ASUS RT-AC88U Connectivity Issues

[Tim Boening]

I hope that someone has some insight that will help me figure out what is going on with my ASUS routers. I purchased an ASUS RT-AC88U about a week ago and it is located in the basement. The signal was not very strong so I purchased another ASUS RT-AC3100 to mesh with. The 3100 keeps dropping the 5ghz signal and then just died. So I sent the 3100 to ASUS for them to diagnose and possibly repair. Now the AC88U keeps dropping both signals and has to be constantly rebooted 3 times a day. Both routers had the most resent firmware updates: 3.0.0.4.384_20942.

It has gotten so bad that I had to place my old Netgear N600 on the network since it never drops a signal.

I am at my wits end and deeply regret buying these routers. Is anyone else having these issues?

 

[OzarkEdge]

I hope that someone has some insight that will help me figure out what is going on with my ASUS routers. I purchased an ASUS RT-AC88U about a week ago and it is located in the basement. The signal was not very strong so I purchased another ASUS RT-AC3100 to mesh with. The 3100 keeps dropping the 5ghz signal and then just died. So I sent the 3100 to ASUS for them to diagnose and possibly repair. Now the AC88U keeps dropping both signals and has to be constantly rebooted 3 times a day. Both routers had the most resent firmware updates: 3.0.0.4.384_20942.

It has gotten so bad that I had to place my old Netgear N600 on the network since it never drops a signal.

I am at my wits end and deeply regret buying these routers. Is anyone else having these issues?

Did you buy new routers? Did you reset the routers after installing the firmware?

OE

 

[Tim Boening]

Did you buy new routers? Did you reset the routers after installing the firmware?

OE

I purchased the RT-AC88U new and the RT-AC3100 was remanufactured. I reset each router after the firmware was upgraded. I have never had any router issues like this before with my previous Netgear routers.

 

[OzarkEdge]

I purchased the RT-AC88U new and the RT-AC3100 was remanufactured. I reset each router after the firmware was upgraded. I have never had any router issues like this before with my previous Netgear routers.

So you only have the 88U now... I would Initialize it from the GUI, power cycle it, button reset it, re-install the firmware manually, button reset it, and try to use it standalone. Then if it misbehaves (drops signal), call ASUS Support and tell them you tried to make it work.

It did initially have a weak signal and now it's dropping... it may be defective.

OE

 

[Tim Boening]

Yes, I only have the RT-AC88U now since the AC3100 is being repaired. Would a busy WiFi spectrum cause these issues as well? I just switched over to channel 1 since is was sitting in channel 11.

I will try to reset and manually upload the firmware.

Thanks for your help.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Yes, I only have the RT-AC88U now since the AC3100 is being repaired. Would a busy WiFi spectrum cause these issues as well? I just switched over to channel 1 since is was sitting in channel 11.
View attachment 13214

I will try to reset and manually upload the firmware.

Thanks for your help.

Be sure to reset after installing firmware.

Crowded WiFi can trouble the communications and throughput, but I don't think it should cause the signal to drop.

OE

 

[agilani]

I had to initialize my ac88u a few times to get it to behave. And make sure you configure everything from scratch. You simply can not copy an old config from this or any other router after the re-initializing.

I'm still having issues with the 2.4ghz band stability with certain devices going into a dhcp loop. I've had to track those down and move them to another ssid or the 5ghz band.

I also set my channel to auto unless you having other issues with channel conflict. I also always setup different ssid for 2.4 and 5ghz. Frankly just easier to troubleshoot it that way.

 

[Tim Boening]

I had to initialize my ac88u a few times to get it to behave. And make sure you configure everything from scratch. You simply can not copy an old config from this or any other router after the re-initializing.

I'm still having issues with the 2.4ghz band stability with certain devices going into a dhcp loop. I've had to track those down and move them to another ssid or the 5ghz band.

I also set my channel to auto unless you having other issues with channel conflict. I also always setup different ssid for 2.4 and 5ghz. Frankly just easier to troubleshoot it that way.

Good to know I guess. I still do not think we should have to put up with stability issues. Why can't these routers just work out of the box. Do the Netgear routers have these same issues?

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Why can't these routers just work out of the box. Do the Netgear routers have these same issues?

YES Netgear has the same bugs and poor firmware Asus does. It's sad but true. They all do.

 

[agilani]

Good to know I guess. I still do not think we should have to put up with stability issues. Why can't these routers just work out of the box. Do the Netgear routers have these same issues?

I used to run netgear routers. I would not go back. At least up to now asus allows you to use the device the way you want to. Every vendor however will have issues, it's how quickly they respond to and fix them that's a bigger concern. And the more features they have the more chances you hit a use case that can't be tested against. Asus routers are the most full featured routers out there right now.

I buy refurbished gear too, but you always take a chance that its really busted and returned for a reason. I got stuck with my xbox red ring of death that way Still pretty pissed at Microsoft about it.

Aimesh is also a big unknow at least to me right now.

I have a central ac88u setup with separate 2.4ghz and a 5ghz ssid. I then have two ac68u routers setup as repeaters with different ip addresses. They connect back to the ac88u on the 5ghz band and broadcast their own separate ssid for both 2.4ghz and 5ghz. That way if there is a problem i can track it down and everything is discrete. Not some big AiMesh black box. My 2.4ghz problems were only with the rt-ac88u. So i moved a lot of the devices to the 2.4ghz band on my ac68 repeaters until we figure out what's causing the 2.4ghz issues people have been experiencing.

 

[arthurlien]

I hope that someone has some insight that will help me figure out what is going on with my ASUS routers. I purchased an ASUS RT-AC88U about a week ago and it is located in the basement. The signal was not very strong so I purchased another ASUS RT-AC3100 to mesh with. The 3100 keeps dropping the 5ghz signal and then just died. So I sent the 3100 to ASUS for them to diagnose and possibly repair. Now the AC88U keeps dropping both signals and has to be constantly rebooted 3 times a day. Both routers had the most resent firmware updates: 3.0.0.4.384_20942.

It has gotten so bad that I had to place my old Netgear N600 on the network since it never drops a signal.

I am at my wits end and deeply regret buying these routers. Is anyone else having these issues?

Can you send feedback with system log, wifi log by feedback function ?

 

[doczenith1]

In addition to factory resetting after the firmware upgrade I have also read that pulling the power cord for a few seconds or so can also help to eliminate issues. Have you made the following changes from defaults which have helped others who were experiencing wifi issues?

Wireless 2.4 GHz Professional
Turbo QAM - Disable (Only helps with clients that support it and there are not very many)
Airtime Fairness - Disable
Multi-User MIMO - Disable (not present on all models)
Explicit Beamforming - Disable
Universal Beamforming - Disable

Wireless 5 GHz Professional
Airtime Fairness - Disable
Multi-User MIMO - Disable (FWIW I got better 5 GHz speeds with MU-MIMO disabled)
Universal Beamforming - Disable

 

[Marin]

What about 802.11ac beamforming for the 5gHz band?

 

[doczenith1]

802.11ac beamforming can be left enabled. It is the only one of the four beamforming methods that is actually a standard and thus tends to work well with those clients that support it.

 

[Marin]

Thank you!

 

[MrMoJo]

Looks like this issue has been resolved, so not sure if tagging onto existing or creating new thread is appropriate, but I have a similar question. Please advise and i will move to new thread if appropriate.

I have the ASUS RT-AC68U. Have flashed it with update to firmware 3.0.0.4.384_20648 (paste from GUI). I reset the router after firmware, and followed all the steps as outlined in an article found at vpnuniversity.com.

I set the 3g/4g page to work with android phone, downloaded the VPN client file (which I'm still working to resolve because the activation fails using the file(s) I downloaded (downloaded more than one location as part of testing to see if I did things incorrectly for VPN setup issue, but that is another issue).

Bottom line - I was unable to get network traffic through Samsung S7. Spoke to Asus, they cannot figure out why it won't work. Spoke to T-Mobile, they say they don't have any support solutions if I'm able to successfully connect to computer directly by tether. Called Samsung, and they suggested I test configuration with my Samsung S9, which worked perfectly, even without the VPN configuration issues being resolved. Currently setup with S9 as modem by direct tether, but want to use the S7.

Is this an issue of architectural differences between the S7 and S9? Reading other posts on this thread, seems the S7 should work, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with my setup of the S7.

 

[Kemper Martin]

I switched DD-WRT and I have hardware version A6.
I no longer have problems on 2.4ghz or 5ghz.
Use the trx files not the bin extensions.
If you use .bin you may not be able to go back to Merlin or ASUS stock firmware.
I had another AC88U and I used the .bin I was not able to get back.
asus_rt-ac88u-firmware 36527.trx