Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.374.38 is out

[Landhoff]

Feature suggestions

Hi there
I'm fairly new to this. Been running DD-WRT on various Linksys/Cisco routere for the past 6-7 years. Bought my first Asus (RT-AC66U) a week ago and have been running it for a little less than a week.
In general I find the webui much better in the stock fw compared to e.g. Linksys. But I miss things. So I uploadednthe newest RMerlin fw yesterday.

I don't think the additional features are for me (semi-tech level), but I do like e.g. "stealth mode". Or may be I just have to play a little more with it.

Anwar, I still miss a fem things. So RMerlin, May I suggest a couple of enhancements:
I would like the traffic monitor to be configurable in terms of how to display traffic volumes - like Kb/s, KB/s, Mb/s, or MB/s
To me it would be very usefull to have the possibility to enable port forwarding for ports individually instead og having to activate it for all ports/ranges or none.

Is this something you would consider for a future release.

Many thanks for the good work so far.


Regards
Landhoff

 

[b1ggjoe]

Wifi performance on the RT-AC68U would be identical when comparing Asuswrt with Asuswrt-Merlin. I suspect you might get lower performance with DD-WRT since it doesn't use a driver that was specifically optimized by the manufacturer, but I haven't seen any benchmark confirming or denying this theory.

Feature-wise, my firmware will have a few benefits over the stock FW: more detailed info about connected clients, the ability to customize the router environment a bit more through custom scripts, etc... Personally I see no reason not to switch to my FW in an AP situation, since you won't lose anything over the stock firmware.

RMerlin,

This is great info !!! Is there the ability to create multiple SSIDs or VLANs? Will AP-only mode pass-through the IP scheme issued from my Router?

Thx!

BJ

 

[RMerlin]

RMerlin,

This is great info !!! Is there the ability to create multiple SSIDs or VLANs? Will AP-only mode pass-through the IP scheme issued from my Router?

Thx!

BJ

SSID and VLAN handling is unchanged from the stock firmware. So, you get up to four Guest wireless networks, and there is no webui interface to manage VLANs.

AP mode is also unchanged from the stock firmware.

 

[satanhead2003]

rt ac66 with vodafone k5006-z

Hi, sorry if this been posted before.i just want to know if my rt ac66 able to do usb.modeswitch command with qmi mode instead of pppoe?

Thanks everyone..

 

[b1ggjoe]

SSID and VLAN handling is unchanged from the stock firmware. So, you get up to four Guest wireless networks, and there is no webui interface to manage VLANs.

AP mode is also unchanged from the stock firmware.

Thank you RMerlin!!! A few more questions since I do not own this Router yet:

1. - Since you get up to 4 Guest Wireless Networks...is this only available in Router-mode or can you also get this in AP-only mode?

2. - Since my SonicWALL TZ 210 is my main Router/Firewall, I'm currently using it's DHCP Server.

I would like to put the Asus in AP-only mode so that devices that connect to the new Asus AP are being issued IP addresses from my SonicWALL.

However, I wonder if there is a way to somehow have the Asus be in AP-only mode, connected to my SonicWALL so that it extends the SonicWALL Address Range to WiFi clients...yet somehow ALSO use the Router-portion of Asus to create the separate Guest Networks?

Is this possible?

3. - Also, what kind of Mac-filtering options and etc., are available on Stock vs. Merlin FW?

4. - Does the Asus come with any sort of mounting brackets/screws/options?

Thanks!

BJ

 

[RMerlin]

2. The iTunes server does not seem to work anymore. My shared music library no longer appears in iTunes.

iTunes streaming from the router is working fine for me.

 

[ryancharles]

Streaming issues with ASUS AC66u and WD TV Live

This is my current situation:

I am running Merlin's 3.0.0.4.374.38_2 on the ASUS AC66u

My goal is to be able to stream blue-ray ripped MKV files to my TV. It seems simple, but I am getting juddering/buffering every now and then when I am using my WD TV Live, which I just purchased.

I have a qnap-TS212P which is connected to the AC66u router via gig Ethernet. All my movies are stored on the NAS. My WD TV live is also connected to my router via fast Ethernet. It’s connecting at 100mbps full duplex. My WD TV live is connected to my Samsung TV via HDMI.
When I play high bitrate movies, such as Avatar I get buffering (loading icon) every now and then.
DVDs play without any issues.

I am able to stream movies to anywhere in my house with VLC and I configured it to buffer for 10sec. Everything plays smoothly over wireless.
I posted to the AVS forum and I received the following two recommendations

1) There's been a number of people in this thread that have discovered that their network switches aren't up to the task of handling Gigabit-Sources to FastE Destinations -- they drop the packets when their buffers get full.
You can test this theory by setting your NAS (and your switch) to 100-Meg / Full Duplex, or by temporarily swapping your Gig-switch for a FastE Switch.

2) Aside from the hardware experiments suggested, you could try a software experiment. Download a copy of TSMuxer from Videohelp.com and convert the MKV to .m2ts. BluRay native .m2ts files play perfectly on the Live-SMP whereas some MKV can have problems. If you still see stuttering with .m2ts then I would be looking for a network problem.


I just couldn’t believe it was the router, so I tried #2 and it helped, but then vlc chocked on the m2ts files. I finally tried #1. I forced my NAS to 100mbps and played the MKV file and boom, problem solved.

Merlin…how can this be? I figured you or someone on the forum is streaming and could weigh in.

 

[andyhi]

This is my current situation:

I am running Merlin's 3.0.0.4.374.38_2 on the ASUS AC66u

My goal is to be able to stream blue-ray ripped MKV files to my TV. It seems simple, but I am getting juddering/buffering every now and then when I am using my WD TV Live, which I just purchased.

I have a qnap-TS212P which is connected to the AC66u router via gig Ethernet. All my movies are stored on the NAS. My WD TV live is also connected to my router via fast Ethernet. It’s connecting at 100mbps full duplex. My WD TV live is connected to my Samsung TV via HDMI.
When I play high bitrate movies, such as Avatar I get buffering (loading icon) every now and then.
DVDs play without any issues.

I am able to stream movies to anywhere in my house with VLC and I configured it to buffer for 10sec. Everything plays smoothly over wireless.
I posted to the AVS forum and I received the following two recommendations

1) There's been a number of people in this thread that have discovered that their network switches aren't up to the task of handling Gigabit-Sources to FastE Destinations -- they drop the packets when their buffers get full.
You can test this theory by setting your NAS (and your switch) to 100-Meg / Full Duplex, or by temporarily swapping your Gig-switch for a FastE Switch.

2) Aside from the hardware experiments suggested, you could try a software experiment. Download a copy of TSMuxer from Videohelp.com and convert the MKV to .m2ts. BluRay native .m2ts files play perfectly on the Live-SMP whereas some MKV can have problems. If you still see stuttering with .m2ts then I would be looking for a network problem.


I just couldn’t believe it was the router, so I tried #2 and it helped, but then vlc chocked on the m2ts files. I finally tried #1. I forced my NAS to 100mbps and played the MKV file and boom, problem solved.

Merlin…how can this be? I figured you or someone on the forum is streaming and could weigh in.

Slightly different config that yours, but did a couple tests to see if could duplicate the issue...

Source Video: The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey.Extended.1080p.dts-hd ma 7.1.mkv (High@L4.1, 33.5 Gigabytes, 26.3Mbps overall bitrate)

File Server: Win 7 SP1 file share

Player: WD TV Live Streaming (Current model (2 years old), current firmware.)

RT-N66U: Running Merlin 3.0.0.4.374.39_0-em AP mode only, wifi radios currently off.

RT-AC68U: Running Merlin 3.0.0.4.374.38 AP mode only, wifi radios enabled.

Network uplinks/downlinks - All 1Gb except for the WD TV Live since it only supports up to 100Mb.

Tested 3 scenarios. (Can't eliminate the DGS-2208's as I don't have a 100ft Cat 5+ cable at home.)

Win 7 file share > D-link DGS-2208 > D-link DGS-2208 > WD TV Live Streaming

Win 7 file share > D-link DGS-2208 > D-link DGS-2208 > RT-N66U > WD TV Live Streaming

Win 7 file share > RT-AC68U > D-link DGS-2208 > D-link DGS-2208 > WD TV Live Streaming

5 minutes of the Goblin escape sequence on each test. Didn't notice any playback problems, so surprisingly the current WD TV Live Player can handle fairly high bitrate x.264 mkv's w/ DTS-HD Master Audio.

Who would have guessed it.