reboot.

But some people are having issues while router is idling over night, so my guess is nothing is connected to the router. And if a device is connected to a router, then such device goes in to an idle state or power saving mode while being connected to a router. Yet a router still reboots.


Im glad you brought up process of elimination, it is the best rule i have used since 8th grade. The down side to process of elimination, is it takes a lot of time to find the cause of the issue, if you have a complicated set up on your network.

One thing that i have observed on this forum alone, is that many people do not perform a hard reset after each firmware upgrade. It is one simple rule i have religiously obeyed for many years.


As of this moment, the router has been up for 101 hours with no reboots and no errors in System Log.

 

[RMerlin]

Probably just a coincidence, but I noticed quite a few people having the reboot problems also had iPhones/iPads. I assume they were using iOS 7 but don't know that for sure. I've never heard of a device causing a router to reboot...but there's a lot of things I've never heard of.

Merlin doesn't have the reboot problem and I know he's said in the past that he uses android/nexus stuff. Probably just a coincidence.

I actually experienced one single crash so far. It happened a few mins after I switched my laptop from 5G to 2.4G since its 5G had died (my 7260 did that a few times where its 5G just dies until I reset the wireless card). I connected to my desktop using RDesktop, and the reboot happened then.

I have been unable to reproduce it again afterward.

It's possible that certain devices/situations might trigger the problem more easily than others tho. I would have expected that reverting the wireless driver (and anything directly associated to it) to the previous, known stable versiom, would have fixed it, but it didn't.

I did one complete code compare tonight between 583 and 4422. Asus also changed a few things at the kernel level related to the hardware, as well as in the Ethernet code. Those are probably the last things I haven't tried reverting back in the couple of test builds I released.

For now I must focus on other things however, so let's hope Asus can reproduce and fix it on their end in the very near future.

 

[KGB7]

Using 587 FW and 2 days online... So the reboot issue is FW problem.

Gửi từ SM-N900 của tôi bằng cách sử dụng Tapatalk

Dont you mean firmware 583?

 

[KGB7]

I actually experienced one single crash so far. It happened a few mins after I switched my laptop from 5G to 2.4G since its 5G had died (my 7260 did that a few times where its 5G just dies until I reset the wireless card). I connected to my desktop using RDesktop, and the reboot happened then.

I have been unable to reproduce it again afterward.

It's possible that certain devices/situations might trigger the problem more easily than others tho. I would have expected that reverting the wireless driver (and anything directly associated to it) to the previous, known stable versiom, would have fixed it, but it didn't.

I did one complete code compare tonight between 583 and 4422. Asus also changed a few things at the kernel level related to the hardware, as well as in the Ethernet code. Those are probably the last things I haven't tried reverting back in the couple of test builds I released.

For now I must focus on other things however, so let's hope Asus can reproduce and fix it on their end in the very near future.

This bit of info, leaves me scratching my brain.

Tomorrow, i will manually force an iPhone to switch between 2.4Ghz band and 5Ghz band at random times, and see if the router reboots.

One thing i do know for a fact, is that Samsung S4 doesnt not reboot the router when i manually switch between bands.

On my second AC68 router, i have been testing different BrainSlayer and Kong firmwares over the last few days. The router is connected on 5Ghz band, but even when it disconnects between firmware flashes, power cycles and resets, i have yet to get a reboot on 1st router with current Asus firmware.

 

[KGB7]

Lets do a roll call.


If you have reboots or you do not have reboots, post how many wifi devices you have connected on each band simultaneously at any given time. Also post any LAN devices and USB devices you have connected to the router.



Ill start.

2.4ghz band;
Laptop with Intel Centrino 2230N
Samsung S4
iPhone 5 iOS 6.1.4


5Ghz band;
Asus AC68R - Kong Firmware.
Samsung S4
iPhone 5 iOS 6.1.4


USB devices;
None.


LAN devices;
Desktop PC with Intel 82579 Gigabit NIC.


Reboots;
None.

 

[Morbeas]

So as of today, with the latest firmware, would you guys recommend buying this router?

 

[Harjbhai]

My setup is as below

Lan connection to Linux server using Realtek card gigabit
2.4ghz to iPhone 4, samsung Hp
5ghz to Cisco usb n adapter at a PC running xp, Apple TV
2.4ghz / 5ghz switching happening on Htc one x hp

Pppoe setup
Dns servers to google
Upnp off
Media server off
No usb drives
Aicloud not enabled
Time server set to Asia.pool.ntp.org
2.4ghz channel forced to 2
5.0g channel forced to 36

Reboot: yes

 

[GDT]

So as of today, with the latest firmware, would you guys recommend buying this router?

I'd like to know experts opinion too. I need to buy two of these and I don't want to run in other issues...

 

[sm00thpapa]

AC87U is in the near future save your money and buy that one.

 

[jmone]

13hrs on Alpha 4 without a reboot on the 68u and 38hrs on the two 66u's (AP). I'll check again in the morning
Good Night!

 

[speedingcheetah]

It happened a few mins after I switched my laptop from 5G to 2.4G since its 5G had died (my 7260 did that a few times where its 5G just dies until I reset the wireless card).

I have been plagued with that dropping issue with my 7260 for some time. It was really bad a while back but has gotten much better.

Intel just released a newer driver and so far since updating haven't had it drop in 6 days.

Though, that has happened before with previous drivers where it will be fine for sometime, then just suddenly act up and drop randomly a few times.

No idea what causes that....something with the Intel's drivers, or Win 8...or both...

Never had any random drops like that with my 6235 (not an AC wifi card)

 

[rtcomputersinc]

My setup is 86u as the main and a 66u as a wireless repeater. Have been plagued from the start with the whole system bogging down in speed till you couldn't get on. This was so untill 4561 (So Far) was better in 4422 version. A reboot would fix the issue so of course if it reboots on its own it fixes that problem. It reboots much less with latest FW.

In 4422 I started getting random reboots a few a day with the 68u.

Currently on the 4561 my 68u has rebooted twice in 4 days. My 66u has been up 4 days 18 hours.

I am repeating signal between 2 houses and have about 28 devices most on the 2.4 ghz only a few on the 5ghz only because depending on where you are you may not get signal.

Personally I think this is how asus is dealing with the signal fizzling out and reboots the router. This version is far more stable then the previous version.