Best Dual band AX86u or wait for next model ?

[SoCalReviews]

About to set it up now! I just download the merlin firmware for the RT-AX86U and am reading up to figure out what I need to do to swap out the R7800 and add the second router.
I watched a YouTube video on how to flash custom firmware on Asus routers, and it seemed easier to find the firmware update section than on my Netgear R7800.
I assume there isn't much to do except turn of QoS, channel selection (after scanning for what channels are in use around me - no 5g WiFi signals), and then set up AiMesh.
I was reading through L&LD's "Best Practice Update/Setup Router/AiMesh Node(s) 2021" post here because this would be my first "mesh" I'm setting up.

Congrats on your AX86U purchase!

If you are going to use Merlin firmware make sure you fully reset the router after installing the Merlin firmware. Check back and post in the AX section of the Asus router user forum if you need more help with that or any other suggestions.

Keep QoS OFF for now. See how the router runs with default settings. It should be fine without it. Most users don't enable it. Sometimes enabling QoS on the newer Asus routers can slow down the performance. It's usually not needed for most modern routers since they detect and handle the different types of traffic very well automatically... much better than you can manually configure with QoS.

The main thing I recommend is turning OFF Smart Connect and have a different SSID name for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz channels. You can enable Smart Connect later if you choose and see how you like using it. Sometimes during initial new router setup it can be confusing since it may cause unexpected band switching for your devices but some users in this forum like using the feature. Next... use WPA2 instead of WPA2/3 for wireless.

This router defaults to a 192.168.50.1 starting LAN IP address. You can leave it that way if it works ok for you or you can change it to the more common 192.168.1.1. LAN IP. It shouldn't matter unless you have a number of clients (like older printers, etc..) on your LAN that are set up by default to have fixed addresses in the 192.168.1.1-256 IP range. If you ever do a full hard reset of the router then you will need to make these changes again since the router will go back to default settings.

L&LD's setup recommendations are a good thing to follow. They are used to ensure a conflict free experience.

 

[jkxs]

Congrats on your AX86U purchase!

If you are going to use Merlin firmware make sure you fully reset the router after installing the Merlin firmware. Check back and post in the AX section of the Asus router user forum if you need more help with that or any other suggestions.

Keep QoS OFF for now. See how the router runs with default settings. It should be fine without it. Most users don't enable it. Sometimes enabling QoS on the newer Asus routers can slow down the performance. It's usually not needed for most modern routers since they detect and handle the different types of traffic very well automatically... much better than you can manually configure with QoS.

The main thing I recommend is turning OFF Smart Connect and have a different SSID name for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz channels. You can enable Smart Connect later if you choose and see how you like using it. Sometimes during initial new router setup it can be confusing since it may cause unexpected band switching for your devices but some users in this forum like using the feature. Next... use WPA2 instead of WPA2/3 for wireless.

This router defaults to a 192.168.50.1 starting LAN IP address. You can leave it that way if it works ok for you or you can change it to the more common 192.168.1.1. LAN IP. It shouldn't matter unless you have a number of clients (like older printers, etc..) on your LAN that are set up by default to have fixed addresses in the 192.168.1.1-256 IP range. If you ever do a full hard reset of the router then you will need to make these changes again since the router will go back to default settings.

L&LD's setup recommendations are a good thing to follow. They are used to ensure a conflict free experience.

Just installed merlin and did the factory reset (was reading the readme while it was doing the update)!
I did set the 2.4G and 5G separate. It defaulted to WPA2-Personal and QoS off. I am going to peek around in the web-ui for more settings, but do you know how to setup the ai-mesh? I know when you first connect the router in advanced settings there is an aimesh option, but do you only set it up on the second router? If I had to guess, your second router is only connected to your computer (not connected to your first router), you do the aimesh setup (after you setup a new network to get to the webui, then switch to merlin, then factory reset), THEN you connect the second router to the first router via the blue WAN port (???? not sure about this, could also be the green 2.5G port, or maybe LAN port 1 since it is the "gaming" port?)

Just ran a speedtest on Fast as well as the webui of the router and it definitely has better download speeds (maybe ~10%?) on a wired connection with no other clients connected, but the upload went down a bit. The ping is great!

 

[SoCalReviews]

Just installed merlin and did the factory reset (was reading the readme while it was doing the update)!
I did set the 2.4G and 5G separate. It defaulted to WPA2-Personal. I am going to peek around in the web-ui for more settings, but do you know how to setup the ai-mesh? I know when you first connect the router in advanced settings there is an aimesh option, but do you only set it up on the second router? If I had to guess, your second router is only connected to your computer (not connected to your first router), you do the aimesh setup (after you setup a new network to get to the webui, then switch to merlin, then factory reset), THEN you connect the second router to the first router via the blue WAN port (???? not sure about this, could also be the green 2.5G port, or maybe LAN port 1 since it is the "gaming" port?)

Have the routers next to each other during the setup. You can set up via LAN or wireless. Have the Ethernet cable connected before installing if that is your connection method. You can choose to use either LAN port. I would probably configure and connect the 2.5Gbps ports on both routers (for this to work I believe the 2.5Gbps port will need to be configured as a WAN port on the second AX86U router... check with other AiMesh users like L&LD about this since I don't use AiMesh myself). The main router 2.5Gbps port will be configured as a LAN port since that will be good high speed connection and you will have the other LAN ports available for use. Go into the settings of the main router and use the AiMesh tab to enter those options. It will show you available Asus routers detected.

Turn on the second router and you should see it detected in the settings of the main router. The Asus router will automatically set up AiMesh to that second Asus router. Once set up make sure you follow any on screen instructions and then you can turn off and move the second router to it's distant location. Connect it to the LAN cable (using the 2.5Gbps port set up as WAN if that is your configuration... again check with othe AiMesh users about the configuration of the port) if that is the connection method you are using and turn it on. At this point The AiMesh network should be properly functioning.

Instead of this General Wireless Discussion section post in the AX section of the Asus forums for more suggestions from other users.

 

[jkxs]

Have the routers next to each other during the setup. You can set up via LAN or wireless. Have the Ethernet cable connected before installing if that is your connection method. You can choose to use either LAN port. I would probably configure and connect the 2.5Gbps ports on both routers (the 2.5Gbps port will need to be configured as a WAN port on the second AX86U router. The main router 2.5Gbps port will be configured as a LAN port) since that will be good high speed connection and you will have the other LAN ports available for use. Go into the settings of the main router and use the AiMesh tab to enter those options. It will show you available Asus routers detected.

Turn on the second router and you should see it detected in the settings of the main router. The Asus router will automatically set up AiMesh to that second Asus router. Once set up make sure you follow any on screen instructions and then you can turn off and move the second router to it's distant location. Connect it to the LAN cable if that is what you are using and turn it on. At this point The AiMesh network should be properly functioning.

Instead of this General Wireless Discussion section post in the AX section of the Asus forums for more suggestions from other users.

Thank you! I am really loving this Rmerlin website, setting up guest networks and everything is so easy!

 

[Xrsenal]

Congrats on your AX86U purchase!

If you are going to use Merlin firmware make sure you fully reset the router after installing the Merlin firmware. Check back and post in the AX section of the Asus router user forum if you need more help with that or any other suggestions.

Keep QoS OFF for now. See how the router runs with default settings. It should be fine without it. Most users don't enable it. Sometimes enabling QoS on the newer Asus routers can slow down the performance. It's usually not needed for most modern routers since they detect and handle the different types of traffic very well automatically... much better than you can manually configure with QoS.

The main thing I recommend is turning OFF Smart Connect and have a different SSID name for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz channels. You can enable Smart Connect later if you choose and see how you like using it. Sometimes during initial new router setup it can be confusing since it may cause unexpected band switching for your devices but some users in this forum like using the feature. Next... use WPA2 instead of WPA2/3 for wireless.

This router defaults to a 192.168.50.1 starting LAN IP address. You can leave it that way if it works ok for you or you can change it to the more common 192.168.1.1. LAN IP. It shouldn't matter unless you have a number of clients (like older printers, etc..) on your LAN that are set up by default to have fixed addresses in the 192.168.1.1-256 IP range. If you ever do a full hard reset of the router then you will need to make these changes again since the router will go back to default settings.

L&LD's setup recommendations are a good thing to follow. They are used to ensure a conflict free experience.

You know that routers operate under FIFO queues aka first in first out. It doesn’t detect anything. Unless it has DSCP or TOS underlying QoS which I doubt as I don’t see it anywhere in the manual for any asus router ever. So you’re “automatic” theory is incorrect

 

[SoCalReviews]

You know that routers operate under FIFO queues aka first in first out. It doesn’t detect anything. Unless it has DSCP or TOS underlying QoS which I doubt as I don’t see it anywhere in the manual for any asus router ever. So you’re “automatic” theory is incorrect

"It's usually not needed for most modern routers since they detect and handle the different types of traffic very well automatically... much better than you can manually configure with QoS."

....The quote above from my original post using the word "automatically" is in reference to using the default Asus settings of QoS being disabled vs. changing from default to enabling and manually configuring the traditional QoS settings.

Manually enabling traditional QoS does change the way how the router handles traffic. Often manual changes can negatively impact the performance of the router. This has been posted extensively in this forum by users.

The newer Asus routers already optimize traffic when using the default settings. Furthermore the AX86U also advertises the special functionality of the gaming Ethernet port which automatically optimizes for gaming traffic without the need for the user manually configuring and making changes to the settings. This has been documented by Asus in their gaming router and latest AX router promotional literature thoroughly.

If you still disagree then I am open to trying to understand your logic.

 

[Volt]

Just my 2 cents regarding QOS. Usually, people are focused on raw speed on a single client, which is not right. For example, without QOS, I usually get maximum speed (200Mbit), but if I take the fastest client and run the speed test on it, and then, while the speed test is in progress, I try to open a web-page on another client, it simply does not open. Or if I try to simultaneously start the speed test on another client, it just fails to start until the speed test on the first client finishes.

With Adaptive QOS (and with manual speed settings that are about 5% lower than the ISP's speed), this never happens. Yes, speed test results for a single client will be a bit lower, but QOS increases general network throughput and decreases latency immensely. Except for a small percentage of users with very fast connections, I would say that everyone needs properly configured QOS on their networks. Unfortunately, consumer router manufacturers do not advertise QOS benefits extensively and do not explain how users can determine whether they need QOS or not.