ASUS RT-AC68U keeps dropping 2.4GHz, clients can't reconnect

[Galway]

I know a lot of other people are having this issue but all the solutions say to update the firmware, which I've already done.

I'm using this router as a wifi repeater. It's connected to another router on the 5GHz band.

Every 24 hours or so, all three clients are kicked off the 2.4GHz band and cannot reconnect.

These clients are an Android smartphone, a Windows 10 laptop, and an Amazon Kindle Oasis.

The error I get on Android is "an authentication error has occurred". On Windows , I get "Cannot connect to this network". On the Kindle is says "Wifi Error - your Kindle couldn't get a connection to the wifi network".

Clients on 5GHz are unaffected and always maintain a stable, fast connection.

Rebooting the router solves the issue until the next day when 2.4GHz is down again.

This happened with the original firmware. I then flashed to the latest ASUS firmware, same problem. Then I flashed ito Merlin 380.59, which I'm using now, same problem.

The General Log shows nothing for today, and never logs anything every time 2.4 goes down.

Here's the Wifi log

Not sure if this is of any significance, but as soon as I noticed the 2.4 go down today (only the Android client was connected at the time), I opened the wifi log and it showed the Android as still connected, albeit with 0 RSSI. When I then tried to connect the Kindle, it popped up here as well even though it couldn't connect. So, it's like the router can see the clients trying to connect but fails to authenticate them or something.

Any suggestions how I could troubleshoot this further? Thanks.

 

[sfx2000]

Try this...

Put all the SSID's to BarBill - and use common WPA2 passphrases - you might be surprised that the problem just goes away...

 

[George Lasater]

I know a lot of other people are having this issue but all the solutions say to update the firmware, which I've already done.

I'm using this router as a wifi repeater. It's connected to another router on the 5GHz band.

Every 24 hours or so, all three clients are kicked off the 2.4GHz band and cannot reconnect.

These clients are an Android smartphone, a Windows 10 laptop, and an Amazon Kindle Oasis.

The error I get on Android is "an authentication error has occurred". On Windows , I get "Cannot connect to this network". On the Kindle is says "Wifi Error - your Kindle couldn't get a connection to the wifi network".

Clients on 5GHz are unaffected and always maintain a stable, fast connection.

Rebooting the router solves the issue until the next day when 2.4GHz is down again.

This happened with the original firmware. I then flashed to the latest ASUS firmware, same problem. Then I flashed ito Merlin 380.59, which I'm using now, same problem.

The General Log shows nothing for today, and never logs anything every time 2.4 goes down.

Here's the Wifi log

Not sure if this is of any significance, but as soon as I noticed the 2.4 go down today (only the Android client was connected at the time), I opened the wifi log and it showed the Android as still connected, albeit with 0 RSSI. When I then tried to connect the Kindle, it popped up here as well even though it couldn't connect. So, it's like the router can see the clients trying to connect but fails to authenticate them or something.

Any suggestions how I could troubleshoot this further? Thanks.

You should make sure you do not have Beam Forwarding on as very Very Few WiFi Cards support this right now. This will be more supported in future 802.11ac cards

 

[George Lasater]

You should make sure you do not have Beam Forwarding on as very Very Few WiFi Cards support this right now. This will be more supported in future 802.11ac cards

I ran into this with my Netflix on PS3 kept disconnecting until I turn this off
BeamForming sorry

 

[bodean]

You should make sure you do not have Beam Forwarding on as very Very Few WiFi Cards support this right now. This will be more supported in future 802.11ac cards

I thought Beamforming was now standard (especially on apple products). You are say few wifi cards support it?

 

[George Lasater]

I thought Beamforming was now standard (especially on apple products). You are say few wifi cards support it?

Yes beamforming is not found on a,b,g cards for sure. The changes that it is supported on n cards would be rare. The cards that would most likely support it will be the new ac cards if your lucky. Asus is awesome in that they are putting features on the software that will eventually be standard, but for now make sure you do not have that feature enabled unless you know all devices connecting have cards that support beamforming.

Google if your devices support that feature or not. But for the router I would make sure to disable that and see how things go

 

[Galway]

Hi guys,

I fixed the problem by installing DD-WRT v3.0. I ran it for over a week and the 2.4GHz band stayed up. Then I went back to Merlin for a few days just see if maybe it was a random problem. Nope: 2.4GHz drops after about 24 hours and clients can't reconnect.

So I'm back on DD-WRT now and will stick with it.

 

[KevTech]

Hi guys,

I fixed the problem by installing DD-WRT v3.0. I ran it for over a week and the 2.4GHz band stayed up. Then I went back to Merlin for a few days just see if maybe it was a random problem. Nope: 2.4GHz drops after about 24 hours and clients can't reconnect.

So I'm back on DD-WRT now and will stick with it.

May work out for you but I would run Tomato before I would run DD-WRT as the performance is usually better in Tomato.

Shibby builds are pretty good.

http://tomato.groov.pl/

 

[Galway]

Will give that a try over the w/end and let you know.

 

[Andrey Hinov]

Hello everyone,

I read couple articles about this WiFi dropping but still not sure what to do. I got one rt-ac68u two years ago and all was good until I upgraded it an year ago. After that time all the three laptops got exclamation mark from time to time (it can be from 3-4 time per day to 1 time every week) on the network icon and any network connectivity is gone. If I reconnect internet is back immediately. All devices are equipped with Intel WiFi card. Problem is same with Merlin version or these from Asus website. I have only 2.4GHz network, 5GHz is disabled. It's interesting that WiFi drops even if I'm watching something in youtube. From an year that become a problem because I'm working from home and my VPN is very unstable because of this issue. No any problems with that device in general. LAN never makes troubles. Also in Professional tab I don't have options to change 802.11d+h. After devices are disconnected nothing is in the log.If anybody know a solution for this would be great. Otherwise I'll rid of this device. It's not normal device for $200 to have such a problems.

Thanks,

Andrey

 

[Galway]

Hey man, all I can tell you is that my wifi dropping problems went away when I installed DD-WRT. Router has been up for months without any wifi drops on either 5GHz or 2.4GHz. I did try several different firmwares initially, from Asus official, Merlin, Tomato - all had the same wifi issue for me.

I'm on DD-WRT v3.0-r30016M std (06/24/16) if that's any use.

 

[Andrey Hinov]

Thank you Galway for that fast response!
Actually first time I got the device I installed DD-WRT (around January 2015) but performance was terrible. I had similar issue with the classics WRT54GL. Last one after 12 years it's still working but with Tomato. So with DDWRT are you seeing any performance issue? Also do you have OpenVPN running on your Asus?

Thanks,

Andrey

 

[ddjxnh]

I've also had problems with 2.4GHz clients getting connection dropped. My wife's laptop can use 5G and that's OK. Today, after much hassle, I got the Intel Wireless-N 7260 driver for my Lenovo T540p updated and it seems fine now. So it wasn't just the Lenovo, but for that updating the wireless adapter driver seemed to help. I still think I will switch to DD-WRT also, but I didn't do that yet and so won't know if it would have helped.