AX88U + AX92U(x2) AiMesh combo

[Simon W]

Hi,

I'm running a AX88U as my main router, with two strategically placed AX92U's as AiMesh nodes - their primary purpose being to serve two "media heavy" locations both via eithernet (ethernet backhaul not an option unfortunately) and wireless, and with what seems to be a decent wireless backhaul link in terms of reported bandwidth and throughput. When it works it seems to work well.

AX88U running Merlin 384,14, AX92U's running latest Asus stock (3.0.0.4.384_6437).

My very broad experience:

1. AX88U seems to be running well, no real issues.
2. With one AX92U node powered on, wi-fi access for clients connected to this node often starts to degrade after between hours and a few days (eg. has never been problem free for a full week), symptoms being huge amounts of latency (region of 5-20 seconds) - can take forever for a web page to start to load and then various graphical bits start to slowly appear just like back in the days of dial-up. Some IoT clients connected via the same node start to intermittently fail. Yet at the same time if I use a client connected via the AX88U, or physically relocate my laptop from being connect via a node to connected via the AX88U (forcing the issue by disabling/re-enabling the laptop wi-fi), everything seems fine.
3. With two AX92U nodes connected the same problems begin to appear more quickly/often - eg. definitely haven't managed more than 3 or 4 days with everything running smoothly.
4. Each and every time these problems occur, powering off or rebooting the offending node(s), or rebooting the AX88U (which I presume in turn sends a reboot signal to the nodes, or at least instruction to rebuild the AiMesh net) fixes the issue.
5. Removing/re-adding nodes from/to the AiMesh setup, including factory resetting them inbetween, makes no difference - each time they work for a bit, until they have problems, at which point they need a reboot and then carry on working for a bit more.
6. What I don't know for certain if these issues are intermittent and "self-healing", or if once things are looking bad then a reboot is 100% needed to bring things back in order again - I'm not here all of the time and when I do notice the problem I'm not patient enough to ride it out without rebooting!

This has been similar across the last few Merlin AX88U firmware releases (no better, no worse). There was a stock Asus firmware update for the AX92U's around a month ago, not long after I originally purchased them, which felt might have improved things slightly, although this could have been down to other factors including me refining my overall setup (wf-fi channel surveys, disabling unnecessary / known iffy features etc).

Ultimately I suspect either a) AiMesh is somewhat buggy or b) incompatibility between different versions of <whatever> components of AX88U Merlin 384.14 firmware and AX92U stock Asus 384_6437 firmware - I'm hoping as development on both fronts progresses things will become more aligned (or, in a perfect world, @RMerlin would start to develop an offering for the AX92U!).

All (relevant) opinions and experiences welcomed.. thanks.

 

[--Manu--]

That sounds roughly comparable to my current problem

 

[Simon W]

That sounds roughly comparable to my current problem

Hmm, it does seem very similar - spooky that we've both been experiencing the same issues for a number of weeks yet decided to post here within 30 minutes of each other!!

Interesting you've made the link to a) AX/HE-Frame and b) the Wi-Fi 5Ghz network only - the latter would fit with my observations as the clients I happen to notice the slowdowns on will all be 5Ghz (laptop, iPhone etc). Funnily enough I did think about trying disabling AX support although for whatever reason it's pretty much the only thing I didn't actually get round to testing.

For me, I don't have any AX clients yet, the AX element is for the base <-> node wi-fi backhaul only - but which is very much in play when these issues occur.

 

[Mutzli]

Would be interesting to test this out with a second AX88U in place of the AX92U to see if there is a problem with the AIMesh implementation or if it's an issue between the two different AX chipsets. I do have two AX88U's but they are in different locations and I can't really take it from either location. Maybe you can test it with the two AX92U only. Use one as main router and the other as node to see if it slows down without the AX88U in the network?

 

[Simon W]

Would be interesting to test this out with a second AX88U in place of the AX92U to see if there is a problem with the AIMesh implementation or if it's an issue between the two different AX chipsets. I do have two AX88U's but they are in different locations and I can't really take it from either location. Maybe you can test it with the two AX92U only. Use one as main router and the other as node to see if it slows down without the AX88U in the network?

Interesting, I completely forgot about the chipset difference (while being fully aware of it as the reason Merlin firmware isn't available for the AX92U). I'll see if I can find some time where I can take the AX88U out of the equation.. unfortunately, this being quite disruptive, I'm not sure when this will be. Good suggestion, thanks.

 

[Simon W]

Following on the from the suggestion the problem might be linked exclusively to the 5Ghz network and/or AX backhaul, I've just had another look at my setup - which, weirdly I thought, seems to have actually stablished slightly over the past few days (it's just taken me a while to get round to making this post!) - that is with just one node powered on I don't recall things going wrong recently.

My backhaul connection has dropped down to 2.4Ghz - this has never been the case before (other than a few minutes after startup while DFS sorts itself out) - not sure if this change is either linked to my recent upgrade to Merlin 384.14 or the fact the node itself is physically covered with Xmas related paraphernalia (tree above, boxes all around etc) which will definitely be affecting its antenna performance! Either way, net inadvertent result seems to be a much more stable setup with 2.4Ghz backhaul, albeit with reduced performance as per expected.

 

[Grisu]

I read in another thread someone had problems with 2 routers master running Merlin and node on stock firmware, maybe it is releated to your problem too.