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ASUS RT-N68U / TM-AC1900 WAN Drops Intermittently

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amaranthine

New Around Here
I've seen a couple of old threads about this, but I'm pretty stumped regarding the WAN drops I've had with my TM-AC1900. It was working fine on stock T-Mobile firmware for 1.5 years until just a few weeks ago, where the WAN kept dropping, usually 2-3 times a day every 6-8 hours or so. Firmware version is 3.0.0.4.376_3181.

When this outage occurs, I'm unable to navigate to any website (via Ethernet and Wi-Fi), since I get a "No Internet" error in the browser, but I can access the router menu at 192.168.29.1. Any pings outside the WAN would result in 100% lost packets. Within 30 seconds the Internet would return and WAN was working normally. There is nothing in the router logs during this outage (before, during, or after it). This occurs on all machines connected to the router.

Troubleshooting steps:
  1. I tried replacing the Ethernet cable to the modem with no effect.
  2. I called the ISP and they observed no problems.
  3. I actually have a spare TM-AC1900 I put service to rule out hardware, and the spare one also had WAN drops (on the same version of firmware 3181) after a factory reset.
  4. Assuming a firmware issue, I went back to the old TM-AC1900 (not the spare) and decided to wipe the firmware and put in Merlin. Running Merlin 380.64 did not resolve the issue.
  5. I downgraded to ASUS stock 376.3626 after hearing that some people solved the WAN drops with that. It did not work either.
  6. I removed the router completely and put in a switch instead (using the router as a Wi-Fi access point only). The RT-N68U is connected to the switch and serves as a Wi-Fi hotspot. The WAN drops disappeared for Ethernet machines, while Wi-Fi devices would face the same outage issue.
  7. EDIT: The WAN drop just occurred with my devices connected only to a switch, so it looks like an ISP issue.

Based off all the steps above, I can only conclude the ASUS firmware has developed some issue maintaining a WAN connection to my ISP. Not really sure what recourse I have at this point. I'm assuming that I can (1) flash DD-WRT / Tomato to go away from ASUS firmware completely or (2) just get a non-ASUS router.

It's disappointing since the RT-68U had been working quite well and I like the router enough to buy a second one before these issues came up.

Any ideas I'm missing?
 
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