Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.374.38 is out

[jim769]

I flashed the em build and things at least as of now are better. Better signal for sure things seem stable for now. Time will tell..

 

[stephn666]

Port 3 and 4 no longer working sound as if you have VLANs configured. Go to LAN -> IPTV and make that ISP Profile is set to disabled.

Thank you for your reply.
I'm on VLAN835 for internet so I can not do without.
if I understand if I want to enjoy the new firmware, I must ignore the ethernet port 3 and 4? why working before?

 

[canuckle]

RMerlin,

I have the AC68U on the 38_1 release, it's flawless and the range/throughput are both markedly better on both bands. Also, Time Machine support ported through no problem, which is important to me.

I did a TeamViewer session with my 70 year old mom to upgrade her RT-N66U to the 38_1 em version, which was FAR better on 2.4. She's in a massively crowded apartment complex, and getting her wifi to be anything close to useable has been a nightmare. No less than 100 2.4 signals show up on inssider . BUT, this seems to have done the trick, THANK YOU.

Always grateful for your work on these sir, hats off to you. I feel a 3rd donation building, lol.

 

[plaut]

RT-N66U mean signal strengths (dBm)

2.4GHz
35_4 (sdk5)  -66.8
38_1         -59.8
38_1-em      -62.1

5GHz
35_4 (sdk5)  -79.1
38_1         -78.8
38_1-em      -74.4

 

[KGB7]

L&LD, sinshiva, geops.


Im aware of how wifi signal works and how to position antennas.

The issue is that there is too much distance, too many floors for signal to travel through, and it doesnt help that my neighborhood is flooded with 2.4Ghz not just from my neighbors, but also from Hotspots.

5Ghz band is not an option do to distance between two routers.

Only thing thats left to do is wait for Broadcom to come out with another driver and for Asus to implement it in to their firmware. So far ive been getting mixed results from different firmwares.

Running a cat6 cable is not practical nor is it cost effective. Ive ran cabling for a living, and running a cable from 1st floor to 4th floor in a townhouse is a pita.


Thanks anyways.

 

[geops]

L&LD, sinshiva, geops.


Im aware of how wifi signal works and how to position antennas.

The issue is that there is too much distance, too many floors for signal to travel through, and it doesnt help that my neighborhood is flooded with 2.4Ghz not just from my neighbors, but also from Hotspots.

5Ghz band is not an option do to distance between two routers.

Only thing thats left to do is wait for Broadcom to come out with another driver and for Asus to implement it in to their firmware. So far ive been getting mixed results from different firmwares.

Running a cat6 cable is not practical nor is it cost effective. Ive ran cabling for a living, and running a cable from 1st floor to 4th floor in a townhouse is a pita.


Thanks anyways.

1. Have you thought about powerline ethernet? I am using one of those for high-distance in the house and it pushes 5-8MB/s which is enough for anything other than 3D Bluray streaming. You cna also sell the second 68 for more money. The only problem is that it is very specific to your wiring and there is a chance you'll get low speed if you have a lot of noise. I use strips with filters everywhere to mitigate that problem.

2. Another possible solution for oyu is to use the outside of your home for wireless transfer. For example mikrotik have some very cheap 5GHz direcitonal wifi devices (like $90 a piece) using RouterOS that are rated for outside use. They can give you very stable link with quite decent speed. I have used them for 2-300 feet bridges in a corporate environment and they're really good for the price.

 

[jim769]

Seems this thread is going off topic.

 

[vdemarco]

I have an RT-AC66U. Everything worked great running 3.0.0.4.374.36 Beta 1, but when I upgraded to 3.0.0.4.374.38_0 I found two problems:

1. My USB printer (HP882C) is no longer operational. On the Netwok Map, it appears as "undefined undefined".

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

Thanks for all your hard work.

have the exact same problem. I don't know about the iTunes server (I don't use that) but my printer doesn't work also.

We don't use it very much, so i am going to stay with 374.38.

 

[KGB7]

1. Have you thought about powerline ethernet? I am using one of those for high-distance in the house and it pushes 5-8MB/s which is enough for anything other than 3D Bluray streaming. You cna also sell the second 68 for more money. The only problem is that it is very specific to your wiring and there is a chance you'll get low speed if you have a lot of noise. I use strips with filters everywhere to mitigate that problem.

2. Another possible solution for oyu is to use the outside of your home for wireless transfer. For example mikrotik have some very cheap 5GHz direcitonal wifi devices (like $90 a piece) using RouterOS that are rated for outside use. They can give you very stable link with quite decent speed. I have used them for 2-300 feet bridges in a corporate environment and they're really good for the price.

In my experience, we(company i worked for) had mixed results with power line adapters and coaxial cable adapters. So i didnt want to keep going back to the store and try 10 different pairs in hopes i find the one that works.

Using something out side the house would involve running wires, pulling up the carpet or going through the ceiling and drilling holes.

I had good experience with a product from Luxul. We had set up two XAP-1030 for a client at his 7,000sqf house, they even work all the way at the end of the driveway. Very simple design, easy to set up and you can set one up as wifi extender. Problem is, they are $800 a pop. But they work really well!

Over all, im happy with two AC68U's. They do a much better job then the older two routers i had set up in same configuration. Both routers were dual band and 600Mbps certified, but couldnt punch trough the floors as good as Asus routers. So out with the old and in with the new. So in the mean time ill just wait for Asus to come out with a final and the very last firmware and see if that works better then firmware Beta 501.


Thanks again.

 

[L&LD]

L&LD 374.38_1-em Report to RMerlin - Asus RT-N66U

A few hours ago I downloaded firmware 374.38_1-em for an RT-N66U to upgrade from firmware 374.37_0 (the one RMerlin had pulled hours after uploading it - but it was rock stable for me).


Router Settings:

Auto Wireless mode For both 2.4GHz & 5GHz bands.
Radio Channels: 2.4GHz: Channel 11 5GHz: Channel 161.
Channel Width: 2.4GHz: 20MHz 5GHz: 40MHz
Preamble Type: Short Preamble for both bands.
Xbox and b/g protection: Both unchecked.
Wireless Scheduler: Disabled for both bands.
Tx Power Adjustment: 100mW for both bands.
Enable TX Bursting: Disabled for both bands.
Enable WMM APSD: Enabled for both bands.
Optimize APMDU Aggregation: Enabled for both bands.
Optimize Ack Suppression: Enabled for both bands.




Test Environment:

I tested from ~35 feet away from the router to the notebook for all the following tests without moving the notebook at all. There are 2 walls between the tested devices and the notebook (Asus Transformer Windows 8.1) has a Broadcom 802.11abgn SDIO adaptor (single stream/single antenna) with the 5.93.98.187 (Oct 2, 2013) driver.



Results:


With 374.37_0 firmware:

inssider 3.07.48 showed signal strength readings of -52 (2.4GHz) and -58 (5GHz).

Ookla speed tests were 25/10 Mbps (2.4GHz) and 45/11 Mbps (5GHz) and 11 ms latency for both.




Immediately following upgrade to 374.38_1-em

inssider showed signal strength readings of -48 (2.4GHz) and -56 (5GHz).

Ookla speed tests were 28/10 Mbps (2.4GHz) and 19/11 Mbps (5GHz) and 11 ms latency for both.

The above is before doing a reset to defaults and with the original ssid's and passwords.





Firmware 374.38_1-em with a reset to defaults and new ssid/passwords

inssider showed signal strength readings of -46 (2.4GHz) and -52 (5GHz).

Ookla speed tests were 27/11 Mbps (2.4GHz) and 45/10 Mbps (5GHz) and 11 ms latency for both.

The above is after doing a reset to defaults and with new ssid's and passwords.





Firmware 374.38_1-em with reset and manually entering settings (above)

inssider showed signal strength readings of -42 (2.4GHz) and -48 (5GHz).

Ookla speed tests are 39/11 Mbps (2.4GHz) and 51/11 Mbps (5GHz) and 11 ms latency for both.

The above is after doing a reset to defaults and with new ssid's and passwords and then manually entering/settings as described in section above, including setting the Tx power levels to 100mW for both channels.





Conclusions:

I mostly use the basic features of my routers and am interested in the highest stability and highest performance possible from them.

I tried the default 80mW settings (reported above) but find the 100mW settings much better. I also tried the suggested 120mW Tx setting for the 5GHz band - but that brought worse, not better results than both the 80mW and 100mW settings in my tests.

In addition to the above numbers, inssider was reporting a score of 100% for the 5GHz band (even when the Ookla speeds were 19/11Mbps) and a score of 71% for the 2.4GHz band with the 374.37_0 firmware, 52% after the upgrade to 374.38_1-em, 55% after the reset to defaults and finally, 76% after entering my settings (above).

As can be seen from these results; this will be the standard (for me, at least) which all firmware forward will be judged (for performance).

I think it also shows how important it is to 'start fresh' and reset to defaults after a firmware upgrade.

Using the latest RMerlin firmware for the last 4 hours or so, everything feels faster on the 'net - and the small lags and hangs I thought were normal up to now with my ISP seem to be a thing of the past.


Thank you RMerlin and Asus!

A great router is approaching mythical performance in it's own lifetime.


Btw, does the TX Bursting setting affect anything other than 'G' networks?




Now? Curious to see what the -em special sauce is all about!


And what RMerlin version .39 will offer us with these 'old' routers.


Sorry for the long post - hope some find it useful.

 

[MrBrian]

I am attempting to upgrade firmware on a RT-AC56U from 3.0.0.4.374.37_0 to 3.0.0.4.374.38_1. The router throws the "Firmware upgrade unsuccessfully..." error. Tried redownloading with Firefox and Chrome, and reunzipping with WinRAR to different directory. Rechecked for proper directory on Mediafire. Same result. Anyone else having this problem?

 

[sinshiva]

hey L&LD, nice post; sorry for going a little OT, but i gotta say, it's pretty awesome knowing i have an AP that'll do 100mW without making everything worse. i'm so used to increased power killing throughput that i feel bad now for ever having advised against it. i guess that's the difference between the old and the new, eh?

my old linksys e2000 has a sweet spot of ~65mW, bleh. this firmware at just 80mW kills that thing in performance. i'm anxious now to get the ac56 so i can use the n66 as my dedicated 100mW AP lol

 

[sinshiva]

I am attempting to upgrade firmware on a RT-AC56U from 3.0.0.4.374.37_0 to 3.0.0.4.374.38_1. The router throws the "Firmware upgrade unsuccessfully..." error. Tried redownloading with Firefox and Chrome, and reunzipping with WinRAR to different directory. Rechecked for proper directory on Mediafire. Same result. Anyone else having this problem?

hi,

have you tried flashing a slightly older firmware first? somebody else reported having the same issue

 

[mromero]

RTN66U running the 374.38-1 and everything works fine including the HP printer, test iPad, cell phones, laptops, Synology NAS etc..

Great work Merlin!

have the exact same problem. I don't know about the iTunes server (I don't use that) but my printer doesn't work also.

We don't use it very much, so i am going to stay with 374.38.

 

[KGB7]

I am attempting to upgrade firmware on a RT-AC56U from 3.0.0.4.374.37_0 to 3.0.0.4.374.38_1. The router throws the "Firmware upgrade unsuccessfully..." error. Tried redownloading with Firefox and Chrome, and reunzipping with WinRAR to different directory. Rechecked for proper directory on Mediafire. Same result. Anyone else having this problem?

Are you flashing over WiFi or Ethernet cable? Avoid flashing over Wifi.

Have you tried flashing from recovery mode?

Have you tried resetting the router first then flashing it?

If all fails, flash it with OEM Asus firmware, then flash it with Merlin firmware.

 

[RMerlin]

Hi I have the same router and same problem. I activated the 5Ghz radio, but does not appear in the list of connections of my computers.

I try factory reset, but nothing.
I turn off and on the radio, but nothing.
I try 374.38_1 but doesn't work.

Make sure your router isn't on a channel that isn't supported by your wireless client. To be safe, try channel 36.

 

[RMerlin]

still didn't work. the router will not even upgrade to the official fw

(And MrBrian as well)

Unplug any USB disk from your router, and keep only one computer connected to the LAN ports, then reboot the router. That way you will ensure to have all free RAM available, and won't have Download Master or other media services using up RAM. Once rebooted, try again flashing. Make sure you unzipped the firmware, and that you have the correct model.

 

[RMerlin]

No one knows why the latest build does this? I cannot copy paste at all within ASUSWRT. I've never had this problem before.

Some browsers don't handle key events the same way, so fields that reject non-alphanumerics will also reject the Ctrl key. You can usually work around that browser quirk by using Shift-Ins instead of Ctrl-V.

 

[RMerlin]

Thank you for your reply.
I'm on VLAN835 for internet so I can not do without.
if I understand if I want to enjoy the new firmware, I must ignore the ethernet port 3 and 4? why working before?

Could be something that Asus broke in the VLAN handling in this FW. Make a backup of your settings, reset back to factory defaults, and try just reconfiguring the basics to see if it resolves your issue. If it does, proceed with manually reconfiguring everything else. If it didn't then restore your saved settings to save time.

I have little experience myself with VLANs, so someone else actually using them might have a suggestion as to how to configure VLANs to you don't lose both ports.

Also just to be on the safe side, make sure that Dual WAN is still disabled (WAN -> Dual WAN).

 

[RMerlin]

L&LD, sinshiva, geops.


Im aware of how wifi signal works and how to position antennas.

The issue is that there is too much distance, too many floors for signal to travel through, and it doesnt help that my neighborhood is flooded with 2.4Ghz not just from my neighbors, but also from Hotspots.

5Ghz band is not an option do to distance between two routers.

Only thing thats left to do is wait for Broadcom to come out with another driver and for Asus to implement it in to their firmware. So far ive been getting mixed results from different firmwares.

Running a cat6 cable is not practical nor is it cost effective. Ive ran cabling for a living, and running a cable from 1st floor to 4th floor in a townhouse is a pita.

Personally, I think you are asking too much out of home equipment - three floors is a lot of obstacles to get through. Average routers tend to become problematic after only two floors, so whatever signal that's left on the fourth floor will always be weak and problematic.

You might need more specialized equipment to get through three floors, or look at Powerline solutions IMHO.