dd-wrt for RT-AC87R

[Rodbender]

So far zero complaints. Was hoping range would improve but didn't.

Shawn, as you can see I'm new to the forum. I installed the latest available DD-WRT version for the RT-AC87 (r28139) released on 11-13-2015.

I followed the steps outlined by dfran1, Thank you by the way for documenting the steps for us Noobs !

Loading the latest DD-WRT code has resolved many of the 5GHZ wireless issues I was experiencing with the latest ASUS code. I did notice the 2.4GHZ led not coming on and the WAN led is not blue but red, or whatever color you want to call it.

I did up the TX power to 300 mWs for both wl0 and wl1 cause I read ASUS was running it around 315 mW with their FW codes.

Range has been comparable to the ASUS code, but wireless stability has been remarkably better.

 

[ShawnTRD]

Are you still liking it? I've been having trouble. Not sure 100% that is is the 87 though.

Shawn, as you can see I'm new to the forum. I installed the latest available DD-WRT version for the RT-AC87 (r28139) released on 11-13-2015.

I followed the steps outlined by dfran1, Thank you by the way for documenting the steps for us Noobs !

Loading the latest DD-WRT code has resolved many of the 5GHZ wireless issues I was experiencing with the latest ASUS code. I did notice the 2.4GHZ led not coming on and the WAN led is not blue but red, or whatever color you want to call it.

I did up the TX power to 300 mWs for both wl0 and wl1 cause I read ASUS was running it around 315 mW with their FW codes.

Range has been comparable to the ASUS code, but wireless stability has been remarkably better.

 

[Rodbender]

Are you still liking it? I've been having trouble. Not sure 100% that is is the 87 though.

Shawn,

After 3 days of it being stable I started having fluctuation in the 5GHz wireless. I tried newer DD-WRT code, multiple factory resets and still could not get it to stabilize. then the 2.4Ghz started acting up. Symptoms would be a quick disconnect on laptop and mobile devices. Tried everything I could find on making sure it was not a wireless device issue.

I switched to Merlin FW and thought it looked better for a several hours. Bought laptop cooling pad to make sure not heat issue and nothing worked.

Finally gave up and bought a RT-AC3200. It's been a week and so far it has been pretty solid. But debating if I should return it and try to get a RT-88U before the 30 day warranty runs out cause I have 3 kids 2 of them boys that hammer the router with gaming traffic. One on wireless and the other wired. Even on the 3200 I see a lag in the LAN/WAN when I see them on.

I came from a Linksys E3000 and never had wifi connection drop issues, just range was not that great.

What problems are you experiencing with the 87U ?

 

[dfran1]

I came from a Linksys E3000 and never had wifi connection drop issues, just range was not that great.

Thats funny.......
I purchased a EA8500 Linksys 3-4 months ago and all my lag is gone , I had Asus rt-ac66r, rt-ac68r, and rt-ac87r, all had PS4 game lag and dead spots in Wi-Fi (being 87r the worst out of all), with the Linksys , all PS4 lag is a minimum (best lag free I have ever had), all in house Wi-Fi dead spots are gone, and absolutely no Wi-Fi connection drops. 5GHz coverage is outstanding on the EA8500, better than the Asus routers I had, 2.4 is as good if not a hair better also than the best of any of the Asus routers I had.
Matter in fact my company that I work for is moving and I had them buy a EA8500 (small company).

I am going to test the Asus 5300 out once best buy gets them, as I have 45 days to return, I have high doubts it is any better than the rest of the Asus routers, But I will go in open minded.

 

[Rodbender]

Thats funny.......
I purchased a EA8500 Linksys 3-4 months ago and all my lag is gone , I had Asus rt-ac66r, rt-ac68r, and rt-ac87r, all had PS4 game lag and dead spots in Wi-Fi (being 87r the worst out of all), with the Linksys , all PS4 lag is a minimum (best lag free I have ever had), all in house Wi-Fi dead spots are gone, and absolutely no Wi-Fi connection drops. 5GHz coverage is outstanding on the EA8500, better than the Asus routers I had, 2.4 is as good if not a hair better also than the best of any of the Asus routers I had.
Matter in fact my company that I work for is moving and I had them buy a EA8500 (small company).

I am going to test the Asus 5300 out once best buy gets them, as I have 45 days to return, I have high doubts it is any better than the rest of the Asus routers, But I will go in open minded.

What's even funnier is I have also been looking at the EA8500 also. I still have time on the warranty for the AC3200. May pickup a 8500 and give it a try.

Thanks for your feedback dfran1 !

 

[dfran1]

What's even funnier is I have also been looking at the EA8500 also. I still have time on the warranty for the AC3200. May pickup a 8500 and give it a try.

Thanks for your feedback dfran1 !

I am thinking of putting dd-wrt on it, its out now for it, they are still tweaking dd-wrt.
The EA8500 is very impressive, here is a quote from someone else....

so far with ea8500, its absolutely ridiculous..it sees EVERYTHING & then some, the most sensitive antennas/radios ive ever seen, ever. tx strength is also absurd, to my wndr4300 upstairs (main router), i went from SNR on that of 29 from the wdr4900 v1.3 (which is also a great unit) to 41 with the ea8500, physical placements are the same, settings are the same. the mu-mimo capabilities are very noticeable, i can fully saturate the 161 channel @ vht80 with local traffic & latency to the host (thats only using n not ac) hardly spikes above 50ms compared to 400+ on any other n router.

it boots very fast, it looks nice, aside from some issues posted on timeline, this unit is excellent even considering ath10k's small faults, thank u for ur port to this router kong. donating to u on jan 1. this is my "have for multiple years (3-4+) router" for sure. worth every single penny, i thought the r7000, the first ac router i tried, was good on range & cpu power, this blows even that, out of the solar system. period.

here is the forum found in

 

[ShawnTRD]

I was having random slow downs, but wasn't that bad.

Well after my last post I seen there was a newe DD-WRT release. So I tried updating to that and I had trouble. The router kept rebooting. Almost thought I wasn't going to be get it to stop. Ended up loading a Merlin latest. Now 5GHz is junk. Mostly noticeable in my NVIDIA SHIELD.

Shawn,

After 3 days of it being stable I started having fluctuation in the 5GHz wireless. I tried newer DD-WRT code, multiple factory resets and still could not get it to stabilize. then the 2.4Ghz started acting up. Symptoms would be a quick disconnect on laptop and mobile devices. Tried everything I could find on making sure it was not a wireless device issue.

I switched to Merlin FW and thought it looked better for a several hours. Bought laptop cooling pad to make sure not heat issue and nothing worked.

Finally gave up and bought a RT-AC3200. It's been a week and so far it has been pretty solid. But debating if I should return it and try to get a RT-88U before the 30 day warranty runs out cause I have 3 kids 2 of them boys that hammer the router with gaming traffic. One on wireless and the other wired. Even on the 3200 I see a lag in the LAN/WAN when I see them on.

I came from a Linksys E3000 and never had wifi connection drop issues, just range was not that great.

What problems are you experiencing with the 87U ?

 

[Matthew Patrick]

I was having random slow downs, but wasn't that bad.

Well after my last post I seen there was a newe DD-WRT release. So I tried updating to that and I had trouble. The router kept rebooting. Almost thought I wasn't going to be get it to stop. Ended up loading a Merlin latest. Now 5GHz is junk. Mostly noticeable in my NVIDIA SHIELD.

And the merlin is stable? Like no issue at all? Thx
Btw. Its stable build or beta?

 

[iNsAniTy]

For those who may find this (very long) thread via a search engine, for reference the current beta build of DD-WRT (dated 02JAN2016, this one: ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2016/01-02-2016-r28647/asus-rt-ac87u/) runs very well on the Asus RT-87u/r. No problems at all after through setup, and all functions seem stable and fast. Range is good, and compatibility is good across G/N/AC devices.

The default firmware, even the latest from Asus, is quite unstable and many functions don't even work (though the GUI is quite nice). If you're an advanced user or networking expert DD-WRT is a great upgrade.

Heat is indeed an issue and may affect component reliability. Mine is currently idling at CPU 73.6 °C / WL0 42.96 °C / WL1 65.00 °C.

Many thanks to all of the developers who make this custom OSS firmware possible. The tail end of this thread doesn't provide many references to how the latest firmware versions behave, so I thought I'd provide some feedback from my experience.

For those who might be considering this router the reviews on this site are also a good reference. The first post in this thread (the "how to") is a great reference as well.

 

[RainGater]

Flashed r29409 on my RT-AC87R and looks stable so far even though it's been only a day. Hopefully, it stays that way

Port forwarding, MAC filtering, DDNS, and all the features that I use works... And, works very well indeed.

Played with Merlin for a week or so since I purchased it last week and had random wifi disconnects and it wasn't really stable even though it has glowing recommendations... Go figure!

OTOH, r29409 is solid and it's been only a day so far.

Only thing that bothers me is that CPU seems to run a little hot even when there is no activity. I set the TX transmit power to 81. Not sure what else I have to do to lower it - CPU 76.4 °C / WL0 41.1 °C / WL1 35.0 °C / WL2 39.9 °C.

 

[RMerlin]

Played with Merlin for a week or so since I purchased it last week and had random wifi disconnects and it wasn't really stable even though it has glowing recommendations... Go figure!

Buggy Quantenna driver. They only released the update two weeks ago, hence 380.58 is still using the older buggy driver.

 

[dfran1]

Flashed r29409 on my RT-AC87R and looks stable so far even though it's been only a day. Hopefully, it stays that way

Port forwarding, MAC filtering, DDNS, and all the features that I use works... And, works very well indeed.

Played with Merlin for a week or so since I purchased it last week and had random wifi disconnects and it wasn't really stable even though it has glowing recommendations... Go figure!

OTOH, r29409 is solid and it's been only a day so far.

Only thing that bothers me is that CPU seems to run a little hot even when there is no activity. I set the TX transmit power to 81. Not sure what else I have to do to lower it - CPU 76.4 °C / WL0 41.1 °C / WL1 35.0 °C / WL2 39.9 °C.

Yes dd-wrt is the only stable firmware for the 87 that I also found (I no longer own the 87, traded it in at amazon). I keep monitoring the other site as well, still complaints all the time from the 87 not doing wifi mainly properly with stock firmware.

You need a fan under the 87, as I also run a fan under my EA8500 (though most likely not needed) .

After almost 2 years still no good drivers or firmware for the 87, what a shame.
My friend has been running (last years version of) dd-wet for quite some time on his 87, though ALL they use is WIFI and 1 port forward, NOTHING else, but when he does go into it (after some time) the GUI is frozen or something, the 87 needs to be rebooted, also he would never know if 5GHz crashed, as he does not monitor wifi either.

Here is the fan I purchased on sale today at amazon for a lightning deal around 7PM EST

 

[Therion87]

Can anyone pull the Quantenna driver version from the DD-WRT firmware?

 

[RainGater]

Buggy Quantenna driver. They only released the update two weeks ago, hence 380.58 is still using the older buggy driver.

Ok, thanks for the info. Are you planning to update your build with the updated driver?

Btw, how is the updated driver for you so far? Any more disconnects or stable? I like the GUI in Merlin/Asus more than DD-WRT, FWIW Initially, Merlin looked very stable but after a few hours, we started to see disconnects and it started to happen quite frequently when 7 - 8 devices started to join the network.

 

[RMerlin]

Ok, thanks for the info. Are you planning to update your build with the updated driver?

There's an early alpha build available on the download site:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/bj94sbhrh7e49/Test_Builds

There's no ETA regarding a final release yet.

Btw, how is the updated driver for you so far?

No idea, the RT-AC88U has been my main router for a few months now.

 

[RainGater]

There's an early alpha build available on the download site:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/bj94sbhrh7e49/Test_Builds

Thank you for all your builds and hopefully, you can fix the wifi disconnect issue in the not so distant future

 

[RainGater]

I couldn't deal with the wifi disconnects on my devices and went with DD-WRT - v3.0-r29519 std (04/25/16).

It's performing better and no more disconnects and it seems to be stable now. Let's see how it goes for a few days as it's been couple of days since I flashed it. With DD-WRT, there is an extensive community with tons of builds to pick from...

And, DD-WRT has the latest kernel - Linux 4.4.8 #676 SMP Mon Apr 25 06:20:15 CEST 2016 armv7l.

4.4.8 vs 4.5.2 - close enough

Overall, happy with DD-WRT.

 

[PASHA71]

Hello everybody !! I read your posts liked dfran1 ... my problem is I live in Russia, my ISP Rosintel 250mb link I have a RT-Ac87u and firmware Merlin 380.59 beta2 im play witch PS4 online game after each firmware first 3-4hr not lag PS4 but after 4 hr my pS4 lag my connect on ps4 LaN need your help is flashing dd-wrt where do I go ?? any help plz

 

[PASHA71]

Need help i noob ....plz help me ((

 

[splatee]

Need help i noob ....plz help me ((

I will try to help you. I do not have a PS4 but Xbox one.

I found a few posts about changing ASUS's NAT Loopback setting in the Firewall tab. Changing from RMerlin to Asus.

Also i have ran DDWRT on my Asus RT-AC87 andhad issues with it. Running RMerlins has been no issues.