Asus RT-AX88U Pro

[gpz1100]

The intention was to use it as an AP for some time, then repurpose as a router in some other application after I upgrade to wifi supporting 6ghz. Also fact that it has ssh/console ticks an important box.

Firmware on the asus site for the 88u pro is nearly 5 months old. Doesn't say it's beta fw, but I suppose all fw is beta in some sense. After my netgear experiences, I have little hope of features added in the future. They (asus) definitely had ample time to add more features.

Interesting, MC only had 1 of these units. Salesman said it wasn't too popular (not even rgb?). I guess most folks go for a multiple ap mesh system, or a cheaper simpler aio router.

 

[Tech9]

Firmware on the asus site for the 88u pro is nearly 5 months old.

You are correct. I was looking at RT-AX86U Pro model. It doesn't have official 3.0.0.6 release yet.

or a cheaper simpler aio router.

In my local computer store RT-AX82U, the alien with RGB, is the most popular model when on sale price.

 

[gpz1100]

None of this really appeals to me. I don't see the AP, and if it has led's, they are shut off. Re asus, maybe with enough feedback these additional features will come to fruition.

Some 6 years ago I got fed up with all the limitations of the AIO stuff. Bought a small qotom box with multiple nics and ran my first firewall appliance. Since then have expanded to a more capable x86 pc with lots of ram. It does multiple duties including nas, pbx/fax, nextcloud, and self hosted email.

Amz supposed to deliver the eap tomorrow. Will have a fun evening project.

 

[JGrana]

On the consumer market spider or alien shape, color accents, RGB lights and many sticking out antennas are important part of the marketing.

Sadly…

 

[gpz1100]

After a few days with the AP, i'm seeing speeds upwards of gigabit (my line limit) if the antenna is properly placed and using 160 mhz channels. The firewall pc has one 2.5gb port but that's in use right now. Eventually I'll reshuffle things when I get pfsense installed.

Testing outside, 150' (estimate) away from the ap I still get ~30 mbps on 5ghz on my OP 7t phone. AP is mounted ~18" below the ceiling, relatively central in the rectangular house. It's unobstructed in most directions. I think such placement makes the difference - higher is better. According to its radiation map, most signal radiates down (as expected for this type of ap). I often wonder what the radiation patterns are of the typical consumer routers with the antennas sticking or as placed on the the ax88u (pro).

When testing indoors with ap in the same location as previous ap (ax88u, rt-ac68, etc), indoor speeds were significantly less. I couldn't break 650 mbps. Equally important is client antenna location. Not many options when using a laptop with built in antenna. With desktop nics noticeable difference. 900 mbps was possible when the desktop antenna was high up and away from any thing (ie hand held).

I'm tempted to order a proper high gain antenna to test with.

The EAP670 was just under $150USD from amazon. I suppose this is reasonable given its capabilities. A netgear equivalent is $240+ (wax625 model). Vlan config is stupid simple. No monkeying around in console to define vlans, bridges, etc (like I did with the rt-ac68u).

Sorry to go off on a tangent. Hopefully this will help someone in the future. Use the right tool for the application.

 

[Logi]

Install SmartTubeNext on your client. As others have warned, many have tried using DNS - and many have failed.

You had asked about addon's to run. IMHO here are some ideas:

First, Asuswrt-merlin on it's own adds some very helpful functions. Many more things to tune/tweak (in my case, the ability in the WAN tab to reduce WAN MTU to 1420 for T-Mobile gateways).

If you want to assign clients specific IP addresses, you can't beat YazDHCP. Doesn't even need a USB drive. Much more useful than the built in DHCP Server options. Plus you can export and import your lists.

The next step up - Entware. Great stuff. And needed by various addons. There are lots of apps, libs, etc. available (opkg list > opkglist; more opkglist). Careful, easy to get carried away!!!

For keeping an eye on your network and router - here is a few: (and use AMTM to install them)
scribe/UiScribe - nice way to keep the log clutter under control
scMerlin - light weight, nice Web tab that shows memory/disk usage, process running) and bonus - restart many of the services running.
LED control (to turn off and on those flashing router LED's at sunset/sunrise)
RTRMON - nice script that gives you lots of detailed information about your network and router

If you want even more monitoring of your network (level 2)

spdMerlin - runs a speedtest at set times and lets you know how "fast" your wan is. YMMV
connmon - a nice occasional ping thing that lets you see latencys on your WAN
vnStat - lots of link and network level statistics and information on your WAN

(these do use wan bandwidth - your decision)

For the next level up - really want to tune things (warning - getting to some "expert level" stuff)

unbound Manager - very nice addon that lets your router be a real DNS recursive server. Believe me, trying to install unbound (the actual application) and ANYTHING can be maddening. This app just - makes it work. Ahh, if only @Martineau would port this to RaspberryPi OS, he would be legend.

Note that I am not including some of the other addons like Diversion, FlexQos, VPNMON, Wireguard Session Manager, Skynet, AddGuard Manager etc. These are best left to specific issues and needs. Do you want to try to tune Qos? Need a VPN and ways to monitor and manager? If so, read many of the forum threads and decide if you want to jump in.

Last, for some fun with your new AX88U Pro - check out AMTM's Router Games ;-)

ps: If your installing an drive (any kind, SSD, USB stick) be sure to enable "dc" in AMTM. It will run a filesystem check of the drive at boot/reboot time. Be sure to enable it. You have been warned...

Do you have to change the MTU to use T-Mobile Home Internet? What are the benefits? I have been using TMHI for a while with the default MTU value with no visible issues, maybe I am missing important performance improvements, thank you

 

[JGrana]

You don’t “have to” but it is recommended. It will reduce some of the possible fragmentation. In many cases, the performance improvement is not huge. I did see some slight improvement.
Again, the MTU is recommended to be 1420 (not the routers default 1500).

 

[Logi]

You don’t “have to” but it is recommended. It will reduce some of the possible fragmentation. In many cases, the performance improvement is not huge. I did see some slight improvement.
Again, the MTU is recommended to be 1420 (not the routers default 1500).

Thank you, something must have changed lately with TMHI, because after the MTU change SpeedTest.net and Fast.com stopped working, I rebooted the Gateway and Router, same problem. Then I removed the custom MTU value of 1420 and everything is back to normal,

 

[JGrana]

Thank you, something must have changed lately with TMHI, because after the MTU change SpeedTest.net and Fast.com stopped working, I rebooted the Gateway and Router, same problem. Then I removed the custom MTU value of 1420 and everything is back to normal,

Hmm. Here are my settings and I ran a speedtest. In fact, I run spdMerlin (I believe it uses Ooka).
Seems fine on my end.

Oh well, keep it at 1500. Like I said, likely not a big impact.

 

[Logi]

Hmm. Here are my settings and I ran a speedtest. In fact, I run spdMerlin (I believe it uses Ooka).
Seems fine on my end.

Oh well, keep it at 1500. Like I said, likely not a big impact.

View attachment 55462

Have you installed the latest FW 3.0.0.6.102_33308? I ask because I am having a lot of Web UI issues, mostly inconsistencies and updates that don't get applied, in some cases a reboot will fix in other, nothing will fix, wondering if there is a work around to address these type of data corruptions? Thanks

 

[JGrana]

Have you installed the latest FW 3.0.0.6.102_33308? I ask because I am having a lot of Web UI issues, mostly inconsistencies and updates that don't get applied, in some cases a reboot will fix in other, nothing will fix, wondering if there is a work around to address these type of data corruptions? Thanks

No, I am running the latest Merlin beta 1 - 3004.386.6_beta1

Stable enoigh so far

 

[ynnek63]

I was considering upgrading to the RT-AX88U Pro version from my RT-AX88U and was wondering if I could flash my settings backup to the Pro after I installed the latest version of Merlin. My current router is on the latest version of Merlin.
Thanks

 

[Tech9]

was wondering if I could flash my settings backup to the Pro

No.

 

[gpz1100]

I was considering

Just open both in separate tabs and go down the settings list.

 

[Makaveli]

I was considering upgrading to the RT-AX88U Pro version from my RT-AX88U and was wondering if I could flash my settings backup to the Pro after I installed the latest version of Merlin. My current router is on the latest version of Merlin.
Thanks

i did this upgrade a few months back and I do not recommend doing that.

 

[JGrana]

I also did the AX88U to AX88U Pro update a few months back. I did NOT save and restore the config.
There are enough hardware differences between the two that would likely cause issues doing that.
The .cfg file is a full snapshot of the nvram - and there are many settings in nvram that are not user settable - some are used to set various settings and registers that relate to the hardware.

Until there is a "selective" nvram save/restore that only operates on user settings, it's much too dangerous to do what you are proposing.

 

[Tomo]

i did this upgrade a few months back and I do not recommend doing that.

why do you not reccomend it ?

 

[Kingp1n]

why do you not reccomend it ?

Its never recommended...See this response above:

Post in thread 'Asus RT-AX88U Pro' https://www.snbforums.com/threads/asus-rt-ax88u-pro.83478/post-896445

I tried it before (different hardware) and I was having alot of WiFi issues. I ended resetting the new router and setting up from scratch!

 

[Tomo]

Its never recommended...See this response above:

Ah ok, my mistake, i had mistakenly understood that the hardware upgrade from AX88 to AX88PRO was not recommended.

 

[cr4zy]

For those of you that have this router is it possible to set it up using one of the 4, 1g LAN ports as primary WAN? I don't have dual WAN to make use of that and not sure if that's something you can configure.

The reason I ask is I only need 1G for WAN but have a use for both 2.5G ports in the LAN as both my main pc and NAS have a 2.5g capable port and the enhanced copy speeds for backups SSD to SSD would be great.