Asus RT-AX86U Disconnection Issue

[KingBravery]

Hello. I don’t mean to revive an old thread but I’m not sure where else to post this. I just wanted to say that this is still an issue with the AX86U router. I’ve been struggling to find the root cause of the problem and stumbled upon this thread.

Approx two weeks ago, I purchased an AX86U router as an upgrade to my ~2 year old AC86U. I didn’t really need AX since I only have one AX capable device at home and I personally think AX is way too overhyped at the moment anyway, but I liked the quad core CPU, 1GB of RAM, new radios, etc. Plus the router was on sale so I took the plunge.

Over the past two weeks of using and testing the router, I experience similar random and intermittent WiFi drops mentioned by others in this thread. I’m not sure how widespread this issue is but given that there are numerous reports of this happening, I’m inclined to believe that Asus might potentially have a consistency or quality control problem on their hands. It’s also possible that this issue is happening with ALL AX86U devices and the majority of users are just not noticing it.

The way I noticed the problem is that several times per week, my Microsoft Teams meetings would randomly freeze and I’d get “something went wrong” on the Teams window or I’d be booted out of the meeting completely. Then a few seconds later it would automatically reconnect. This was on an HP Elitebook 840 G7 laptop, which has a WiFi 6 chipset. I did make sure the firmware/driver of the laptop’s chipset was up-to-date. I’m also running the latest stock firmware of the router. Note - I tried Merlin’s firmware but the issue persisted. I’ve since gone back to stock. My ISP modem is bridged and connected to the AX86U’s regular WAN port (not 2.5G port) since I only subscribe to 150Mbps internet. I use separate SSIDs for 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Almost all of my wireless clients are connected to my 5GHz network. I use 2.4 just for a very small number of legacy clients that don’t have 5GHz support.

When the issue occurs, I can see that the laptop loses its connection to my WiFi network for a brief time and then re-connects. When that happens, I see “ampdu_resp_timeout” entries in the router’s system log. I do have AMPDU enabled along with using default values for RTS threshold, DTIM interval and Beacon Interval, and optimize ampdu is disabled. Enabling the optimization setting made no difference so I kept it disabled as recommended by many. I also tried with and without AX mode enabled but that too didn’t make a difference. I’ve been running the router with AX mode disabled and with the 160MHz channel disabled as well.

So, I don’t know if this is a problem with the router, with the Broadcom radios, or with the firmware.

I NEVER had this issue with my AC86U in the last two years I’ve been using it. That router has been absolutely rock solid for me. I would love to continue using the AX86U as my new router because I like how snappy it feels overall, but this random WiFi drop problem has me at my wits end, and I can’t afford to have these intermittent problems with my Teams meetings because it’s impacting my work. I’m in Teams meetings every day for vast periods of the day. I’d rather just continue using the AC router for its reliability. Sadly, I will probably return the AX router and perhaps wait for a hardware refresh of it or re-buy it in another year or two when AX clients become more prevalent…hopefully Asus will have fixed this problem by then.

you may check wireless log first and see if the connect time for device after it happen being renew or not

 

[Morris]

It sounds like your DHCP lease is not renewing and this is an know problem with a fix. Upgrade to the latest firmware and set the WAN DHCP query frequency to "Continuous Mode"

 

[skippy_p]

Thanks but I already tried that. Using Continuous Mode vs Aggressive Mode didn’t make a difference. Plus, I don’t think this is a problem with DHCP leases. When the issue occurs, my laptop and Samsung tablet drop all WiFi bars…like they can’t see the wireless signal anymore. Then the bars come back and everything is back to normal. This doesn’t happen on all devices. For example, my iPad and iPhone seem fine. Lastly, my AC86U never has this problem and I never changed the DHCP query frequency on that router (it was always on Aggressive).

 

[Morris]

Do you have the DFS channels enabled on 5-Ghz? If you do and your router receives eather weather or aviation radar and you are in the US, it is required to turn off the 5-Ghz transmission, look for a clear channel and then listen to make sure the no radar is detected before transmitting again. This takes a few seconds. The devices on the 2.4-Ghz band would not be affected.

 

[skippy_p]

I have channel selection on auto but the router mostly stays on channel 161 (same as my AC86U did). And when the issue occurs, I’ve confirmed the router is on channel 161. Also, I’m in Canada and I don’t live anywhere close to weather stations or airports.

Plus it’s strange that the issue only occurs on my laptop and Samsung tablet but not my other devices. And the laptop and tablet don’t have this problem with the AC86U.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I have channel selection on auto but the router mostly stays on channel 161 (same as my AC86U did). And when the issue occurs, I’ve confirmed the router is on channel 161. Also, I’m in Canada and I don’t live anywhere close to weather stations or airports.

Plus it’s strange that the issue only occurs on my laptop and Samsung tablet but not my other devices. And the laptop and tablet don’t have this problem with the AC86U.

Are there other AP's in your vicinity that are also using the same channel? If so you may be experiencing the problem that I described here. It only effects the 5GHz band.

 

[skippy_p]

Nope. Running a WiFi analyzer does detect my neighbour’s router (and only his…and mine obviously) but his 5GHz channels are usually always the lower channels.

So is that yet another problem with the AX86U?? I think something is trying to tell me to send this thing back and stick with my AC unit as I’ve seriously been debating.

 

[firedude144]

I have been having similar issues here and have an active ticket with Asus level 2 -- not that I'm getting much loving from that team. I have an RT-AX58U as the main AP with a RT-AC66U and GT-AC2900 as AImesh nodes. I got the two nodes after failing to diagnose the same issue with the main router and thought having 2 mesh nodes would resolve the issue. It didn't. My connections, on all wirelessly connected devices, would randomly drop for a few seconds then reconnect. Or would disappear for up to 2 minutes then come back. I resolved one problem by disabling the autoconfig on the wireless lan driver (netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="my interface name")* -- this disabled the automatic portion of the wlan driver that polls for access points every 6 or 7 seconds. Here's what my ping looked like before turning off autoconfig:

Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=2928ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=2925ms TTL=64

After turning if off, all the times became similar. Still, using Netspot, and looking at the graphs produced of all my APs, the signal drops often on my two closest AP nodes. All the wired nodes perform as expected...it just seems the wireless ones continually drop but only for a few seconds (or less). I'd be really happy if anyone has any acquired wisdom with Asus hardware -- I'm ready to call in an exorcist at this point.

*This is a pain in the butt...once you disable it your wifi applet can't find any APs. To see your list of available APs you need to run the above command again (with 'enabled =yes').

For context, I have dozens of computing devices and over a hundred IOT devices, cameras, NAS and network drives.

 

[L&LD]

How many devices do you have in total? You may be overloading the radio's.

 

[BreakingDad]

Since your issues are not normal

I know that feeling.

 

[SoCalReviews]

It's simple to just blame the new Asus AX router but that might not be the the problem. Have you considered contacting HP? It could be an AX/Wifi 6 compatibility problem or driver related problem with the HP 840 G7 laptop. While this might be a different disconnection problem HP has had similar wireless problems in the recent past. You said you updated the drivers but it's worthy mentioning again the numerous Wifi 6 problems reported in this forum and all over the internet relating to Intel AX/Wifi 6 drivers in Windows 10 that had issues. The Microsoft Teams software has also been reported by users using Wifi as finicky, buggy and causing frequent disconnect issues during the past year. I would also re-check your Asus router AX Wifi settings again.

 

[skippy_p]

Even if I’m running the router in AC mode only, would there still be a comparability issue? I have the router configured with AX/WiFi 6 mode disabled and all other settings mirroring the way I had my AC86U configured. HP laptop works fine (no issues) with AC86U.

I have a total of 8 wireless devices connected simultaneously.

 

[firedude144]

How many devices do you have in total? You may be overloading the radio's.

There are 62 devices registered on the wireless network and 10 on the wired. The Asus mesh creates 6 wireless networks plus a guest network so this should be well within the capabilities. I'm in a rural area...running a scan shows a small number of neighbour networks and there aren't many other devices (one wireless phone set) in the home to cause interference...

 

[L&LD]

That's less than half of what you indicated in the post above. Which is correct?

 

[firedude144]

That's less than half of what you indicated in the post above. Which is correct?

Not that it makes a lot of difference given that IOT devices mostly generate little traffic, but the number is closer to the first quote since many of the devices are on static IP addresses. The 60 or so devices are those on the DHCP range and are mostly wireless.

 

[L&LD]

Traffic generated may not be the issue here with this number of clients. Unless you're ensuring that each radio is well below its ~32 client limit, you may be overloading this class of equipment.

 

[airgap]

@skippy_p
What version of OS do you use? Stock or merlin and what version is currently running? I didn't see that in your posts.

Are you using the microsoft drivers for you client wifi or drivers from the vendor?

 

[KingBravery]

Traffic generated may not be the issue here with this number of clients. Unless you're ensuring that each radio is well below its ~32 client limit, you may be overloading this class of equipment.

how to know the limit for each radio chipset?

 

[skippy_p]

@skippy_p
What version of OS do you use? Stock or merlin and what version is currently running? I didn't see that in your posts.

Are you using the microsoft drivers for you client wifi or drivers from the vendor?

Router firmware is version 3.0.0.4.386.44130. The laptop has the latest drivers from the vendor. Installed from HP Support Assistant.

And well shoot…now I’m seeing the same WiFi disconnection problem on the Nintendo Switch! Kids just noticed it…

 

[ColinTaylor]

As per post #21 check the "Connect Time" in the router's Wireless Log. When the problem occurs are clients being disconnected? If so, is it all clients of just some? Both bands or just one?