evilnewbie
Occasional Visitor
Is the router, future-proof in terms of compatibility with IPv6?? Anyone know? I can't find that information anywhere.
Asus RT-N56U Reviewed
- Thread starter occamsrazor
- Start date
That is not true. While it does not have any setting for IPv6 it is detected:
http://test-ipv6.com/
10/10 for your IPv4 stability and readiness, when publishers offer both IPv4 and IPv6
9/10 for your IPv6 stability and readiness, when publishers are forced to go IPv6 only
I've spent the last couple of days setting up the RT-N56U. I'm not sure the SNB review does justice to how great this router is.
My test laptop: Lenovo X120e with a 1x1 11b/g/n Wireless LAN PCI Express Half Mini Card, Realtek driver 1003.10.1112.2010 (factory default).
Encryption was set for WPA2 / AES.
Initially the set-up was for 2.4GHz, n band only, @ 20 MHz. Walked around the house (4 levels, router on 2nd level) and was getting 72 Mbps consistently. One specific area would go down to 58 Mbps, but never dropped the connection.
The signal was so consistent I dropped the Tx power down to 20 on the router. Still gave a consistent connection. I settled for a Tx power setting at 30.
Went back to the SNB review and saw that 40 MHz gave slightly better results. Switch the router over to 40 MHz and doubled the speed. I now get 150 Mbps consistently (limit of the card I believe). I still have one specific area that will drop down to 120 Mbps, but it doesn't drop the signal.
I gave up on wireless a couple of years. It took multiple extenders with external antennas to get half the area covered. I'm in shock this router does it all with Tx power at 30.
My coverage area is challenging and I don’t think typical. Assuming the locations in the review are just as bad, I wonder what the test result would look like if a different card was used.
My test laptop: Lenovo X120e with a 1x1 11b/g/n Wireless LAN PCI Express Half Mini Card, Realtek driver 1003.10.1112.2010 (factory default).
Encryption was set for WPA2 / AES.
Initially the set-up was for 2.4GHz, n band only, @ 20 MHz. Walked around the house (4 levels, router on 2nd level) and was getting 72 Mbps consistently. One specific area would go down to 58 Mbps, but never dropped the connection.
The signal was so consistent I dropped the Tx power down to 20 on the router. Still gave a consistent connection. I settled for a Tx power setting at 30.
Went back to the SNB review and saw that 40 MHz gave slightly better results. Switch the router over to 40 MHz and doubled the speed. I now get 150 Mbps consistently (limit of the card I believe). I still have one specific area that will drop down to 120 Mbps, but it doesn't drop the signal.
I gave up on wireless a couple of years. It took multiple extenders with external antennas to get half the area covered. I'm in shock this router does it all with Tx power at 30.
My coverage area is challenging and I don’t think typical. Assuming the locations in the review are just as bad, I wonder what the test result would look like if a different card was used.
I have to agree, this is an impressive router and this review just did not seem to convey that as such, especially what's puzzling was the comparison tests with E4200 & WNDR3700 which I owned both and they both underperformed in range tests in my environment. On the other hand I did not buy it based on the review, so it doesn't matter at this point because it already works for me quite well. In the farthest spot in the house where E4200 & WNDR3700 barely could get 50 Mbps, now I get 300 Mbps on 2.4Ghz band.
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Don't confuse link rates with actual throughput. 150 Mbps is the top link rate you'll see with a single stream N client.
You have to run actual throughput tests to see if that actually improves throughput. For tips / how to's on throughput measurement see How Fast Is Your Network? Five Ways To Measure Network Speed
FYI...
Apparently the N76U has been re-branded to N66U:
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=25929
If what we know so far is accurate, it looks even nicer than the N56U.
And 3rd party fw will be "on the cards" longer-term w00t!
How is the Asus for mixed windows/apple networks?
I'm going to break down and get Ethernet service in my condo so am looking for a router that can take advantage of the speed.
The ISP recommends the Apple Airport Extreme (but have heard it might have issues with non-Apple devices), but I'm also considering the ASUS.
Not a gamer, so latency, etc not a huge issue, neither is range (my place is small). I'm looking for a speedy RELIABLE router (my Linksys isn't great) that works well with PCs and ipads and iphones.
I'm going to break down and get Ethernet service in my condo so am looking for a router that can take advantage of the speed.
The ISP recommends the Apple Airport Extreme (but have heard it might have issues with non-Apple devices), but I'm also considering the ASUS.
Not a gamer, so latency, etc not a huge issue, neither is range (my place is small). I'm looking for a speedy RELIABLE router (my Linksys isn't great) that works well with PCs and ipads and iphones.
Well, someone has already dug apart the RT-N56U rather impressively, and one of the DD-WRT coders was just donated one in the past week...so hopefully this bodes well for us (just picked up one of these Asus'!) looking forward to 3rd party firmware on the N56U.
Yup, here's to hoping. I needed something immediately because my ole' WL-500W died (I'm going to assume it was a capacitor that failed, already had to replace the AC adapter due to the same type of failure). I hope the quality of capacitors has improved since 2005/6. ;0
Works great with Comcast
I had a WRT54GL that didnt work good with Comcast. Strange thing is it worked fine with RCN.
This Asus works beautifully. Has a better range too. The speeds I get on my Android phone in the living room I get in the bedroom and bathroom of a one bedroom apt. On my WRT54GL, my phone barely worked in the bathroom and bedroom and the PS3 didnt connect at all in the bedroom. Tried numerous changes to the 54GL, nothing.
Yea I agree too, the review doesnt do this router justice. I was like what the review mentioned in the closing thoughts. I used D Link and Linksys and have heard of Netgear before. I was very skeptical about using a router by Asus. So glad I did now.
I had a WRT54GL that didnt work good with Comcast. Strange thing is it worked fine with RCN.
This Asus works beautifully. Has a better range too. The speeds I get on my Android phone in the living room I get in the bedroom and bathroom of a one bedroom apt. On my WRT54GL, my phone barely worked in the bathroom and bedroom and the PS3 didnt connect at all in the bedroom. Tried numerous changes to the 54GL, nothing.
Yea I agree too, the review doesnt do this router justice. I was like what the review mentioned in the closing thoughts. I used D Link and Linksys and have heard of Netgear before. I was very skeptical about using a router by Asus. So glad I did now.
I said it elsewhere in the forum but since my Asus WL-500W returned to life, I have returned the RT-N56U (money is scarce, and I've grown attached to DD-WRT firmware). It seemed like a promising performer and a valid replacement for the near future should my current router actually fail. 
I don't know I find this router mediocre at best. For me it is missing some key features. And it drops wireless connections from time to time. That is something I have not had happen since 2004.
The firmware seems half baked and not very user friendly. From the creepy little face in the corner to taking 2+ minutes to reboot itself in between every wireless change it is just ok, and nothing to write home about.
I don't really care about wan-lan speed when my clients are being dropped, oh and here's a big one anyone with more than three clients attached go ahead and start routing a lot of data on all of them at the same time this router will not run, walk or crawl, it will CREEP along. I have two teens and a wife who runs a business from home, unfortunately this router was a bad decision.
The firmware seems half baked and not very user friendly. From the creepy little face in the corner to taking 2+ minutes to reboot itself in between every wireless change it is just ok, and nothing to write home about.
I don't really care about wan-lan speed when my clients are being dropped, oh and here's a big one anyone with more than three clients attached go ahead and start routing a lot of data on all of them at the same time this router will not run, walk or crawl, it will CREEP along. I have two teens and a wife who runs a business from home, unfortunately this router was a bad decision.
Sounds like you got a lemon. As a matter of fact the issues you described I experienced with E4200 and not with Asus. I have 3 lan and 12 wireless clients connected and so far didn't notice any performance issues. Btw, there is a new firmware available, might be worth a try.
I agree somewhat about the settings. I liked with my Linksys I could change the IP part of the port forward sections and just save the edit. I never worried about static IP's with my Linksys cuz I could just edit the IP part of the port forward settings.
With the Asus, you better set up static IP's with the devices you want to port forward. Yea static IP's is advised in port forward tutorials anyway but still I liked how I could just edit it in my Linksys.
I am running there latest firmware and posted a review on Neweggs website. That garnered an inquiry from Asus. I have emailed them for help, if they can't resolve this within the week it is going back.
Times are too tight to be playing with poor R&D products. I wish Asus stuck with what they do best, motherboards and laptops. They tried going into the GPS market some years back and I bought into that market with there PND line. I will not be caught twice by them.
Honestly I do like what Tim does here, but I don't think all the testing he does can relate to every users expereince, such as moving large ammounts of data between several clients at once. This is the very foundation of what a router is made for and this is where my Asus has failed the most.
I hope he's getting paid by Newegg for them using this sites name to help sell this router.
Times are too tight to be playing with poor R&D products. I wish Asus stuck with what they do best, motherboards and laptops. They tried going into the GPS market some years back and I bought into that market with there PND line. I will not be caught twice by them.
Honestly I do like what Tim does here, but I don't think all the testing he does can relate to every users expereince, such as moving large ammounts of data between several clients at once. This is the very foundation of what a router is made for and this is where my Asus has failed the most.
I hope he's getting paid by Newegg for them using this sites name to help sell this router.
Yes and I have exactly three static IP's setup for each of my hard wired devices. My WHS box I can not get to forward the ports on no matter how many are supposedly open. I even set it outside the DMZ and it still fails to recognize for remote operations which is a real pain in the butt. Can't stream media and can not access it from the Internet.
Worked like a charm on the Linksys. Maybe the RT-N56U ports are off, I don't know. Kind of like how it insists that my time zone is not eastern but some other far off place.
Worked like a charm on the Linksys. Maybe the RT-N56U ports are off, I don't know. Kind of like how it insists that my time zone is not eastern but some other far off place.
I still think you got defective one or possibly configuring it wrong and in either case I don't think it deserves a bad rating until you find the source of the problem. In my environment I move a lot of data and by a lot I mean, I have 2 wireless IP cameras constantly recording, there is OTA streaming with HDHomerun, downloading large files from NAS box to clients and just regular browsing by 3 clients. No slowdowns, at least nothing that I would notice and be concerned about.
As far as port forwarding which is actually called virtual server it also works just fine.
As far as port forwarding which is actually called virtual server it also works just fine.
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