Asuswrt-Merlin 374.41 is out

[shobhitk]

374.41 on N66U.

Thanks to Merlin once again for his great work!

Merlin theres just one minor issue which i have come across. I am able to change channels (both control and extension) of 2.4ghz at will and even inssider confirms the channels BUT when i hover my mouse over the wifi icon on asus router homepage it always shows wrong/arbitrary channels. it never reports the correct channels in use.

any guesses what could be causing this? though it does not interfere with the performance of my router but i would be happy if it works as expected. if this is a standard issue even then no issues....i can live with it.

*btw i did not reset my router after upgrading from .40 to .41 as i would have to again go through all the port forward settings and all....could that be the reason?

 

[RMerlin]

My N66U has always produced some high frequency twitter, from the circuits I guess, but after installing Merlin .41 it's much worse. I can hear it from several meters away and it is starting to annoy me. I know it's probably just a coincident with the upgrade, but how about your N66Us, are they silent? Is my router faulty?

Noise coming from electronics can happen if they are cheaper/out of spec components in it. If it's that loud, I would have it replaced under warranty.

I'm quite familiar with that kind of problem, having a fairly sensitive hearing myself. I was the only person at the office able to tell on the phone if our DSL modem was synced or not, after I did a blind test with my two co-workers

 

[RMerlin]

I was about to upgrade from 0.38_2 to 0.41 but I red about rebbots, samba problems, upnp problems, speed problems and freezing.
Obviously on the forum you don't write to say that everything is ok..
so I ask if someone is currently using this firmware with every feature perfectly working (smb, upnp, transmission..) and no reboots or freezing..

Samba: most issues are from people who were using public sharing instead of user sharing, and is resolved by switching mode. The crashing issue reports were also reported with previous FW releases, and somehow occur if the disk was formatted with some specific tools - reformatting with a different tool resolved the issues.

Reboots: mostly anecdotal reports at this point, there is no global evidence of a firmware-related issue.

upnp: works fine, little has changed there in the past months beside the addition of PCP support


Also, the router model is critical in any kind of bug/stability report. The routers all use a different wireless driver for starter.

Overall, 374.41 has shown to be the release the with lowest amount of serious issues reported of all recent releases.

 

[RMerlin]

374.41 on N66U.

Thanks to Merlin once again for his great work!

Merlin theres just one minor issue which i have come across. I am able to change channels (both control and extension) of 2.4ghz at will and even inssider confirms the channels BUT when i hover my mouse over the wifi icon on asus router homepage it always shows wrong/arbitrary channels. it never reports the correct channels in use.

any guesses what could be causing this? though it does not interfere with the performance of my router but i would be happy if it works as expected. if this is a standard issue even then no issues....i can live with it.

*btw i did not reset my router after upgrading from .40 to .41 as i would have to again go through all the port forward settings and all....could that be the reason?

Sometimes the icon at the top isn't up-to-date, especially if you just changed the wireless settings. The icon gets displayed before the driver is done initializing itself, just changing page will properly reflect the correct channel.

The information about the primary channel is obtained straight from the wireless driver, so it's unlikely to be incorrect, unless there is something really wrong in Broadcom's driver.

 

[shobhitk]

tried changing the pages several times...went from one setting page to other but to no use.

but the icon is correctly reporting the primary channel.

 

[tijaune]

Tim Higgins, the owner of this site. You know, that guy who posts quite in-depth product reviews on the frontpage?

I admitted it . I know smallnetbuilders back to wrt54gl days but only subscribe to forums since rt-ac66u. Nowaday, I tend to forgot the frontdoor and use the side door directly to Asuswrt-Merlin.

Cheers guys!

 

[jlake]

tried changing the pages several times...went from one setting page to other but to no use.

but the icon is correctly reporting the primary channel.

I've noticed that the EM driver has minor irrelevant quirks (for me, with my equipment in my environment) compared to the other asus wireless drivers (sdk5 and sdk6) But it's quirkiness only occurs when I'm first flashing/setting up the firmware. And it's quirkiness is not important because it's easily fixed.

Quirk 1: on 2.4 ghz, it really likes to be on "20 MHz" instead of "20/40" or it may drop your connection on certain wireless adapters. It seems to be 'searching' and a little unstable on 20/40. Easily fixed by using "20 MHz" like most of us should be anyway. I would use a fixed channel too instead of auto, although I narrowed the quirk down to 20/40.

Quirk 2: if 5 ghz is on default settings without a client connected to the 5 ghz, inSSIDer shows the channel width bouncing back n forth between 20 MHz and 40 MHz width. Easily fixed by connecting a 300 Mbps 5 ghz client to router. (Apparently it doesn't like being alone.

Anyway. Try putting 2.4 ghz on " 20 MHz" width and see what happens.

 

[abescalamis]

thank you for the update!!! I missed the option to choose where to store the data base for DLNA. A new firmware from Asus came out yesterday maybe you can add it to your next firmware release.

 

[White_Knight]

New Source Code Version 3.0.0.374.5517 on ASUS Off Site. I think new beta FW come soon.

 

[octopus]

thank you for the update!!! I missed the option to choose where to store the data base for DLNA. A new firmware from Asus came out yesterday maybe you can add it to your next firmware release.

- REMOVED: The Media server database location is no longer
configurable, as we've switched to Asus's new
automatic location selection.

 

[RMerlin]

New Source Code Version 3.0.0.374.5517 on ASUS Off Site. I think new beta FW come soon.

No, because newer GPL for the AC68U is probably just a few days away.

And also I no longer immediately jump on new FW releases, as I wait to see what's the user feedabck from those using stock FW.

 

[lwizard]

Samba: most issues are from people who were using public sharing instead of user sharing, and is resolved by switching mode. The crashing issue reports were also reported with previous FW releases, and somehow occur if the disk was formatted with some specific tools - reformatting with a different tool resolved the issues.

Reboots: mostly anecdotal reports at this point, there is no global evidence of a firmware-related issue.

upnp: works fine, little has changed there in the past months beside the addition of PCP support


Also, the router model is critical in any kind of bug/stability report. The routers all use a different wireless driver for starter.

Overall, 374.41 has shown to be the release the with lowest amount of serious issues reported of all recent releases.

Thanks for resuming feedbacks!
I also use smb with no account management because the network is not shared with strangers.
Anyway if I'll have peoblems I'll try switching to not public.

I'll try 0.41 asap. Keep on the good work. The salvation of this router are you and the upcoming tomato (ac68u).

 

[ozgurcnbyz]

i had to revert back to .40 alpha4 (my all time favourite) because of the time machine issue . I know its apple stuff and everything but i guess the issue should be addressed . I wonder if the same problem occurs with the stock fw too.

 

[geko53]

Overall, 374.41 has shown to be the release the with lowest amount of serious issues reported of all recent releases.

I'm afraid to have to disagree with you as far as the support for USB modems and 3G / 4G connections is concerned - here ASUS has managed to deteriorate the stability (already given in the precedent FW versions) sharply... So it's not possible to work with 374.41 when you don't have the choice to switch to other connections than 3G/4G like in my case.

Ciao
Gerald

 

[ANJ9686]

Is it my ISP or is it my router? Basically when ever I download my speed get decreased by 3/4 of my ISP Speed. So I get 40mb without download and when downloading speed go from 40 to 10mb. Is this really normal?


ASUS RT-AC66U F/W: 374.41

 

[RussellInCincinnati]

374.41 first to let RT-AC66U, Intel 4965AGN connect 5ghz at 144mpbs

...Overall, 374.41 has shown to be the release the with lowest amount of serious issues reported of all recent releases.

Have a user with a Lenovo T61 laptop, controlling its no-longer-actively supported Intel 4965AGN WiFi adapter chipset. With the pretty much latest 15.3.1.0 (Intel ProSet Wireless/WiFi) client software running under Windows 7. They at times wirelessly connect with a Merlin-firmware RT-AC66U router that is shouting at the adapter from about 2 meters away, "historically" at a 72mbps link rate on the 5 gigahertz band. Which (1) had seemed like a tad slow link rate and (2) occasionally reported slightly-drifting-up-and-down other link rates.

Upgraded the RT-AC66U router yesterday to Merlin version ...374.41, and suddenly the laptop connects to the 5 gigahertz wireless LAN at a solid (non-varying) 144 megabits per second.

The now-extremely-happy-camper user also pointed out an old Intel product brief:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/wireless-network/next-gen-wireless-n-brief.html

referring to the 4965AGN chipset, apparently written at a time when the "N" specification was only in draft stage. The brief describes the chipset as hopefully having a potential for a 300 megabits per second link rate:
"Up to 2X greater range and up to 5X better performance with optional Intel® Next-Gen Wireless N technology enabled by 2x3 Draft N implementations with 2 spatial streams."

Perhaps due to the latest Merlin change from previously-not-as-compatible RT-AC66U wireless drivers, the user at this point feels like their version 374.41 glass is doubly full at 5 gigahertz, rather than half empty.

 

[dsring]

As far as security fixes go, is there a significant difference between the .41 Merlin release and the Asus 3.0.0.374.5517 release for the RT-N66U? I am running the Asus 3.0.0.374.5517, and it is running well, but I miss the range that I get with the Merlin EM builds.

 

[RMerlin]

I'm afraid to have to disagree with you as far as the support for USB modems and 3G / 4G connections is concerned - here ASUS has managed to deteriorate the stability (already given in the precedent FW versions) sharply... So it's not possible to work with 374.41 when you don't have the choice to switch to other connections than 3G/4G like in my case.

Ciao
Gerald

I never said 374.41 was perfect. I said "least amount of issues".

You have to admit that only a very small subset of users are affected by 3G connectivity issues, versus the random reboot that affected the majority of RT-AC68U owners, for example.

 

[RMerlin]

As far as security fixes go, is there a significant difference between the .41 Merlin release and the Asus 3.0.0.374.5517 release for the RT-N66U? I am running the Asus 3.0.0.374.5517, and it is running well, but I miss the range that I get with the Merlin EM builds.

Only the issue with router password being visible in the webui source code was resolved in this version. The issue is easily mitigated - avoid staying connected to your webui at the same time you are browsing the web.

 

[eugenevs]

.41 smb network access issue

it's about .41 merlin fw on my router AC56U .
I had to downgrade to .40 because of repeating loss of access to my sharing disc via the samba service. I could not reveal any dependence when and why it sometimes works or not works. but I've no such issues with the .40 fw
By the way should I reset to factory defaults after I got .41 installed?