ASUS RT-N53 ... any reviews?

[Livin]

Looks like fry's has this for under seventy bucks - wondering if anyone has experience with it?

 

[Unregistered]

impressive router

I just upgraded to the ASUS RT-N53 router and was really impressed. This is the 4th router I've tried this a year and it is clearly the winner. The firmware menus are the best I've ever seen, easy to use, intuitive, and easy to understand help descriptions for each option. I mated it with the N53 USB dongle since my laptop is not equipped with dual band and viola, I really get 300Mbps connections.

 

[realcoolcat]

I am about to return it!


Bought it last week and WAN simply does not stay a full minute without disconnecting. It came with 1.0.1.2, updated firmware to 1.0.1.3; 1.0.14; 1.0.14o and today I gave it the last change and updated to 1.0.17c.

My knowledge of networking is basic but this router totally made me feel like a lost a battle. I bought it based on reviews but ended up disappointed. I totally loved the specs.

I am sure the problem is not my ISP nor my modem. Everything works like a charm when not on wireless.

I set it up my modem (TP-link TD-8816) as bridge and configured the router to control the pppoe connection. I am running Vista SP2 32bit
Realtek RTL8101 Family PCI-E Fast Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0) and
Drivers are all up-to-date.

Have any of you experienced it?

Here is part of the log file:

Nov 7 15:44:49 upnpd[994]: UPnP SDK Successfully Initialized.
Nov 7 15:44:49 upnpd[994]: Succesfully set the Web Server Root Directory.
Nov 7 15:44:49 upnpd[994]: IGD root device successfully registered.
Nov 7 15:44:51 upnpd[994]: Advertisements Sent. Listening for requests ...
Nov 7 15:44:52 ntp client: time is synchronized to pool.ntp.org
Nov 7 15:44:52 pppd[796]: System time change detected.
Nov 7 15:44:53 upnpd[999]: Failure in GateDeviceDeletePortMapping: DeletePortMap: Proto:UDP Port:19382
Nov 7 15:44:56 upnpd[999]: Failure in GateDeviceDeletePortMapping: DeletePortMap: Proto:TCP Port:19382
Nov 7 15:44:58 upnpd[999]: AddPortMap: DevUDN: uuid:5f75f342-9f96-4ecc-9dbd-bcaec5eb212c ServiceID: urn:upnp-org:serviceId:WANIPConn1 RemoteHost: (null) Prot: UDP ExtPort: 19382 Int: 192.168.2.215.19382
Nov 7 15:44:59 upnpd[998]: AddPortMap: DevUDN: uuid:5f75f342-9f96-4ecc-9dbd-bcaec5eb212c ServiceID: urn:upnp-org:serviceId:WANIPConn1 RemoteHost: (null) Prot: TCP ExtPort: 19382 Int: 192.168.2.215.19382
Nov 7 15:45:06 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:45:11 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:45:33 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:45:36 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:45:39 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:45:43 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:45:53 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:45:58 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:46:09 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:46:13 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:47:08 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:47:11 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:48:07 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:48:12 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:48:49 upnpd[999]: AddPortMap: DevUDN: uuid:5f75f342-9f96-4ecc-9dbd-bcaec5eb212c ServiceID: urn:upnp-org:serviceId:WANIPConn1 RemoteHost: (null) Prot: TCP ExtPort: 19517 Int: 192.168.2.215.19517
Nov 7 15:48:49 upnpd[998]: AddPortMap: DevUDN: uuid:5f75f342-9f96-4ecc-9dbd-bcaec5eb212c ServiceID: urn:upnp-org:serviceId:WANIPConn1 RemoteHost: (null) Prot: UDP ExtPort: 19517 Int: 192.168.2.215.19517
Nov 7 15:49:02 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:49:06 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:49:19 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:49:22 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:49:41 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:49:44 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:50:03 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:50:06 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:50:13 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:50:16 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:50:25 RT-N56U: convert_asus_values starts
Nov 7 15:50:26 kernel: [K] track_flag=0, clean_flag=0, mm_flag=0, ipaddr=cef88078
Nov 7 15:50:26 kernel: acm_msg> ACM_MEM_Alloc_Num = 1
Nov 7 15:50:26 kernel: acm_msg> ACM_MEM_Free_Num = 1
Nov 7 15:50:26 RT-N56U: gen_ralink_config_rt starts
Nov 7 15:50:26 kernel: br0: port 3(rai0) entering disabled state
Nov 7 15:50:26 kernel: RX DESC a03ff000 size = 2048
Nov 7 15:50:26 kernel: <-- RTMPAllocTxRxRingMemory, Status=0
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: Key1Str is Invalid key length(0) or Type(0)
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: Key2Str is Invalid key length(0) or Type(0)
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: Key3Str is Invalid key length(0) or Type(0)
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: Key4Str is Invalid key length(0) or Type(0)
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: 1. Phy Mode = 9
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: 2. Phy Mode = 9
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: 3. Phy Mode = 9
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: MCS Set = ff ff 00 00 00
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: Main bssid = bc:ae:c5:eb:21:2b
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: <==== rt28xx_init, Status=0
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: 0x1300 = 00064380
Nov 7 15:50:27 kernel: br0: port 3(rai0) entering listening state
Nov 7 15:50:39 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:50:42 kernel: br0: port 3(rai0) entering learning state
Nov 7 15:50:43 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:50:57 kernel: br0: topology change detected, propagating
Nov 7 15:50:57 kernel: br0: port 3(rai0) entering forwarding state
Nov 7 15:51:02 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:51:05 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:52:00 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:52:14 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:52:45 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:52:50 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:53:01 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:53:05 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:53:18 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:53:21 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:53:23 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:53:26 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:53:43 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.
Nov 7 15:53:48 WAN Connection: WAN was restored.
Nov 7 15:54:07 WAN Connection: Ethernet link down.

And the these messages go on like forever!!!

 

[vikingisson]

I just bought this router and the best thing I have to say is that it is pretty. The menus while being all wizardy and easy leave me frustrated that I can't set half the things I need or want.

But here's the part that makes me send it back: Repeater mode has a bug and doesn't work. I bought it for repeater mode and being pretty enough for the living room. It goes through all the wizard things and connects fine. The wired computer attached is working, so far I have a working bridge, great. But the repeated SSID appends "_ure" to the linked SSID. Just for laughs I tried connecting to it and it doesn't work. No way to change or fix this. Total fail and clearly a bug. Firmware page on the pathetic asus site shows a newer firmware but none of the links are working. It looks like there are other bugs and they pulled the downloads.

Official support sends me the usual 'click this and that' instructions which isn't the problem at all, I did that and got that part working. They know there's a problem, they must, this is obviously a bug.