Yeah, the only thing is that my gut tells me that the firmware developers for this may not be as seasoned as older device manufactuers like Linksys/Cisco, D-link, etc. which was the primary reason for me returning the router. Do they have a promising future, I think so but I can't wait. I will probably re-visit Asus later on after I see better reports of stability but for now I gotta stick with what works as my livelihood is at stake.
I ordered and trialed this thing for a week and just couldn't fall in love with it. I think Asus still has more work to do on this 56 model with firmware before it can be given as good a review at least from my point of view. Below are some of the caveats that I think ruins this device at least for my use.
1) DHCP - limit of 8 reservations
2) Hardware NAT - may be good for folks not needing/using different VPN technologies but the fact that HW NAT has to be pretty much disabled to be able to use IPSec clients such as Cisco, etc. is a killer for me.
3) Router seems to hang transmission-wise fairly often. You don't lose socket, the data just seems to stall for a little while then resumes.
4) Wireless coverage compared to my DIR-655 is much better but issue 3 above kills the benefit.
5) Odd naming of Port Forwarding to Virtual Server is odd.
6) Inability to allow ISP DNS Servers to pass through to router's DHCP Server assigned IP addresses is silly to be missing. I think a lot of the Web Page pausing found when opening web pages through this device is due to it's DNS caching/serving client.
I think this would be a great router if Asus get's the bugs fixed with the firmware but I can't wait for them to do it and who knows if they even can enable VPN IPSec support over hardware NAT on this device. So now, I am going back to my trusty Dlink DIR-655 rev.A4 and currently ordering hopefully a DIR-655 Rev. B that I will receive tomorrow.
1 - Incorrect. Limit is 16 with latest firmware
2. - Don't know, don't use it
3. - Might have defective one or running old firmware because of #1
4. Wireless coverage is the best out of all routers I've tried (WNDR3700, E4200, DIR-655)
5. Yes, but how is it a negative?
6. Don't need this.
I found DIR-655 to be a crappy router that I gave up using years ago, maybe they've fixed the firmware, but I don't want to go back to non dual bands.
1) DHCP - limit of 8 reservations
What does the limit of reservations mean? The amount of addresses it can hand out? Which does not make sense. Or does it mean something else?1 - Incorrect. Limit is 16 with latest firmware
Perfect! Please do keep us posted!I'll be finding out, I just got this router, and I also have a Cisco VPN (AnyConnect is one of our VPN client choices)...Plannning to use 1.0.1.4 firmware, and I'll see what happens.
Does anyone know how to turn off the 2.4 GHz radio on this router? .
That's great news! Thanks for reporting back RogerSC! Now I can confidently buy one without worrying.Ah, okay, I see when I go into the Log area, and look at Port Forwarding, I see:
Hardware NAT: Enabled
Software QoS: Disabled
There was no change in this when I logged out and back into my VPN, so if this is always accurate, both the hardware NAT and VPN seem to be working at the same time.
Interesting. Looks good at this point. Not using any of the non-core wireless router features though, no QoS, no USB devices, no media server, no FTP, etc. Just routing and wireless networking.
The only thing that I'm really missing is a guest network.
RT-N56U contains a vulnerability which may allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to recover the device's administrator password.[/B]
The default configuration for this device is to only allow clients connected to the Local Area Network (LAN) to access the system web interface.
This vulnerability has been addressed in ASUS's Wireless-N Gigabit Router RT-N56U firmware version 1.0.1.4o.
Another option is to give your (pseudo) Access Point a different SSID (and perhaps choose a different channel among 1, 6 or 11). Then clients simply prefer this SSID.
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