Current Stability of RT-AC3200

[cxcraw]

Hi all,

After following the beta releases of firmware for the 87U, and battling with the issues that entailed, I think i'm finally giving up.

I am considering an AC3200. Read through some of the forum posts about it, and I was wondering from those who own it, how stable is it with current firmware and current beta firmware? Does it suffer from any similar 5ghz or 2.4ghz issues as the 87U does.

Another option also is the Netgear X6 R8000

 

[Brian John]

Sadly I have not had very good luck with the AC-3200 and part of me wishes I would have returned it when I had the chance. I am running the latest firmware, but have not tried any beta firmwares. Note that my previous setup was a rock-solid RT-N16 running Tomato so my family was expecting perfect stability.

Most of the issues we've had are around intermittent disconnects and slowness. I run into these issues every couple of days and a router reboot typically solves them. Also, my Amazon Echo will not connect with the default Smart Connect settings. After tweaking Smart Connect with some settings I found on this forum I was able to get the Echo to connect, but then the 5GHz-1 band was not being used.

In short, I would say that if you don't mind intermittent issues and are willing to do some tweaking, go for it. That said, I know some other folks have had good luck with the AC-3200 so you may be fine. As long as you can return it, you don't have too much to lose by trying.

 

[RMerlin]

If you take Smart Connect out of the equation, its wifi should be quite reliable.

Smart Connect reliability is highly dependent on your client's ability to handle the hands-off. Some do it pretty well, some don't. You can always keep Smart Connect disabled, and manually connect to the desired SSID tho.

 

[cxcraw]

If you take Smart Connect out of the equation, its wifi should be quite reliable.

Smart Connect reliability is highly dependent on your client's ability to handle the hands-off. Some do it pretty well, some don't. You can always keep Smart Connect disabled, and manually connect to the desired SSID tho.

So would it be fair to say the WiFI performance of the AC3200 is much better than the AC87U (without smart connect on)?

 

[Brian John]

If you take Smart Connect out of the equation, its wifi should be quite reliable.

Smart Connect reliability is highly dependent on your client's ability to handle the hands-off. Some do it pretty well, some don't. You can always keep Smart Connect disabled, and manually connect to the desired SSID tho.

I have smart connect turned off and while it did improve stability, I'm still having both intermittent connectivity and throughput issues that I do not have with the RT-N16.

 

[habskilla]

You are never going to have 100% satisfaction from all customers. No slight to you @Brian John.

Read through the ASUS firmware release forum for AC3200 threads and they are quite quiet.
Read through the Merlin firmware release threads and pick out the people with AC3200 setups and you will notice there are not that many posts.

I have the AC3200 with smart connect off. Connectivity wise, it is as good as my old AC66U was.

Do yourself a favour and buy it from a place that has a liberal return policy, just in case.

 

[Puppa]

I have smart connect turned off and while it did improve stability, I'm still having both intermittent connectivity and throughput issues that I do not have with the RT-N16.

I'm surprised at your stability issues. Your use case must be different than mine. I'm going to list a few things I don't turn on and let me know if you've got them turned on. Trying to narrow down the feature that's producing the instability you're seeing. I'm not saying that one shouldn't be allowed to expect that all the advertised features work, just trying to ferret out where this stability problem is coming from.
1) USB storage (I expect issues, but haven't tried using)
2) Guest network (Didn't see issues, but I don't require this)
3) IPv6 (I have had issues with this, especially with more recent firmware, and it seems that my modem might be at least partly to blame)
4) Administration->System->Browser redirect notice (I have had issues with browsers getting stuck at this notice, so I suspect a scripting problem with the feature)
5) Wireless->Advanced->(all bands)->Enable IGMP snooping (I've had stability issues with this, but I suspect it might be indirectly related based on CPU workload)

 

[cxcraw]

You are never going to have 100% satisfaction from all customers. No slight to you @Brian John.

Read through the ASUS firmware release forum for AC3200 threads and they are quite quiet.
Read through the Merlin firmware release threads and pick out the people with AC3200 setups and you will notice there are not that many posts.

I have the AC3200 with smart connect off. Connectivity wise, it is as good as my old AC66U was.

Do yourself a favour and buy it from a place that has a liberal return policy, just in case.

Of course 100% satisfaction is unlikely. On a side note, I managed to obtain a X6 today just to test from a friend - first impressions are alright. Dislike the admin interface though.

Had a bunch of amazon vouchers so purchased the AC3200 from there... They're generally alright about returns? Just keep packaging.

 

[Brian John]

You are never going to have 100% satisfaction from all customers. No slight to you @Brian John.

Agree completely. I have a higher than average number of clients and we put a lot of stress on the network. I'm sure the router works fine for many I was just surprised because we had such a stable setup previously.

 

[Brian John]

I'm surprised at your stability issues. Your use case must be different than mine. I'm going to list a few things I don't turn on and let me know if you've got them turned on. Trying to narrow down the feature that's producing the instability you're seeing. I'm not saying that one shouldn't be allowed to expect that all the advertised features work, just trying to ferret out where this stability problem is coming from.
1) USB storage (I expect issues, but haven't tried using)
2) Guest network (Didn't see issues, but I don't require this)
3) IPv6 (I have had issues with this, especially with more recent firmware, and it seems that my modem might be at least partly to blame)
4) Administration->System->Browser redirect notice (I have had issues with browsers getting stuck at this notice, so I suspect a scripting problem with the feature)
5) Wireless->Advanced->(all bands)->Enable IGMP snooping (I've had stability issues with this, but I suspect it might be indirectly related based on CPU workload)

1) USB storage is off
2) We have a guest network (2.4GHz) turned on but we had it off for a long time and still experienced issues.
3) IPv6 is off
4) Administration->System->Browser redirect notice is on. I don't think it could be related to my issue however because I'm not having redirect issues
5) Wireless->Advanced->(all bands)->Enable IGMP snooping is disabled

 

[AndreiV]

I have the AC3200 running and have not seen a single problem since I installed it.

I know my usage is fairly light and the network a simple home set up , but I have to say after the disaster of the AC87U this router is superb.

WiFi has been totally reliable and fast at all times , no issues connecting and no drops.

My son uses ethernet for gaming and streaming video and the connection has been excellent .

 

[cxcraw]

I have the AC3200 running and have not seen a single problem since I installed it.

I know my usage is fairly light and the network a simple home set up , but I have to say after the disaster of the AC87U this router is superb.

WiFi has been totally reliable and fast at all times , no issues connecting and no drops.

My son uses ethernet for gaming and streaming video and the connection has been excellent .

Which firmware are you right now?

 

[AndreiV]

Which firmware are you right now?

Upon set up I upgraded to Asus 3.0.0.4.378.7838 which worked fine for me.

I am now on Asus 3.0.0.4.378.9135 . ( I haven't had time to try the Merlin version).

 

[RMerlin]

I have smart connect turned off and while it did improve stability, I'm still having both intermittent connectivity and throughput issues that I do not have with the RT-N16.

Are you comparing both of them on the 2.4 GHz band? The AC3200 has a 5 GHz band that you didn't have with the N16, and that band has a much shorter range than 2.4 GHz, so the two cannot really be compared.

I would also disable beamforming, as some clients have issues with it. See if it helps.

 

[RMerlin]

So would it be fair to say the WiFI performance of the AC3200 is much better than the AC87U (without smart connect on)?

Not "much better". For me, with my particular set of devices, the two were very similar. It's just some clients that have more problems with the AC87U than the AC3200. But when they work, the two should have similar coverage.

 

[W4RH34D]

As an access point it has been flawless.

 

[Brian John]

Are you comparing both of them on the 2.4 GHz band? The AC3200 has a 5 GHz band that you didn't have with the N16, and that band has a much shorter range than 2.4 GHz, so the two cannot really be compared.

I would also disable beamforming, as some clients have issues with it. See if it helps.

I have some devices that don't support 5GHz and they see the same issues as the ones that do, so I don't think it could be related to 5GHz. I'll try disabling beamforming and see if it helps. That would be a bummer however because I would expect it to negatively effect my range.

 

[Puppa]

I forgot a couple of major things...I've had trouble with AiProtection, sadly, which in concept is a very useful feature. Infected device prevention and blocking caused me issues with false positives often enough that I gave up--blocked printers, phones, access points, you name it. But it didn't cause my router to lose connectivity. Also troublesome was Vulnerability Protection. I did see some things break from this one. Malicious websites, however, I leave on and it works exceedingly well, even blocking bad ads that come up from time to time on legit websites.

And then there was the most major one, that caused me to lose connectivity but only rarely (4 days to a month in between), but you might not want to turn this one off:
the Firewall, arguably one of if not the most basic feature of the router. I've mitigated my risk with an alternate approach, but once that was off, I have never had a single crash. I have not tested 9135 with it turned back on yet.

 

[habskilla]

Of course 100% satisfaction is unlikely. On a side note, I managed to obtain a X6 today just to test from a friend - first impressions are alright. Dislike the admin interface though.

Had a bunch of amazon vouchers so purchased the AC3200 from there... They're generally alright about returns? Just keep packaging.

Amazon has a terrific return policy. That is the reason why Amazon is the first place I go. I don't kind spending a few extra $$ just because their return is excellent.

 

[W4RH34D]

Weird, AI protection was very stable and caught everything without false positives. Are you sure all your devices simply aren't infected at some level? I mean as ridiculous as it sounds, was that ever considered?