ASUS ZenWifi AX XT8 Setup

[ThatGuyinNC]

Bro legit I am in the exact same position and the more I look into it the more people I see who have the same problems as us two, This ASUS router is rubbish, but if you also look up NETGEAR AX6000 wifi speed issues it takes you to their forums and same things going on, so now I don't know what to do, my old router and $170 WiFi extender gave me faster speeds which I cant get my head around, this cost me $800 here in Australia from BingLee. I'm stuck I don't know what to do, I have 1GBPS/50MBPS fibre internet also, I get 900+MBPS wired and directly next to router I get 750+MBPS speeds but as soon as you walk even 5 meters away even with ASUS mesh system set up it drops to 250MBPS at most!

I can attest to this as well. I have 17 iterations of a support ticket opened with Asus and all they keep asking for is a time in which they can call, (I have provided but no-one ever does), and for me to fill out the feedback form. I am going to try the Netgear Orbi 853 since I found one open box and use my 30 days to try it out, but I am not sure if that is going to be a fix either. I have heard good things about the Amplifi Alien mesh system, but they are very hard to find in the states.

 

[vjarena3]

I can attest to this as well. I have 17 iterations of a support ticket opened with Asus and all they keep asking for is a time in which they can call, (I have provided but no-one ever does), and for me to fill out the feedback form. I am going to try the Netgear Orbi 853 since I found one open box and use my 30 days to try it out, but I am not sure if that is going to be a fix either. I have heard good things about the Amplifi Alien mesh system, but they are very hard to find in the states.

All support right now is bad. If it’s a sev 2-3 I try to figure it out myself - only if it’s a sev 1 do I call Cisco support and we pay hundreds of thousands for coverage. I looked at the Alien as well and for as cool looking as it is it seemed pricey when adding units. I’m not sure what your issues are with the Asus but after pouring through articles on this forum as well as other people providing advice in threads such as this I’m sure it could be figured out. Regardless I think it’s good to test things out to see what works best for you. My wife was thrilled I finally have the visibility and control into the network that I do now with Asus which I could never dream of with the Orbi. (not for free anyway) It actually made up for me buying it without permission!

 

[gz2021]

Wish I came across this thread sooner. Just got my XT8 and all excited about some better coverage. Plugged them in and set them up (super simple). Updated them to 3.0.0.4.386_43181-g6099e58 and all the wireless clients stick to the upstairs node.

I see a few jump on the second node for a few seconds and then jump back on the first node. I can see you can bind clients to nodes which will be fine for stationary nodes.

I have been running some ping test against the ip address of the 2nd node. I dont ever see a ping drop at all

Already debating on returning these things after reading some of the comments about the firmware. Dont want to drop the firmware to old firmware since of the security updates.

 

[gz2021]

After my rant above I did some speed tests around the 2 floors and I was getting full internet speeds that im paying for (which is only 100/100 from Fios).

I am gonna run some iperf tests to see what is the max I can push locally over the wireless. I currently dont have any wifi 6 devices but im still interested to see the speeds with the test above.

This morning I woke up and noticed some of the clients jumped on the 2nd node which is wireless. I have a 3rd node coming today to cover the basement.

I am gonna give it a week to see what the experience is like and then make a decision on if im gonna keep it or not. I WFH so it will be a really good test.

Not sure if setting a room location on the nodes themselves actucally makes a difference. I did bind the apple tv to the 2nd wireless node as its stationary and shouldnt be jumping around from AP to AP

 

[vjarena3]

After my rant above I did some speed tests around the 2 floors and I was getting full internet speeds that im paying for (which is only 100/100 from Fios).

I am gonna run some iperf tests to see what is the max I can push locally over the wireless. I currently dont have any wifi 6 devices but im still interested to see the speeds with the test above.

This morning I woke up and noticed some of the clients jumped on the 2nd node which is wireless. I have a 3rd node coming today to cover the basement.

I am gonna give it a week to see what the experience is like and then make a decision on if im gonna keep it or not. I WFH so it will be a really good test.

Not sure if setting a room location on the nodes themselves actucally makes a difference. I did bind the apple tv to the 2nd wireless node as its stationary and shouldnt be jumping around from AP to AP

Most of the gear I run at work is usually behind on firmware upgrades simply because of the bugs…unless there’s a major security issue such as a zero day exploit. In fact there’s been times when I’ve upgraded my Meraki wireless, had issues and reverted back. I’ve been running the 42095 and haven’t noticed any security issues plus keep in mind it was released in March so it’s not that far behind. YMMV

 

[gz2021]

Most of the gear I run at work is usually behind on firmware upgrades simply because of the bugs…unless there’s a major security issue such as a zero day exploit. In fact there’s been times when I’ve upgraded my Meraki wireless, had issues and reverted back. I’ve been running the 42095 and haven’t noticed any security issues plus keep in mind it was released in March so it’s not that far behind. YMMV

Ill keep that in mind but im gonna stick with the current firmware to test it out.

I really wish ASUS products supported VLANs/multiple SSIDs so I could keep my pfsense at the front of the network and have the ASUS devices just be wireless. I know I know ASUS is for home users, not the enterprise. Im making due with the wireless guest network for the separation I need in the home (I guess with the guest wireless its either 2.4 ghz or 5 ghz, no 2.4+5ghz)

Getting the 3rd node online was a bit of a pain this morning but I found a post on here to help with that. I have all 3 online and ive seen some clients roaming between

I am gonna run some iperf tests this afternoon and report back

 

[gz2021]

I have been running some ping tests and just noticed the basement node went off line for a good minute. Nothing important in the basement was using the wireless at the time. I just noticed it because I was doing the ping tests

Not sure if the power went out in the basement or what but it came back online

 

[Thirteen]

I have been running some ping tests and just noticed the basement node went off line for a good minute. Nothing important in the basement was using the wireless at the time. I just noticed it because I was doing the ping tests

Not sure if the power went out in the basement or what but it came back online

That's a feature introduced after 42095.

 

[gz2021]

That's a feature introduced after 42095.

Scrolling back through the ping test I have set up I do now notice every few hours there are a bunch of dropped pings.

 

[gz2021]

Most of the gear I run at work is usually behind on firmware upgrades simply because of the bugs…unless there’s a major security issue such as a zero day exploit. In fact there’s been times when I’ve upgraded my Meraki wireless, had issues and reverted back. I’ve been running the 42095 and haven’t noticed any security issues plus keep in mind it was released in March so it’s not that far behind. YMMV

Checking out the 42095 update right now and it seems the wireless clients spread more out across the 3 nodes. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[vjarena3]

Checking out the 42095 update right now and it seems the wireless clients spread more out across the 3 nodes. Thanks for the suggestion!

Glad to hear it's working out for you! One of the guys in this thread mentioned it so I hopped on the that train and haven't looked back. And yes, it would be great if we could get some tagging going on but compared to Orbi this is light years ahead!

 

[neilybealy]

mine has been rock solid since i've been on the 42095 firmware as well

 

[h1berto]

Hi guys.
I have the wifi configs configured exactly like Karma shared, with the exception of the 5Ghz-2 bandwith, that I placed at 160Mhz because i have a couple of AX devices.
My issue is that i have never reached my ISP delivered bandwith, 1Gbps only by LAN i go near it.
Is there any config that i should optimize for AX devices? I cant find a place to "lock" a specific client to a specific band (5Ghz-2).

 

[karma]

Hi guys.
I have the wifi configs configured exactly like Karma shared, with the exception of the 5Ghz-2 bandwith, that I placed at 160Mhz because i have a couple of AX devices.
My issue is that i have never reached my ISP delivered bandwith, 1Gbps only by LAN i go near it.
Is there any config that i should optimize for AX devices? I cant find a place to "lock" a specific client to a specific band (5Ghz-2).

I think the only way to do that is to have a separate SSID for the band and have the client connect only to it. I don't really know what the max theoretical speeds of different wifi clients are but next to my main router with my pixel 4xl (wifi5) using speedtest.net in a browser i'm getting usually 500+ Mbps with my 1Gbps/50Mbps connection. Several rooms away it's 300+Mbps. This is on the first 5GHz band since the second I use for the backhaul. I don't expect to ever get anything close to wired speeds.

 

[h1berto]

I think the only way to do that is to have a separate SSID for the band and have the client connect only to it. I don't really know what the max theoretical speeds of different wifi clients are but next to my main router with my pixel 4xl (wifi5) using speedtest.net in a browser i'm getting usually 500+ Mbps with my 1Gbps/50Mbps connection. Several rooms away it's 300+Mbps. This is on the first 5GHz band since the second I use for the backhaul. I don't expect to ever get anything close to wired speeds.

I have the triband setup because I have ethernet backhaul. I'll try to disable the 5Ghz-1 for testing to see if it makes a difference.

 

[gz2021]

Glad to hear it's working out for you! One of the guys in this thread mentioned it so I hopped on the that train and haven't looked back. And yes, it would be great if we could get some tagging going on but compared to Orbi this is light years ahead!

Happy to report that so far performance has been great this week, def considering keeping these devices on this firmware. However im debating on moving them to just the access point mode.

Besides losing the guest network separation, is there anything else options wise I would lose? (I dont care about the WAN monitoring capabilities/QOS or any of that noise)

Does the wireless backhaul capabilities continue to function/work if the devices are just in access point mode? I think I read it does, but I wanted to double check before I made any changes

 

[neilybealy]

Mine are in AP mode and the back haul works just as well

 

[Deihmos]

I just got this router yesterday and I was about to return it because when watching TV, it kept dropping the signal. I downgraded the router as others suggested, and now it works fine. A bit disappointing that you need to downgrade the firmware to get a properly working product, but I am surprised.

I decided to upgrade from Orbi RB50 because it occasionally dropped the signal due to DOS attacks or something like that. Also, the DDNS service went to crap.

Does anyone know what is causing the issue with the current firmware?

Now I am wondering if I should future proof and get the 6e model instead.

 

[gz2021]

I just got this router yesterday and I was about to return it because when watching TV, it kept dropping the signal. I downgraded the router as others suggested, and now it works fine. A bit disappointing that you need to downgrade the firmware to get a properly working product, but I am surprised.

I decided to upgrade from Orbi RB50 because it occasionally dropped the signal due to DOS attacks or something like that. Also, the DDNS service went to crap.

Does anyone know what is causing the issue with the current firmware?

Now I am wondering if I should future proof and get the 6e model instead.

I was looking through some of the firmware notes and sadly a lot of them are pretty generic

The only thing I saw update wise for Version 3.0.0.4.386.43181 was "2. Improved system stability."

previous updates notes:

ASUS ZenWiFi AX (XT8) Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.43181
1. Fixed guest network related issues.
2. Improved system stability.
3. Fixed Android 7 device connection issues.


ASUS ZenWiFi AX (XT8) Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.43170
- Fixed USB HDD throughput degraded issue.
- Fixed the fragattacks vulnerability.


ASUS ZenWiFi AX (XT8) Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.43169
1. Fixed CVE-2021-3450, CVE2021-3449 OpenSSL related vulnerability.
2. Fixed authentication bypass vulnerability. Special thank Chris Bellows, Darren Kemp – Atredis Partners contribution.
3. Fixed PPTP and OpenVPN server username/password GUI bug.
4. Fixed high CPU utilization issue.
5. Upgraded dropbear to version 2020.81
6. Fixed slowloris denial of service attack.

 

[Deihmos]

Spoke too soon. When my NVIDIA Shield connects to the node, my live TV stream is constantly interrupted.