ASUS RT-N66U Dark Knight Dual-Band Wireless-N900 Gigabit Router Reviewed

[RogerSC]

super tuned or not , hang on to it , you have a better than average unit , I could not get those results using the 4500 . Like I said , would not get any signal down in my basement ,and transfers take 1/2 the time with the 66 . I ran over 100 tests just to be sure it was not some fluke .

Yes, I was interested in the WNDR4500 at one point, but made the mistake of reading the Netgear forum threads on it. For a long time, there were DNS problems, disconnects, and poor reported wireless results on 2.4 GHz. Sounds like they've worked these problems out in the current firmware. That's good to hear.

 

[claykin]

Yes, I was interested in the WNDR4500 at one point, but made the mistake of reading the Netgear forum threads on it. For a long time, there were DNS problems, disconnects, and poor reported wireless results on 2.4 GHz. Sounds like they've worked these problems out in the current firmware. That's good to hear.

Yes, shipping firmware for the 4500 was a disaster. I recall the N66U had the same sort of problem. Trouble with Netgear is they often take a long time to implement new firmware into factory production. This is a mistake as they run the risk of chasing people away who become frustrated by the original shipping firmware.

Current 4500 firmware is far from perfect, but its fairly solid. If I leave 2.4G on "450Mb/s" setting 1/2 of my clients refuse to connect. Most Atheros clients won't connect, nor will my iPod Touch 4g. Changing to "217Mb/s" setting resolves this. 5G works fine at "450Mb/s" setting.

I've had an odd problem that occured on both the 4500 and N66U. If I setup the wifi AP settings then disable WPS PIN code, 50% of the time the router defaults the wifi settings back to factory settings. Same thing occured on both routers. To me this likely means Broadcom base code is likely responsible for this bug.

 

[jerry6]

I never use the wps pin , on either router . Set them all up manualy , maybe that has something to do with it ? Never had any clients disconnect , netgear or asus

 

[G37x]

One more bug, my N66U screws up my Pioneer AVR hostname, instead of VSX-1121, itunes/ipod now (while doing airplay) show bridgeco FAB445 (last 6 charact are part of the MAC). It must be the last fw...

Anybody else got this?

Thanks!

 

[AnthonyArmato]

I know in 116 it only shows 3 of my connected device names. The rest of them only show the MAC, which is VERY annoying. Not sure why it doesn't show the name of each device.

 

[RogerSC]

I know in 116 it only shows 3 of my connected device names. The rest of them only show the MAC, which is VERY annoying. Not sure why it doesn't show the name of each device.

Been that way for some time, never seen it work right. If you want to see the names, at least for dhcp clients, go to the dhcp leases log and look there. Don't know why they can't get the front page client list right. They've had enough chances...very visible, yet broken...

 

[AnthonyArmato]

Hopefully soon they'll resolve it.

 

[G37x]

Asus new FW (testing) 125

Got this from Asus:
https://www.asuswebstorage.com/navigate/s?u=GY44KYLMS4

This is supposed to address the client list. Give it a try!

Cheers,
g37x

 

[AnthonyArmato]

How did they go to that FW version number ?

And it also does not seem to fix the client list issue.

Can anyone else also confirm that backup/restore setting does not actually restore your settings ?

 

[mrcom]

Got this from Asus:
https://www.asuswebstorage.com/navigate/s?u=GY44KYLMS4

This is supposed to address the client list. Give it a try!

Cheers,
g37x

Thanks it seems it has reached a download limit ?
So here is a link direkt to the file from my host http://www.tvestjartarna.se/RT-N66U_9.1.0.3_125.trx
Best regards Mrcom

 

[gary8vi]

Got this from Asus:
https://www.asuswebstorage.com/navigate/s?u=GY44KYLMS4

This is supposed to address the client list. Give it a try!

Cheers,
g37x

Thanks for the new FW update post.

Installed .125 and so far does not look or act any different than .116.

Anyway you can get a list of what was changed or improved with this version?

 

[andremike]

can you use this router as a repeater? I want to use 2 of these in my network... One at the home base and then another as a repeater.

 

[shantanugoel]

can you use this router as a repeater? I want to use 2 of these in my network... One at the home base and then another as a repeater.

Yes, I think. I haven't tried it but in the setup page, there is an option to set it up for WDS and from the explanation given, it seems like this mode will make it work as a repeater (with half the throughput of course)

 

[G37x]

Thanks for the new FW update post.

Installed .125 and so far does not look or act any different than .116.

Anyway you can get a list of what was changed or improved with this version?

Yeap same here, no changes....

 

[KevTech]

I find it odd the name of this firmware.

All firmware so far have been RT-N66U_3.0.0.3_xxx.trx

This firmware is RT-N66U_9.1.0.3_125.trx

 

[AnthonyArmato]

Mentioned that earlier.

 

[mrcom]

I find it odd the name of this firmware.

All firmware so far have been RT-N66U_3.0.0.3_xxx.trx

This firmware is RT-N66U_9.1.0.3_125.trx

Hi thats the way they name betas. This is no official firmware so treat it with caution. And the fact that it,s a high number is just the way they work by compyling new firmwares testing them and then fix more problems and compiling a new one and the higher number diffferens between the official firmwares means that they have tested and hopefully fixed many problems.

 

[AnthonyArmato]

Oh really ? .116 is a beta and it doesn't start with 9.

 

[somms]

Still running strong using Shibby's latest Tomato build, don't ever see returning to ASUS stock firmware at this point...tried dd-wrt for a bit but since there was no OpenVPN support, went right back to Shibby's!

 

[claykin]

Oh really ? .116 is a beta and it doesn't start with 9.

You beat me to it! Starting with a 9 must mean something else.