dd-wrt for RT-AC87R

[deliverer]

Got my cooler in today.

Before:

CPU 77.5 / WLO 46.00 / WL1 70.17
(I didn't measure the load when I initially took the readings, but should be similar to below as I was the only one in the house at the time)

After with the Cooler

CPU 66.4 / WL0 43.51 / WL1 66.71
Load Average: .12, .13, .09


The cooler has feet built into it. I just used those to bring it up off a flat service.

So far no issues. Xbox worked great last night with no lag. PC, iphones, ipads, Macbook no connection issues. Plex streaming fine to 3 devices at once.

 

[dfran1]

Well I did some more digging and this firmware base seems to be plagued with the reboot issue (maybe just under load or??), there is some kind of fix but that will cause other problems or slowdowns, and that came from others that have rt-ac68's yet, funny hey?

Now the newest firmware is supposed to resolve it BUT they have not made it available for us. Anyway I was just watching one movie and the router rebooted, I have now disconnected my USB drive from it and will run like this for a while

 

[deliverer]

Well I did some more digging and this firmware base seems to be plagued with the reboot issue (maybe just under load or??), there is some kind of fix but that will cause other problems or slowdowns, and that came from others that have rt-ac68's yet, funny hey?

Now the newest firmware is supposed to resolve it BUT they have not made it available for us. Anyway I was just watching one movie and the router rebooted, I have now disconnected my USB drive from it and will run like this for a while

I don't use the USB port. Maybe it's related to that?

 

[T-Nation]

DD-WRT just got new wl drivers for Broadcom chips which before was causing an up upset with most users with ARM chips. Now there have been issues with this driver set and they've been making a lot of changes to get the firmware back on course. As far as why no 87u firmware I have no clue but most likely part of the new driver issues... but just a guess. DD-WRT has gone along way with having a firmware for the 87u vs like r7500 which is not out there.

Now, we all should know by now we ( even me I own an 87u ) are the cutting edge beta testers for ASUS... plus it's become a standard for 6-12 month from release to see a stable firmware from them. Crap even buying this router we should have known it was half baked because Qcom came out and said the mu-mimo was off.

Anyways just my two cents... it is getting better.. well the temp thing I can't comit on cause of course I put my router on a laptop cooler. My problem has been media bridging but with Merlins build .50 beta 1 it's been running smooth so far.

 

[deliverer]

I started having the reboot problems. Back on Merlin's latest build.

 

[dfran1]

I started having the reboot problems. Back on Merlin's latest build.

I loaded merlins beta 2 build yesterday, BUT I will be coming back to this, I just hope for an update to dd-wrt PLEASE.

NOW onto merlins (just want to state it has nothing to do with his wonderful work, its just inherit in Asus firmware) at just about the 24 hour mark on merlings (or back to Asus firmware that its based off), I got LAG on the ps4, just like original Asus firmware.

I am just trying his latest beta 3 out to see if that holds up, when that does not I am going to load this back and restore my settings, I saved them, but hopefully some love comes with a new dd-wrt to help the reboot or I will try to manually reboot it every morning.

I can't stand LAG!! Asus really has a disaster here HOPEFULLY it is not in the hardware BUT just in Asus firmware.

Note: I had to also shut wifi down on my ipad and iphone then turn back on to get 5GHz running (tonight at the 24 hour mark), it said connected but got no internet, on merlins that uses Asus, NOT merlins fault at all!!!

So as it stands now, both have pluses and minuses, but for me I'll take the dd-wrt, and reboot it every morning for the time being. After I finish merlins beta 3 test. I'll update this post with findings.

Thank You merlin for all you do!!

EDIT:
I gave up on merlins and am back to dd-wrt, I just need them to fix the reboot issue then I will be very happy.

Also I noticed dd-wrt put the signal strength at 71, and from what I have read means 71mW, and what I found is Asus puts it at 316mW (not sure if true), I did bump it up to 81, I found a couple of low spots.
This is my findings of merlins build

 

[spinkick]

I loaded merlins beta 2 build yesterday, BUT I will be coming back to this, I just hope for an update to dd-wrt PLEASE.

NOW onto merlins (just want to state it has nothing to do with his wonderful work, its just inherit in Asus firmware) at just about the 24 hour mark on merlings (or back to Asus firmware that its based off), I got LAG on the ps4, just like original Asus firmware.

I am just trying his latest beta 3 out to see if that holds up, when that does not I am going to load this back and restore my settings, I saved them, but hopefully some love comes with a new dd-wrt to help the reboot or I will try to manually reboot it every morning.

I can't stand LAG!! Asus really has a disaster here HOPEFULLY it is not in the hardware BUT just in Asus firmware.

Note: I had to also shut wifi down on my ipad and iphone then turn back on to get 5GHz running (tonight at the 24 hour mark), it said connected but got no internet, on merlins that uses Asus, NOT merlins fault at all!!!

So as it stands now, both have pluses and minuses, but for me I'll take the dd-wrt, and reboot it every morning for the time being. After I finish merlins beta 3 test. I'll update this post with findings.

Thank You merlin for all you do!!

EDIT:
I gave up on merlins and am back to dd-wrt, I just need them to fix the reboot issue then I will be very happy.

Also I noticed dd-wrt put the signal strength at 71, and from what I have read means 71mW, and what I found is Asus puts it at 316mW (not sure if true), I did bump it up to 81, I found a couple of low spots.
This is my findings of merlins build

I wonder what the real default TX power is for this router

 

[Lops]

I loaded merlins beta 2 build yesterday, BUT I will be coming back to this, I just hope for an update to dd-wrt PLEASE.

EDIT:
I gave up on merlins and am back to dd-wrt, I just need them to fix the reboot issue then I will be very happy.

Same goes for me. I would be sooooooo happy if the random reboot issue could be resolved soonish. Aside from that the dd-wrt is just great!!! Thx for the good work!

 

[dfran1]

Same goes for me. I would be sooooooo happy if the random reboot issue could be resolved soonish. Aside from that the dd-wrt is just great!!! Thx for the good work!

I just hate the lag on the 5GHz that is inherent in Asus firmware (and wifi loss, especially with IOS in the Asus builds), I do not get it with dd-wrt at all, and I love all the monitoring, tweaks, ect that dd-wrt has.

I am mostly positive the random reboot is inherent in this build, but they have not yet made another build for us.

But for now I have set my 5GHz in dd-wrt to default (I know it slows down the 5GHz but if it makes it more stable, that is more important for now for me than speed on the 5GHz)
Wireless network mode = mixed
Wireless channel = 20 MHz

Someone said they do not get reboots, I asked if they left the 5ghz to defaults and no reply so far.

I have also set my Overclocking Frequency to 1200 in "Administration" "Management", I would not do this without a laptop cooler, and found no change in temp, just a test for now. If All works well for a few days I am going to put back my usb drive, and if I have to reboot the router every night I will set it up in the settings to do so.

I am going to stick with dd-wrt and hope they release a fixed version, I have now just come to hate Asus firmware, I tried going back and all I got was wifi drops, ps4 lag (tho I do get this with dd-wrt) BUT it is just easier to reboot the router in dd-wrt due to the quick response of the interface over Asus hand down.

NOTE:
What is the lag in 5GHz on Asus firmware (also in merlins, because he uses Asus firmware and fixes stuff for all of us, thank you merlin!)

I have an app on my IOS device (using wifi) that is a remote control for a LAN device (using a cable not wifi), at first the app connects within 20-40 second on Asus firmware, after 24 hours it could take 30-60 seconds, after that it may never find the LAN device at all, BUT if I reboot the router thru the web interface it will work fine / maybe but for some reason a software reboot just does not work fully for Asus firmware like a power cycle of the router.

Now I do not get this with dd-wrt at all, the app on the IOS device always finds the LAN device within 5-10 seconds ALWAYS. Now if I use Asus firmware and put my IOS device on the 2.4GHz the connection is 5-15 seconds always. Most importantly I can just about alway do a software reboot and trust it with dd-wrt

So this tells me Asus has a MAJOR flaw in their firmware, that was there since release day with this router, and I have tried them all.

EDIT:
I forgot one MAJOR important comparison.
When I reboot the router I have to eject the usb drive every time with Asus firmware or I have a good 75% chance the drive gets corrupted, but with dd-wrt to this day I have yet to corrupt the usb drive (most likely due to me rebooting the router thru the web interface that automatically ejects the drive, from what I have read) and even thru the random reboot I had with it, I still have no corruption on the usb drive, WOW.

 

[Lops]

I am mostly positive the random reboot is inherent in this build, but they have not yet made another build for us.

They actually upped this build:
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/01-29-2015-r26081/asus-rt-ac87u/asus_rt-ac87u-firmware.trx

saifooz also suggested this one for a user, who could not enable explicit beamforming on 5GHz. I tried this one too, but for some reason I just don't get a WAN-IP assigned on this build.

... and if I have to reboot the router every night I will set it up in the settings to do so.

I have already scheduled a daily reboot over night, but sadly the router is still rebooting randomly every day. *sigh*

For me the major reason to switch to dd-wrt was that Asus' Qos would not correctly classify CS:GO. And if I was switching to traditional QoS and add some QoS rules, the router was simply ignoring the global bandwidth limit on the downstream. strange behavior...
I informed Asus support about those problems and they told me, they are investigating now. Lets see what they will come up with.

EDIT:
Forgot to ask: Did anyone try some older beta-builds from 2014?

 

[dfran1]

They actually upped this build:
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/01-29-2015-r26081/asus-rt-ac87u/asus_rt-ac87u-firmware.trx

saifooz also suggested this one for a user, who could not enable explicit beamforming on 5GHz. I tried this one too, but for some reason I just don't get a WAN-IP assigned on this build.

The problem with the 26081 build is no 5ghz at all. Did you notice this ?

I don't know if anyone has tried older builds but that reboot problem was in a driver for a month or so from what I read. We need a new build with the new driver or ??.
Good to know on the reboot thank you
Still better than asus firmware for me. Just a matter of time for a new build .

 

[Lops]

The problem with the 26081 build is no 5ghz at all. Did you notice this ?

nope. Since i didn't even get a WAN-IP assigned, there was no point in further testing of this build.

I'm currently running r25697, because I found a user, who also has the rebooting problems, claiming to run stable on this one. I didn't check which other flaws this build might have. So far the router has been stable. But I flashed the FW just 4.5h ago. Testing continues... We will see if this build actually solves my reboot issue.

EDIT:
router still has a reboot problem

 

[dfran1]

I think I found the cure (for now at least)

I did this in terminal or you can ssh it does not matter
log in following my instructions on page 1 first post for ssh or terminal

enter one line at a time pressing enter after each (if another way then??)
also do a backup of your settings in the router first, that is another way to get it back.

nvram set wl0_ampdu=off
nvram commit
reboot

to get it back to before

nvram set wl0_ampdu=auto
nvram commit
reboot


I am running a test and so far no reboots, I have 3 movies playing at once, last time I did this it rebooted within one hour

Ill keep this updated.
I am still using the one on this first page with this fix

EDIT:
I think it is near perfect finally.
I put my samsung tv back on the 5GHz, that was causing the most issues with reboots, I had the tv and 2 other devices streaming movies from the attached USB drive for over an hour and 2 devices for about 2 hours without a reboot, that never happened before.
I may have had the tv shut the movie down, not sure, it may be a bad movie or?? but the router never rebooted once yet, I think this may be the best we get for now.

That setting may cause slower 2.4GHz for now until we get better firmware, but my object is great 5GHz and now I think we have it!!

 

[RMerlin]

I think I found the cure (for now at least)

I did this in terminal or you can ssh it does not matter
log in following my instructions on page 1 first post for ssh or terminal

enter one line at a time pressing enter after each (if another way then??)
also do a backup of your settings in the router first, that is another way to get it back.

nvram set wl0_ampdu=off
nvram commit
reboot

to get it back to before

nvram set wl0_ampdu=auto
nvram commit
reboot


I am running a test and so far no reboots, I have 3 movies playing at once, last time I did this it rebooted within one hour

Ill keep this updated.
I am still using the one on this first page with this fix

You realize that the same setting is accessible on Asuswrt's webui BTW? If this change resolves your issues with DD-WRT, then it will most likely have the same effect on Asuswrt.

DD-WRT and Asuswrt are both using the same Quantenna driver on the 5 GHz band. Any difference in stability/performance is quite likely related to your configuration.

 

[Lops]

I think I found the cure (for now at least)

I am running with the 5Ghz disabled since yesterday. No reboots so far. But your solution sounds more flexible then simply disabling the 5GHz I may try your solution and see how it affects the performance of 2.4Ghz. We mainly have older devices on the 2.4GHz band in our household. So if the performanceloss is too huge I might stick with disabling 5GHz until a newer (and hopefully better working FW) comes out.

 

[dfran1]

You realize that the same setting is accessible on Asuswrt's webui BTW? If this change resolves your issues with DD-WRT, then it will most likely have the same effect on Asuswrt.

DD-WRT and Asuswrt are both using the same Quantenna driver on the 5 GHz band. Any difference in stability/performance is quite likely related to your configuration.

Hi Merlin!!!
Aconding to this link dd-wrt is actually using an older something or??

The latest Asus and DD-WRT firmware are using Broadcom driver 6.37.14.86 (r456083). Both report the driverrev as 0x6250e56 but Asus's ucoderev is 0x38b006f and DD-WRT's is 0x38b006e

by running the commands
wl ver
wl revinfo


On a different note with iOS wifi drops....

But I may have found something that will help both of us...

Firewall blocks DHCP renewal responses! Enter this within the commands section and click "Save Firewall"

iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 68 -j ACCEPT

The default configuration of the firewall blocks DHCP renewal responses which causes the router's DHCP client to request a new IP and for current connections to be dropped whether the address changes or not. ~phuzi0n Use this command to fix it. Replace ACCEPT with log accept to verify it is functioning.

Found here

As my iPhone got dropped form the 5GHz and I had to turn on and off wifi on the phone to get it back, I will try this tonight and see if this fixes that.

I do have a question
1. What is the mW at 100% in Asus firmware for both 2.4 and 5GHz bands please?

As for Asus firmware, there is a massive delay from wifi to LAN, how do I know this because my media player has an app that runs on IOS or android and when I go to start the app it takes a lot longer to find the device with Asus firmware vs dd-wrt. I do not know why but it does and it has always been their form all versions of Asus firmware on 5GHz.

I also love the instant connection status screen that shows me what speeds I get instantly on each wifi device, I can not find anything like that in Asus firmware. EDIT: I found it on the Asus firmware, though not as elegant as dd-wrt.

I also find Asus firmware sluggish compared to dd-wrt.

Actually the only thing missing is an eject for usb, I can not find one, but I came up with a work around for now, do you know the eject command for that ?

I also now run at 1200 vs 1000 stock and it is very easy to change in dd-wrt, but I don't recall if you have this option?

I wish you put time in dd-wrt vs Asus firmware cause you do wonders with this stuff.

EDIT:
I forgot about my ongoing lag issue with the ps4, I think dd-wrt is better less lag, still testing on that.

 

[RMerlin]

Aconding to this link dd-wrt is actually using an older something or??

by running the commands
wl ver
wl revinfo

Your problems are with the 5 GHz band, which does not use the Broadcom driver in any way. The Quantenna radio has its own driver, which has nothing to do with what the "wl" command is showing you.

What is the mW at 100% in Asus firmware for both 2.4 and 5GHz bands please?

80 mW AFAIK. I'm not sure, I never cared. Having a router broadcasting at 500 mW is pointless if your laptop transmits back at 30 mW.

Actually the only thing missing is an eject for usb, I can not find one, but I came up with a work around for now, do you know the eject command for that ?

DD-WRT? No idea, I never ran DD-WRT on any USB-enabled router. For Asuswrt, it's the USB icon at the top right of the page.

I also now run at 1200 vs 1000 stock and it is very easy to change in dd-wrt, but I don't recall if you have this option?

You are trying to sort out stability issues while, at the same time, trying to overclock? Not a good combo, I must say...

I wish you put time in dd-wrt vs Asus firmware cause you do wonders with this stuff.

Brainslayer, Kong and the other DD-WRT contributors don't need my help.

 

[dfran1]

Your problems are with the 5 GHz band, which does not use the Broadcom driver in any way. The Quantenna radio has its own driver, which has nothing to do with what the "wl" command is showing you.

I apologize for the misunderstanding but, dd-wrt had a reboot problem with a lot of hardware and that link seems to trace it back to the 2.4GHz driver and the fix for now is to run
nvram set wl0_ampdu=off
nvram commit
reboot
Why well it is way above me but I am doing the same tests I done before running these commands and I have yet to have a reboot, so it does work.

My only problem left is the wifi drops that (both Asus and dd-wrt have) seem to only pertain to 5GHz for some reason when this command (at least I hope) fixes it
iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 68 -j ACCEPT
found here also
I know all of this may be no point to you but all this info for whatever reason even if not strictly pertaining to the 5GHz section that we all complain about and seem to have problems with, Maybe what I (actually others, I just found reference to and put the pieces together) found are the answers to a hell of a lot of complaints I have read about and had myself (not the reboot issue, Asus never had that, but it is a strange fix).

Anyway Thank You for reading and your time. Thank You for your answers.

For all running dd-wrt, I streamed 4 (720P and 1080P) movies on 5GHz all at once from the attached USB drive and no reboots or anything, This test failed within the hour the last time I ran it, without the nvram set wl0_ampdu=off.

I will run that command and I think we will have one killer firmware here if no more ios wifi issues

 

[cc666]

Keep us posted

I apologize for the misunderstanding but, dd-wrt had a reboot problem with a lot of hardware and that link seems to trace it back to the 2.4GHz driver and the fix for now is to run
nvram set wl0_ampdu=off
nvram commit
reboot
Why well it is way above me but I am doing the same tests I done before running these commands and I have yet to have a reboot, so it does work.

My only problem left is the wifi drops that (both Asus and dd-wrt have) seem to only pertain to 5GHz for some reason when this command (at least I hope) fixes it
iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 68 -j ACCEPT
found here also
I know all of this may be no point to you but all this info for whatever reason even if not strictly pertaining to the 5GHz section that we all complain about and seem to have problems with, Maybe what I (actually others, I just found reference to and put the pieces together) found are the answers to a hell of a lot of complaints I have read about and had myself (not the reboot issue, Asus never had that, but it is a strange fix).

Anyway Thank You for reading and your time. Thank You for your answers.

For all running dd-wrt, I streamed 4 (720P and 1080P) movies on 5GHz all at once from the attached USB drive and no reboots or anything, This test failed within the hour the last time I ran it, without the nvram set wl0_ampdu=off.

I will run that command and I think we will have one killer firmware here if no more ios wifi issues

Please keep us posted on your tests. How is throughput?
Are you experiencing any wifi drops?
Also are you running an updated firmware?

CC

 

[c0ns0le]

r25974 - Stable

I've been running r25974:
http://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv...5974/asus-rt-ac87u/asus_rt-ac87u-firmware.trx

Firmware: DD-WRT v24-sp2 (01/20/15) std
Time: 16:41:00 up 4 days, 9:26, load average: 0.09, 0.08, 0.12

this build has been the most solid for me so far.

5ghz/2.4ghz all working no drops.
no usb devices plugged in.