ASUS RT-N66U - my review

[HawkInOz]

Update received from ASUS on the DHCP Address Reservations Limit:

The DHCP limit at 23 is currently a bug and will be addressed in the upcoming firmware release. Please note, however, the DHCP list will have a maximum of 32 clients.

 

[darksamus]

Update received from ASUS on the DHCP Address Reservations Limit:

32 devices is low. I currently have 19 devices (out of 36) in reserved.

 

[magnus_ca]

It's nice to see Asus is acknowledging these bug reports. Hopefully they're as responsive over the next few months.

 

[njweb]

It's nice to see Asus is acknowledging these bug reports. Hopefully they're as responsive over the next few months.

Indeed.
All I can say is that so far they have impressed me with the prompt updates a lot more than Linksys who have am approximately 3 full month firmware update release cycle.
One of their forum reps / admins said it is as lengthy process due partly due to "GNU license compliance" etc., even for MAJOR bugs) and Belkin etc.:

http://homecommunity.cisco.com/t5/Wireless-Routers/Update-E4200-Media-Server-Issues/td-p/414155
This took 100 days from the time the media server issue was introduced in a buggy firmware update!

Anyway, I am looking forward to next week's firmware update.
I have not had a chance today (at work in meetings etc.) to ask them for a bit of clarification about the TX power update they will reportedly be making.

 

[Bonez]

For everyone interested in the fw for RT-N66U: got an email today from my Asus contact, NAT loopback is going to be fixed in the next fw, they hope to also include fixing the DLNA issues.

Cheers!

8 days later, I finally got a response to my ticket reporting the issues I had found (that I had promised to report).

All they did was give me a canned response telling me how to recover the firmware (despite me providing specific hardware & software versions and lots of fault-isolation details for the defects).

Shame on you, Asus. I expected more out of your 'VIP' Support.

 

[Bonez]

It's 23, and wouldn't you know it - I need 24. I Just got mine yesterday from JR.com and spent the day today setting it up and tweaking it. I kept trying to add the 24th reservation and locking it up. I actually enabled telnet so I could remotely reboot the dang thing each time I tried some variation and killed the web interface again.

So, Bonez, did you already submit the bug report to Asus on this? Thanks!

Yes, I did - and the sent me a canned response just today telling me how to recover the firmware. I'm going to try the email addresses I saw in some earlier posts. (apologies if there's a follow-up to this one - catching up on the thread after being gone a few days).

 

[Bonez]

8 days later, I finally got a response to my ticket reporting the issues I had found (that I had promised to report).

All they did was give me a canned response telling me how to recover the firmware (despite me providing specific hardware & software versions and lots of fault-isolation details for the defects).

Shame on you, Asus. I expected more out of your 'VIP' Support.

And almost as quickly, they responded to my complaint, apologized again, and then gave me real information - faith restored (thanks, Adam)

 

[tonytoronto]

First post here, go easy on me
So, this morning my Netgear3700v1 decided to crap out on me, radio for 2.4 went. Got my kid to grab me the now famous Asus N66U.
First impressions, the radios on this things are powerful, i get good useable signal where the 3700 never reached, design really nice, LED's are not flashlights, and happy overall, but...... few questions;
UPNP-- seems like Home Server cannot setup the router, its knows model and such but add to set it up manually, added all the ports needed but still can't get to it using remote access, is this that NAT loopback bug going around? Havent been able to try it outside my network. Also, is there a way to "see" what ports are in use or have been setup by UPNP? havent been able to find it.
GUI-- very pretty but not too useful, things are all over the place and quite a few options missing that are available on the netgear.
HDCP Reservations- Is there a way to reserve a client without having to type mac address? cant find way to just add the client, would add been nice to be able to name said client too.
Reboot Icon-- after all my settings were done, hit reboot and once up all my setting were gone, add to setup darn thing again, i saved setting on a file, but should this happen, i clicked save on every darn page i found.
IPV6-- why isn't there Auto setting?
WPA2- its my 4th N modem, all others had WAP-WPA2 settings, the Netgear can tell if its wpa or wap2, so i just had WAP-WPA2 Auto, not this one, and cant find anywhere what does WPA-AUTO-Enterprise mean?
QOS- like other here have said, its a mess, just left it off. very dificult to understand, poorly design options.
well, overall im happy with it and seems like Asus fixing some of this issues, hopefully this will the solid router, like the 3700 was for me.
thanks and sorry for long post *rant*

 

[mrcom]

Port Range

Hi guys i have sent a mail to asus maybe somebody of you has a solution im running the latest firmware from the asus site its from 2 feb. it starts on 31 instead of 30 a firmware thats speeds up the usb ports only. I would like to forward a range of ports ex. 49100-49200 from wan to lan . Im running the latest firmware FW_RT_N66U_B1_310390. I can only set a range 49100-49200 in the source box and not in the destination box.
Best Regards Mrcom

 

[Greg_Elite]

Just purchased the Asus RT-N66u !!!

 

[mrcom]

HDCP Reservations- Is there a way to reserve a client without having to type mac address? cant find way to just add the client, would add been nice to be able to name said client too.

HI what i did: on the network table, you know the first page, i located the ip number of the device i wanted to set in the dhcp reserve list, then i hit refresh and the mac is shown until its reconised, you have to fast mark and copy the mac before it refreshes i used mouse to mark then hit ctrl+c on that ip number you want to reserve. after that you go to the dhcp reserve page and reserve the mac to whatever ip number you want. Dont forget to apply the settings. then repeat the procedere. Hope this helps. I could not find any outer way to do this so if somebody else has a better solution please tell. Best regards Mrcom

 

[geobernd]

I don't think I would have said this a week ago: I am really glad the N66U was on backorder everywhere I looked. There is just to many bugs to justify. The QoS one is the latest of a series of mishaps that makes me wonder if the engineers working on this have ever written router software before... I hope it will get sorted and I am still looking to buy it - but so many pieces of basic high end router functionality (flawless QoS on Extranet only, Loopback, etc...) are just plain broken that my faith in Asus QA department is below zero...

 

[tonytoronto]

HI what i did: on the network table, you know the first page, i located the ip number of the device i wanted to set in the dhcp reserve list, then i hit refresh and the mac is shown until its reconised, you have to fast mark and copy the mac before it refreshes i used mouse to mark then hit ctrl+c on that ip number you want to reserve. after that you go to the dhcp reserve page and reserve the mac to whatever ip number you want. Dont forget to apply the settings. then repeat the procedere. Hope this helps. I could not find any outer way to do this so if somebody else has a better solution please tell. Best regards Mrcom

Thatswhat i did, sorta-- i used copy/paste from that screen. Pain in the butt, cant belive they could have something esier.
5ghz radios are really good, im using the ipad on 5 ghz where the 3700 never reached. May have to give tomato a try, stock firmware at this point kinda crappy.

 

[G37x]

HI what i did: on the network table, you know the first page, i located the ip number of the device i wanted to set in the dhcp reserve list, then i hit refresh and the mac is shown until its reconised, you have to fast mark and copy the mac before it refreshes i used mouse to mark then hit ctrl+c on that ip number you want to reserve. after that you go to the dhcp reserve page and reserve the mac to whatever ip number you want. Dont forget to apply the settings. then repeat the procedere. Hope this helps. I could not find any outer way to do this so if somebody else has a better solution please tell. Best regards Mrcom

That's actually a nice trick!

 

[dejanh]

HI what i did: on the network table, you know the first page, i located the ip number of the device i wanted to set in the dhcp reserve list, then i hit refresh and the mac is shown until its reconised, you have to fast mark and copy the mac before it refreshes i used mouse to mark then hit ctrl+c on that ip number you want to reserve. after that you go to the dhcp reserve page and reserve the mac to whatever ip number you want. Dont forget to apply the settings. then repeat the procedere. Hope this helps. I could not find any outer way to do this so if somebody else has a better solution please tell. Best regards Mrcom

You don't need to do that. Just hover over second column (first column are icons, such as ? marks, etc.) in Client status in Network Map and you will get the MAC address. Write it down and then input it under LAN > DHCP Server > Manually Assigned IP around the DHCP List

 

[Recoil]

If you are going to use a 3TB USB HDD with this router would you recommend formatting the drive NTFS or EXT3?

 

[dejanh]

If you are going to use a 3TB USB HDD with this router would you recommend formatting the drive NTFS or EXT3?

Neither will fully work right now. You have to wait for Asus to release new firmware. Right now only Windows/Linux will be able to view the shared folders and files on the drive if you format with NTFS/EXT3. No other devices will be able to access any files or folders on the drive.

 

[Lucinda]

I don't think I would have said this a week ago: I am really glad the N66U was on backorder everywhere I looked. There is just to many bugs to justify. The QoS one is the latest of a series of mishaps that makes me wonder if the engineers working on this have ever written router software before... I hope it will get sorted and I am still looking to buy it - but so many pieces of basic high end router functionality (flawless QoS on Extranet only, Loopback, etc...) are just plain broken that my faith in Asus QA department is below zero...

I can understand how you feel. I think they should have waited a few months and at least tested it fully before releasing the N66U. I do not have it connected anymore and went back to my old router.

I will wait for the next patch and see if anything gets fixed. If not then I will return the router and wait a few months for the price to drop also. At this point I don't think this router is worth $179.00 in my opinion.

 

[Greg_Elite]

I'm on the Amazon waiting list.
Also chances are that it won't ever fall below $150 new. Your best bet is to keep on emailing them and wait it out. Other than that if you don't use QOS or DLNA it's a rock solid router.
If your that bent on QOS or DLNA just install Tomato.

Maybe I'll get one that ships with the newer firmware.

 

[RogerSC]

Ah, another unfortunate soul on the Amazon waiting list. I've also been waiting, almost a month now, nearing the end of the "estimated delivery date" window.

I'm wondering when Amazon is going to get more of these, it's kind of boring just waiting *smile*.