Asuswrt-Merlin RT-N16 Wifi randomly drops.

[133794m3r]

The 2.4Ghz wifi led shuts off randomly and wifi turns off and it resets. I've already reset th thing back to factory and it's still doing it randomly.

 

[pete y testing]

its prob age related , the n16 after all its going on nearly 8 years by now , might be time to retire the old dog and get a new one , most support for the n16 is long gone and even merlin has given up on it

see

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/end-of-the-road-for-the-rt-n16.22959/

 

[133794m3r]

its prob age related , the n16 after all its going on nearly 8 years by now , might be time to retire the old dog and get a new one , most support for the n16 is long gone and even merlin has given up on it

see

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/end-of-the-road-for-the-rt-n16.22959/

that's weird that you say it's 8 years old, when I got it it was only 2 years ago and ti was brand new at the time.

 

[chamberc]

that's weird that you say it's 8 years old, when I got it it was only 2 years ago and ti was brand new at the time.

It was released in 2009.

 

[pete y testing]

that's weird that you say it's 8 years old, when I got it it was only 2 years ago and ti was brand new at the time.

yes i see you can still buy them new in the states but they have been long gone from my part of the world and asus gave up supporting them quite some time ago , its got pretty low specs for a router for todays usage , its prob time you moved into the world of wireless AC

 

[133794m3r]

It was released in 2009.

I wish that they'd make the release date simpler the thing was still pretty expensive to me and at ~85USD I think I payed for it I cant' beleive it was already 5 years old at the time. I am just shocked at that, it was bought Aug of 2014 and I guess 2.5yrs is probably good for it.

How much was it at release ~200USD or something?

yes i see you can still buy them new in the states but they have been long gone from my part of the world and asus gave up supporting them quite some time ago , its got pretty low specs for a router for todays usage , its prob time you moved into the world of wireless AC

Asus was still supporting it when I bough it, I made sure to contact them to see if the firmware was still getting updates and it was and customer service people told me that the warranty/after pruchase support was still going strong. Admittedly that's 2.5yrs ago. Oh well then I gues Ihave to get a new one.

Also I have _zero_ devices in my household atm that support AC everytihing in here is at least 2yrs old in terms of when I bough it. My next mobile phone(current one's starting to show it's age) might support it but when I saw AC I didn't see it as worthwhile as I live in the mountains of the USA.

Max speed where I live atm is ~10/1 in town they're starting to run fiber lines but it's in the early planning phase when they switched to DSL from dial-up it took ~3yrs for it to come to where I live. So needing AC is going to be at least 5+yrs from now.

I am finally getting around to building a home media server(still a year or so off from getting it all setup).


Anyway what's a recommended router that supports openwrt that has 32MiB of flash bare minimum of 16MiB and 64MiB of ram and I guess a better CPU than what my old girl has.


P.S. I am going to try openwrt again as when I last did it was when it was just added in early support for the beta but was still flakey at best and the released one didn't work at all with anything above G and that was half hearted attempt at best.

my biggest issue with merlinwrt is that the default editor is vi and it doesn't support packages which is nuts as the device has _plenty_ of flash 32MiB is way more than enough especially if you set aside a few MiB for a couple of packages. Mainly nano and something lse I can't remember I installed on openwrt when I was tryign it uot.

 

[Pierino]

I bet if you open it up, you'll see a bulging capacitor. The rt-n16 is notorious for this.

 

[133794m3r]

I bet if you open it up, you'll see a bulging capacitor. The rt-n16 is notorious for this.

how can Itell if this capacitor is really popped? I looked at the picture on the openwrtr forums and it lookd to be AOK I alreayd replaced capacitors in my orignal xbox thankfully they hadn't fully exploded yet.

 

[Pierino]

Look here. http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=902586
The circled capacitor will look bulged out. Of course it could be bad even if not visibly bulging.
You could check with a meter.

I've replaced maybe half a dozen on these rt-n16.

 

[pete y testing]

guess 2.5yrs is probably good for it.

yer most routers today only last a few years , if you get to 3 years 24/7 on your doing pretty good anyway

So needing AC is going to be at least 5+yrs from now.

tim did a really good article on the benefits of wireless AC over wireless N ever for wireless N clients , worth reading

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...oes-an-ac-router-improve-n-device-performance

router that supports openwrt

openwrt doesnt give much benefit to new routers these days and in fact the drivers arnt that good for the wifi

doesn't support packages

not sure what nano does but the newer ac routers have pretty much anything anyone could need feature wise

 

[pete y testing]

how can Itell if this capacitor is really popped? I looked at the picture on the openwrtr forums and it lookd to be AOK I alreayd replaced capacitors in my orignal xbox thankfully they hadn't fully exploded yet.

even if you manage to fix the cap issue if thats it you still end up with an old wireless N under powered router

 

[133794m3r]

yer most routers today only last a few years , if you get to 3 years 24/7 on your doing pretty good anyway



tim did a really good article on the benefits of wireless AC over wireless N ever for wireless N clients , worth reading

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...oes-an-ac-router-improve-n-device-performance



openwrt doesnt give much benefit to new routers these days and in fact the drivers arnt that good for the wifi



not sure what nano does but the newer ac routers have pretty much anything anyone could need feature wise

it's a text editor asin editing config files like the hosts file to move aroundentries etc. merlinwrt _only_ comes with vi which is god wful assbackwards thing the only one more needlessly complex is emacs. Merlinwrt only lets yuo install packagse if you set up the thing with a USB device which is crazy as I _only_ want one package and it won't let me do that.

 

[RMerlin]

my biggest issue with merlinwrt is that the default editor is vi and it doesn't support packages which

Incorrect on both counts. Nano has been part of the firmware for months now, and Entware-NG packages have been supported for years.

 

[133794m3r]

Incorrect on both counts. Nano has been part of the firmware for months now, and Entware-NG packages have been supported for years.

It doesn't supprot packages without adding an external USB device hence I am not wrong. Also "For months" doesn't mean on my device RT-N16 only has vi so how am I to know that nano is now part of it? My device was EOLed.

So then you're saying that both are false now? So then I can install packages to the _flash_ and don't need a damned USB device to install one or maybe two things that are barely a couple of MiB in total?

Edit: I also stopped reading the changelgo once my router went EOL so whatever release that was I think 378.x or something was when it was officially killed.

Also getting the rt-87u seems to be from that original link when it was EOLed to be one of the newer SDKs which is the one I'm leaning towards even though Iwould've liked the idea of an itnernal micro-sd card from n66u but since that's so old at this time I'd barely be buying myself any time at all.

 

[joegreat]

Also "For months" doesn't mean on my device RT-N16 only has vi so how am I to know that nano is now part of it? My device was EOLed.

Edit: I also stopped reading the changelgo once my router went EOL so whatever release that was I think 378.x or something was when it was officially killed.

Not fully truth: You can still use John's "[Fork] Asuswrt-Merlin 374.43 LTS releases" and even newer "unofficial" releases still support the N16.

Also getting the rt-87u seems to be from that original link when it was EOLed to be one of the newer SDKs...

The AC87U is still supported by Merlin and others as well! I just installed Merlin's .65 release on my AC87U device.

I would've liked the idea of an itnernal micro-sd card from n66u but since that's so old at this time I'd barely be buying myself any time at all.

Today's USB thumb drives are very small (at least the once up to 32 GByte) and do not make any difference compared to the internal sdcard.

 

[pete y testing]

so old at this time I'd barely be buying myself any time at all.

future proofing is fools gold , i know very few people that buy something new and then in a few years want to buy the next best new toy , get what you need for now and the next year or 2 expecting to replace it after that as the technology changes so quickly in this field and the speed at which new routers hit the market is head spinning not to mention the variety

big honking router wise im looking forward to seeing the asus BRT-ac828 and how that M.2 SATA will work , merlin will you be on this unit as well ?

 

[133794m3r]

I'm not a future proofer and want new things I only replace stuff once it's broken and no longer works.

 

[snorryhobo]

i put tomato firmware on on mine bout 2 years back, its been rock solid since, literally zero restarts.