Asus RT-N56U Reviewed

[woodscomp]

I will give there tech people a shot first. On the upside what I do like about there firmware are the links inside of it which is nice to jump from screen to screen without having to go through all the menu's.

I don't know what you meant by configuring it wrong. How can you configure it wrong when the main issues it has are slowing down from data push and dropping wireless clients? It's not rocket science, the router is supposed to route data period. For the most part the settings were left alone with the exception of changing ssid/passwords etc... And yes setting up the virtual server which does not seem to work, nor does upnp or dmz.

Oh and if you disable a wireless client from the first screen that shows the map of the network, there mac address's get rejected not in the wireless mac filter but under the firewall section. How intuitive is that? So you have more than one place to disable/enable clients etc.. That has the potential to be confusing.

Whoever is writing this firmware is not doing a very good job.

 

[thiggins]

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.

You're correct that I can't test extensively test products with the limited time I have available for each one.

SmallNetBuilder receives no compensation from NewEgg. Would have been nice if their "(top performance review at smallnetbuilder.com)" had included a link back to the review. At least we would have gotten some traffic..

 

[woodscomp]

I agree Tim, I think you should get in touch with there people. It is just rude on there part to not offer anything to you while using this sites review to promote there sales.

 

[thiggins]

I agree Tim, I think you should get in touch with there people. It is just rude on there part to not offer anything to you while using this sites review to promote there sales.

It's just part of the wonder that is the Internet. Not worth the effort.

 

[jroc]

I didnt know that about newegg....interesting. And this site is showing up in customer reviews at Amazon.

I never heard about this site until I was trying to get my WRT54GL to work better. Someone suggested we check this site out and just get a better router..lol.

I am so glad I came across this site.

 

[thiggins]

I am so glad I came across this site.

Well, glad you found us. Spread the word!

 

[klas]

I will give there tech people a shot first. On the upside what I do like about there firmware are the links inside of it which is nice to jump from screen to screen without having to go through all the menu's.

I don't know what you meant by configuring it wrong. How can you configure it wrong when the main issues it has are slowing down from data push and dropping wireless clients? It's not rocket science, the router is supposed to route data period. For the most part the settings were left alone with the exception of changing ssid/passwords etc... And yes setting up the virtual server which does not seem to work, nor does upnp or dmz.

Oh and if you disable a wireless client from the first screen that shows the map of the network, there mac address's get rejected not in the wireless mac filter but under the firewall section. How intuitive is that? So you have more than one place to disable/enable clients etc.. That has the potential to be confusing.

Whoever is writing this firmware is not doing a very good job.

I was referring that you might be configuring virtual server wrong. I have several devices I am accessing from the outside successfully. The only negative was trying to find "port forwarding" until I learned it was called virtual server. Why would Asus do that?

 

[Dr_ARCHer]

I have two units of the RT-N56U working in WDS wireless bridging. While my secondary router is not always switched on, my main one is, and it hasn't dropped any connections other than during the firmware upgrade. I also have 9 wireless cameras (different brands, from Dlink to Linksys to SMC) that I am able to access from the WAN sdie. The way it is configured (using virtual servers) is almost identical to configuration on DIR-655.

I have issue with the latest firmware (1.0.1.3) in that my SMC cameras do not give me an image. Downgrading back to 1.0.1.2 resolved the problem. My WNDR3700 does not allow me to use encryption with my Dlink/LevelOne cameras, while my WZR-HP-G300NH running DD WRT gave me dropped connections. I also have the E4200, but the RT-N56Us are working beautifully that I simply have no motivation to switch over to the E4200.

 

[woodscomp]

Unfortunately I have submitted the RMA and packed it back up ready to go out. I tried reaching out to Asus as they left me a case number etc... They never returned to me. This is indicative of Asus support for the end user. I could have used my business name to contact them but that would not have been entirely an honest thing to do. Also I wanted to see how there end user support is. It is as bad as I remember it being when they first started selling to the end user some years ago.

Back to the WRT610N, was hoping for better speeds etc, especially with all the streaming we have been doing over the past year. Never could get my WHS to configure correctly on the 56U. Put it outside the DMZ, forwarded ports, disabled NAT, disabled firewall. Tried them all at one point or another to no avail.

I did leave Newegg a note about them using this site to help market and promote there sales. I do hope they rectify that, I think it is extremely unprofessional on there part to at least not ask consent to use the name.

I might give them a go when they release the 66U but will be looking for screen shots of the firmware pages first.

Anyone else notice how dismal there manual for this router is? I scoured that thing looking for advanced settings. From what I could tell it just hit the main points of the router and left about 60% of the configurations out.

 

[jalyst]

^ sounds like the n66u can't come soon enough!
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=25929

 

[4rjan]

Does anybody know if the Asus RT-N56U has the possibility to add static ARP entry's?
I need this for enabling my computer to start-up by WOL.

 

[thiggins]

Does anybody know if the Asus RT-N56U has the possibility to add static ARP entry's?
I need this for enabling my computer to start-up by WOL.

Do you mean DHCP reservations by MAC address? If yes, then yes, it does.

 

[4rjan]

Do you mean DHCP reservations by MAC address? If yes, then yes, it does.

Thank you for your response thiggins,

I could use that feature, but i don't think the WOL magic packet won't reach his destination.

Because at the moment my router forgets the MAC address of my desktop after it is shutdown for more then 1 minute.
So i tried it with DHCP with a range from 192.168.2.101 to 192.168.2.102, because there was no DHCP reservation option available.
I checked my routers DHCP status and saw the DHCP entry with the IP and MAC address of my desktop. But still the magic packets are not able to find the MAC address.

I really think i need to have static ARP entries.

With Cisco hardware you can make an ARP entry with the following command:

hostname(config)# arp outside 10.1.1.1 0009.7cbe.2100

Is there any feature like this for the Asus RT-N56U?

 

[stevech]

ARP tables in switches (and the switch built into a WiFi router) would lose their contents at power off. I guess you know that.

No way 'round that I know of. Haven't seen battery backed up ARP memory in such things.

The NIC in PCs often has a means to stay powered up while main PC is off/suspended.

I guess most of us leave the switches and routers on all the time and turn PCs off/on as need be. Me, I sleep the PC since with an SSD boot disk, it is resumes in 5 seconds or so.

 

[ldbsAsus]

How do you reserve an IP address in the Asus Rt-56u?

I'd rather have the asus reserve the IP than make the ip manual on my synology diskstation.

 

[4rjan]

ARP tables in switches (and the switch built into a WiFi router) would lose their contents at power off. I guess you know that.

No way 'round that I know of. Haven't seen battery backed up ARP memory in such things.

The NIC in PCs often has a means to stay powered up while main PC is off/suspended.

I guess most of us leave the switches and routers on all the time and turn PCs off/on as need be. Me, I sleep the PC since with an SSD boot disk, it is resumes in 5 seconds or so.

Thank you for your quick response stevech,

What i mean is that when my desktop powers off, my router forgets/flushes the ARP entry of the desktop that has shutdown after 1 minute.

WOL does work before that 1 minute has passed, and it also works in sleep mode. (Both via the internet)

 

[robwiel]

Just got it, installed ..13 version of firmware update.

You can set it to 192.168.0.1 despite previous posts.
Mac-ip reservations are disappointing as hell.
You have to input them manually despite router detecting proper data in different windows. How stupid is that, even my 7 year old dlink can pull down list.

There is no firmware update from internet, you have to do it from file.

There is no clone-mac address, you have to put it in manually after finding option with vague name (again no pull down asus).

Restart is slow, good you dont have to restart after wireless change since last update.

Login window, ugly, really? couldnt come up with anything else?

Havent tested much else, but those set-up points are badly solved.

 

[Shikami]

HW Nat Module

I wanted to advise everyone here that the HW Nat Module will be disabled if a couple of features are enabled. One is QoS, the second is multicasting for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wireless interfaces in the profession tabs, which does link into another tab (forgot which one it is but if you change one both tabs will be configured). I noticed it does make a difference in egress packets. I tested this "penaly" to be for myself at around 3Mb/s.

You can see if it is disabled in the dmesg of the general log after the bridge topology configuration, or in port forwarding it will have an output of enabled or disabled if or if not loaded. Look for these two lines in dmesg to see if enabled:
HIPID=RT3883
Ralink HW NAT Module Enabled

I noticed this was an issue with Engenius routers also when I was researching this; they are based on similar architectures.

 

[panzer]

VPN problems

I just wanted to add my 2c. I have been having issues with the RT-N56U, and I am not alone. While I love how fast it is, and so far, reliable. Unfortunately, I need to VPN to work and even though it says it supports PPTP and L2TP, it will connect to the VPN server and then hang everytime. I replaced an old WRT56 that doesnt have this problem, and there are no settings etc to address it. There are numerous firmware updates, including one that is a "beta" that states it is for "Russia" only and yet others are reporting no luck in fixing the VPN issues. For now it seems this is a good router - as long as you never have to VPN ! I am now just hoping Asus fixes it in a firmware update.

 

[Albatross]

I just wanted to add my 2c. I have been having issues with the RT-N56U, and I am not alone. While I love how fast it is, and so far, reliable. Unfortunately, I need to VPN to work and even though it says it supports PPTP and L2TP, it will connect to the VPN server and then hang everytime. I replaced an old WRT56 that doesnt have this problem, and there are no settings etc to address it. There are numerous firmware updates, including one that is a "beta" that states it is for "Russia" only and yet others are reporting no luck in fixing the VPN issues. For now it seems this is a good router - as long as you never have to VPN ! I am now just hoping Asus fixes it in a firmware update.

Are you having this issue? VPN wired doesn't work, but wireless does?
Link