Ax88u stability, Mesh advice

[idq1i]

Looking for advice
House is wired as this. FIOS ONT in garage, wire down to the basement, connected to Ax88u WAN. 4 AC86u routers are connected to LAN ports and the wires throughout the house. There are also 3 other devices plugged in. The ONT and the 88U are on UPS backup

The AX88u is a nightmare. Every 3-7 days it decides to drop WAN connection, requiring hard restart. With every other drop, it also decides to drop the 2.4G band (light goes out, lots of error messages, etc). This requires a hard reset with a full rebuild of the mesh system.

The reason that I got the 88u is because it has the 8 LAN ports, but it's a nightmare buggy POS and I want to get rid of it.

Any recommendations on what to do with the main 88u router? Obviously I don't want to scrap the entire asus investment and switch to another brand. Can I bring one of the AC86Us down to the basement and just buy a switch to expand the number of ports? Would this still allow for a full speed functioning mesh system?

 

[OzarkEdge]

Looking for advice
House is wired as this. FIOS ONT in garage, wire down to the basement, connected to Ax88u WAN. 4 AC86u routers are connected to LAN ports and the wires throughout the house. There are also 3 other devices plugged in. The ONT and the 88U are on UPS backup

The AX88u is a nightmare. Every 3-7 days it decides to drop WAN connection, requiring hard restart. With every other drop, it also decides to drop the 2.4G band (light goes out, lots of error messages, etc). This requires a hard reset with a full rebuild of the mesh system.

The reason that I got the 88u is because it has the 8 LAN ports, but it's a nightmare buggy POS and I want to get rid of it.

Any recommendations on what to do with the main 88u router? Obviously I don't want to scrap the entire asus investment and switch to another brand. Can I bring one of the AC86Us down to the basement and just buy a switch to expand the number of ports? Would this still allow for a full speed functioning mesh system?

Did you reset the firmware before configuring it?

I would rebuild the AC88U and if it still misbehaves, try an AC86U in its place.

Yes, you can use a simple switch to expand LAN capacity.

OE

 

[idq1i]

If by reset you mean the WPS button method hard reset, yes. as a matter of fact yesterday, the last time I had to do it, I had to reset it twice in order for the 2.4 g light to come on.

I wonder if there is something about the FiOS signal that's making this happen since I'm not using their equipment.

Is there a potential speed and/or configuration problem if I connect the 4 mesh access points through a switch connected to a single LAN port on the main router? Gigabit FiOS with about 34 things connected to the mesh, pretty equally split.

 

[OzarkEdge]

If by reset you mean the WPS button method hard reset, yes. as a matter of fact yesterday, the last time I had to do it, I had to reset it twice in order for the 2.4 g light to come on.

I wonder if there is something about the FiOS signal that's making this happen since I'm not using their equipment.

Is there a potential speed and/or configuration problem if I connect the 4 mesh access points through a switch connected to a single LAN port on the main router? Gigabit FiOS with about 34 things connected to the mesh, pretty equally split.

By reset I mean the reset button on the router or the webUI Restore w/Initialize. I suppose any other reset is sufficient if it is done correctly for the router model. [Wireless] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset | Official Support | ASUS USA

If you have to repeatedly reset the router to get it working, then something is wrong with it.

I would reflash it, reset it, and configure it minimally... if it still has issues, then set it aside.

The Asus router expects an Ethernet connection on its WAN port. If you are not using any FIOS equipment, what are you connecting to to get Gigabit FIOS service? I suspect it's Ethernet from the FIOS ONT.

I doubt a switch will matter no matter how you connect it. After you fail to recover a working AC88U, use one of the AC86Us as the router and wire the other three remote nodes to it. If that works, you can try disabling the router bits in the AC88u and just use its LAN switch to connect your remaining wired devices... for now.

One AC86U serves WiFi to a "very large house". With an AC88U and 4 AC86Us, you should have a lot of WiFi flying about.

OE

 

[Fyew-jit-tiv]

I had a OD problem similar to yours and it turned out to be F'W v3.0.0.4_386_41249?

 

[idq1i]

I had a OD problem similar to yours and it turned out to be F'W v3.0.0.4_386_41249?

No change with any firmware from what I could tell. The latest one seems to be the most stable if anything. I was trying to blame it on all the brownouts and power surges side the crappy power company has been creating, so I put the thing on ups, no change.

One thing that I noticed makes the 2.4 drop out much quicker is if I turn the Wi-Fi 6 on. The router will last 6 days then at most, then will drop WAN and then will drop 2.4G.

as far as the earlier comment about one router being enough, I have to cover 6200 ft and many POE security cameras. This is why I put up multiple routers. The way this house is built I don't have a good way of running all the ethernet cords to one location, so I have to run it through multiple switches

 

[leerees]

Looking for advice
House is wired as this. FIOS ONT in garage, wire down to the basement, connected to Ax88u WAN. 4 AC86u routers are connected to LAN ports and the wires throughout the house. There are also 3 other devices plugged in. The ONT and the 88U are on UPS backup

The AX88u is a nightmare. Every 3-7 days it decides to drop WAN connection, requiring hard restart. With every other drop, it also decides to drop the 2.4G band (light goes out, lots of error messages, etc). This requires a hard reset with a full rebuild of the mesh system.

The reason that I got the 88u is because it has the 8 LAN ports, but it's a nightmare buggy POS and I want to get rid of it.

Any recommendations on what to do with the main 88u router? Obviously I don't want to scrap the entire asus investment and switch to another brand. Can I bring one of the AC86Us down to the basement and just buy a switch to expand the number of ports? Would this still allow for a full speed functioning mesh system?

Downgrade the firmware to a stable version. I have an AX92u that suffered exactly the same problem as yours. If you look at the other threads, pretty much every single post is from users of multiple models of routers all suffering from the same issue. For my router downgrading to the 384 firmware has fixed the crashing but my devices now suffer from slow web browsing.

 

[FTC]

Hi, what firmware level are you on ? I'd test with 386.1 beta4b which is getting very good feedback in the beta thread, and I've had stability problems also with 2.4 in previous firmwares (384 line). However, your problem seems to be more related to a 'protocol related problem' between the router and your ISP such as WAN DHCP lease expiration or similar. The 2.4 dropouts could be unrelated.

 

[leerees]

Hi, what firmware level are you on ? I'd test with 386.1 beta4b which is getting very good feedback in the beta thread, and I've had stability problems also with 2.4 in previous firmwares (384 line). However, your problem seems to be more related to a 'protocol related problem' between the the router and your ISP such as WAN DHCP lease expiration or similar. The 2.4 dropouts could be unrelated.

Can you post a link to the 386.1 beta4b thread?

 

[FTC]

Can you post a link to the 386.1 beta4b thread?

There is not a specific thread different from the 386.1 beta thread : here

 

[leerees]

There is not a specific thread different from the 386.1 beta thread : here

That's for 3rd party firmware (Merlin), I'd rather stick to stock.

 

[FTC]

That's for 3rd party firmware (Merlin), I'd rather stick to stock.

Of course up to you... however if you read a bit, Merlin is based on stock plus improvements and fixes, and latest stock firmware has serious flaws which caused it to be retired from ASUS website and those have been bypassed in b4b Merlin fw for the ax88u. Also.. you did not tell what fw level are you on..

 

[idq1i]

i'm on 3.0.0.4.386_41249-g66dde88

 

[FTC]

i'm on 3.0.0.4.386_41249-g66dde88

That is the one with serious flaws that has been retired by ASUS from their download site. I would either flash a previous version or install Merlin 386.1 beta4b.

 

[idq1i]

Previous was worse for me... Sad. Is there any info on what's different for the Merlin fw/vs. stock?

 

[FTC]

Yes, you can check the changelog and the wiki at the web site documentation section. In any case a new official firmware has been posted today for the RT-AX88U in the ASUS official support page. Maybe also worth a try...

 

[whoooknew]

Previous was worse for me... Sad. Is there any info on what's different for the Merlin fw/vs. stock?

Hi

Im running 2 AX88U's in a mesh config with a wireless backhaul with FiOS as my ISP .....both are on Merlin 384.19 with great stability

I def do not have Wifi 6 on...it didn't add any real speed or difference to the 2 wifi 6 clients I have, so I just keep It off
I also run a scheduled reboot ev other Sat night,,,

since running this config and firmware I never have any issues....prior to that I had same issues

good luck

 

[FTC]

Hi

Im running 2 AX88U's in a mesh config with a wireless backhaul with FiOS as my ISP .....both are on Merlin 384.19 with great stability

I def do not have Wifi 6 on...it didn't add any real speed or difference to the 2 wifi 6 clients I have, so I just keep It off
I also run a scheduled reboot ev other Sat night,,,

since running this config and firmware I never have any issues....prior to that I had same issues

good luck

I agree 384.19 is very good. In my case Merlin 386.1 betas 1,2,3 and 4b (not counting beta '4') are also very stable and do even some other nits like Aiprotection not counting correctly or aimesh 2.0 much more stable.

 

[leerees]

Of course up to you... however if you read a bit, Merlin is based on stock plus improvements and fixes, and latest stock firmware has serious flaws which caused it to be retired from ASUS website and those have been bypassed in b4b Merlin fw for the ax88u. Also.. you did not tell what fw level are you on..

I've already been burnt once by upgrading to the stock 386 firmware and do not need any of the extra features provided by Merlins firmware.

The Asus stock 384 firmware is stable, Asus have already configured it out of the box to provide the best performance on default settings.

IMHO Merlin firmware seems to be about opening up the router to run 3rd party apps. Whilst that might serve a purpose for some people. For me personally, other features of my network are served by separate boxes, I've done it this way to avoid any crashes taking out the whole network.