DDWRT for RT-AC87 - You should seriously consider it

[cc666]

This is running perfectly on my RT-AC87

Firmware: DD-WRT v3.0-r27506 (07/09/15)
Time: 08:14:53 up 5 days, 15:26, load average: 0.12, 0.07, 0.05

ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/07-09-2015-r27506/asus-rt-ac87u/

I have 4 PC laptops, 2 smart TV's, 4 iphones, 1 Galaxy S6, Oppo 103, 4 iPads, 2 macbook pro's, and a Epson wireless printer. NO disconnects, streaming is flawless. I also have a laptop hard wired into the router with a 2 TB HD set up as a server and I am getting close to 50 mb/sec dl speeds. This is the best I have ever seen. On ALL the recent Asus firmwares my Galaxy S6 had terrible battery drain. As soon as I switched to this version of DDWRT the battery drain is completly gone. I think this is for all Android phones.

Prior to the latest DDWRT release there were problems but whatever they did in this latest release fixed them all. You owe it a try.

I tried all the Asus beta firmware's with the bloat built in and they are terrible.

CC

 

[hasuboy]

This is running perfectly on my RT-AC87

Firmware: DD-WRT v3.0-r27506 (07/09/15)
Time: 08:14:53 up 5 days, 15:26, load average: 0.12, 0.07, 0.05

ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/07-09-2015-r27506/asus-rt-ac87u/

I have 4 PC laptops, 2 smart TV's, 4 iphones, 1 Galaxy S6, Oppo 103, 4 iPads, 2 macbook pro's, and a Epson wireless printer. NO disconnects, streaming is flawless. I also have a laptop hard wired into the router with a 2 TB HD set up as a server and I am getting close to 50 mb/sec dl speeds. This is the best I have ever seen. On ALL the recent Asus firmwares my Galaxy S6 had terrible battery drain. As soon as I switched to this version of DDWRT the battery drain is completly gone. I think this is for all Android phones.

Prior to the latest DDWRT release there were problems but whatever they did in this latest release fixed them all. You owe it a try.

I tried all the Asus beta firmware's with the boat built in and they are terrible.

CC

just stay home today and would like to try this firmware, really can not stand asus firmware 5Ghz issue, hope DDWRT will not let me down. i will report my results later, thanks.

 

[RMerlin]

just stay home today and would like to try this firmware, really can not stand asus firmware 5Ghz issue, hope DDWRT will not let me down. i will report my results later, thanks.

It's the exact same driver from Quantenna, no reason to believe that it would be any different with DD-WRT.

The issue isn't with Asus's code, it's with Quantenna's code.

 

[Haggster]

No Adaptive QoS engine, no Trend Micro AiProtetection ...deal breaker.

 

[cc666]

No Adaptive QoS engine, no Trend Micro AiProtetection ...deal breaker.

Trend Micro in my opinion=Bloatwear
Adaptive QOS dosent work

You wont get the disconnects, Android battery drain and unreliability of the Asus firmware but to each his own.

CC

 

[cc666]

It's the exact same driver from Quantenna, no reason to believe that it would be any different with DD-WRT.

The issue isn't with Asus's code, it's with Quantenna's code.

If that's the case then WHY with the Asus firmware my Galaxy S6 battery drains terribly.
With DDWRT there is absolutely NO battery drain. This I am 100% positive on.

CC

 

[Haggster]

Trend Micro in my opinion=Bloatwear
Adaptive QOS dosent work

You wont get the disconnects, Android battery drain and unreliability of the Asus firmware but to each his own.

CC

Yeah, well, the fact that Trend Micro is bloatware hasn't resulted in any negative consequences for me... I've never had any issues with the router's memory or similar. So basically, I would give something up that I find very useful, simply for the fact that it is bloatware without this causing me any trouble.

What doesn't work regarding Adaptive QoS? I seem to be lucky so far, since my g/f can have a Skype session and I can still max out the connection with one of my devices without causing the Skype connection to get interrupted; which wasn't possible before enabling Adaptive QoS (and I prefer this over tinkering with individual QoS settings by far).

BTW: You can reduce the Android battery drain by adjusting the DTIM and the Beacon intervals, set them to a higher level and your device's wi-fi will sleep more often. Maybe DDWRT sets them to higher values per default. Lower values = better connectivity, higher values = less battery drain.

Are you getting more disconnects with the Asus firmware? I get none with both bands, even 5GHz is rock solid from all non-mobile devices. I've only got a set top tox which keeps disconnecting from the 5GHz wi-fi, but the box is known for its extremely unreliable wi-fi connectivity.

And isn't the 5GHz reliability the same as in the Asus firmware since that part is all a blob by Quantenna?

I'm getting the the impression that DDWRT is being glorified here for some strange reason...

 

[cc666]

Yeah, well, the fact that Trend Micro is bloatware hasn't resulted in any negative consequences for me... I've never had any issues with the router's memory or similar. So basically, I would give something up that I find very useful, simply for the fact that it is bloatware without this causing me any trouble.

What doesn't work regarding Adaptive QoS? I seem to be lucky so far, since my g/f can have a Skype session and I can still max out the connection with one of my devices without causing the Skype connection to get interrupted; which wasn't possible before enabling Adaptive QoS (and I prefer this over tinkering with individual QoS settings by far).

BTW: You can reduce the Android battery drain by adjusting the DTIM and the Beacon intervals, set them to a higher level and your device's wi-fi will sleep more often. Maybe DDWRT sets them to higher values per default. Lower values = better connectivity, higher values = less battery drain.

Are you getting more disconnects with the Asus firmware? I get none with both bands, even 5GHz is rock solid from all non-mobile devices. I've only got a set top tox which keeps disconnecting from the 5GHz wi-fi, but the box is known for its extremely unreliable wi-fi connectivity.

And isn't the 5GHz reliability the same as in the Asus firmware since that part is all a blob by Quantenna?

I'm getting the the impression that DDWRT is being glorified here for some strange reason...

Haggster,

I suggest you read this: http://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ac87u-aiprotection.20833/#post-177598 regarding Trend Micro. Even when I ran the Asus firmware I disabled Trend Micro.

As far as Android phones do you own one to make these comments? I ran numerous tests and found my findings to be 100%. This by the way is a known fact with the Asus firmware of late. Hopefully it can be fixed.

My guess is you can have that skype call without the QOS enabled just as good. You should disasble QOS reboot and try it again. How many connections do you have? You gave no detail on your setup. As you can see I have a wide variety of connections.

I am in NO way glorifying DDWRT, in fact all the previous releases were terrible. I am just alerting the community that the latest version is finally a winner.

Firmware: DD-WRT v3.0-r27506 (07/09/15)
Time: 09:35:29 up 6 days, 16:47, load average: 0.20, 0.12, 0.11

CC

 

[Haggster]

Haggster,

I suggest you read this: http://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ac87u-aiprotection.20833/#post-177598 regarding Trend Micro. Even when I ran the Asus firmware I disabled Trend Micro.

As far as Android phones do you own one to make these comments? I ran numerous tests and found my findings to be 100%. This by the way is a known fact with the Asus firmware of late. Hopefully it can be fixed.

My guess is you can have that skype call without the QOS enabled just as good. You should disasble QOS reboot and try it again. How many connections do you have? You gave no detail on your setup. As you can see I have a wide variety of connections.

I am in NO way glorifying DDWRT, in fact all the previous releases were terrible. I am just alerting the community that the latest version is finally a winner.

Firmware: DD-WRT v3.0-r27506 (07/09/15)
Time: 09:35:29 up 6 days, 16:47, load average: 0.20, 0.12, 0.11

CC

Thanks for the link; yeah, I've read that before, it's definitely understandable that some people prefer to disable it because of privacy concerns.

Regarding Android devices: I'm what apple people call a "fandroid" , so we've got quite some Android devices at home and in operation; at the moment two phones, one Nexus 9 (stopped using the nexus 7 since I heard of the scary bricking issue and want to flash an alternative firmware before using it again) and an android based set top box (well, I cannot check the battery drain on that one, because it doesn't have one). So far I haven't had any obvious issues with the wi-fi draining my batteries... if it happens, then the effect must be so slight that I haven't noticed.

Regarding the QoS: what I mean with maxing out the connection while performing a Skype call is e.g. downloading from a fast server that uses all of my available bandwidth with one device and Skyping with another device. setup is: 3 to 6 wi-fi devices on both bands through the router out into the internet via a 100mbit down, 20mbit up connection.

I'm really interested in this DD-WRT firmware and maybe I'll be able to try it out at one point. It bothers me that the Asus firmware is still stuck with such an old kernel (2011-era) while it doesn't seem to be a problem to run a modern router like this - in fact this exact router - with a more modern kernel... however this is just the nerd in me, as using a more modern one won't bring that many real world advantages.

I wish Asus could base their firmware on current DD-WRT somehow, so that their proprietary add-ons would be available on top of a more modern foundation.

But that's wishful thinking and I guess it'll always be either/or.

If I had two AC87s, I'd flash DD-WRT as a weekend-project now and check how it performs in my setup.

 

[cc666]

Thanks for the link; yeah, I've read that before, it's definitely understandable that some people prefer to disable it because of privacy concerns.

Regarding Android devices: I'm what apple people call a "fandroid" , so we've got quite some Android devices at home and in operation; at the moment two phones, one Nexus 9 (stopped using the nexus 7 since I heard of the scary bricking issue and want to flash an alternative firmware before using it again) and an android based set top box (well, I cannot check the battery drain on that one, because it doesn't have one). So far I haven't had any obvious issues with the wi-fi draining my batteries... if it happens, then the effect must be so slight that I haven't noticed.

Regarding the QoS: what I mean with maxing out the connection while performing a Skype call is e.g. downloading from a fast server that uses all of my available bandwidth with one device and Skyping with another device. setup is: 3 to 6 wi-fi devices on both bands through the router out into the internet via a 100mbit down, 20mbit up connection.

I'm really interested in this DD-WRT firmware and maybe I'll be able to try it out at one point. It bothers me that the Asus firmware is still stuck with such an old kernel (2011-era) while it doesn't seem to be a problem to run a modern router like this - in fact this exact router - with a more modern kernel... however this is just the nerd in me, as using a more modern one won't bring that many real world advantages.

I wish Asus could base their firmware on current DD-WRT somehow, so that their proprietary add-ons would be available on top of a more modern foundation.

But that's wishful thinking and I guess it'll always be either/or.

If I had two AC87s, I'd flash DD-WRT as a weekend-project now and check how it performs in my setup.

This is DDWRT:

Kernel Version
Linux 3.10.83 #4391 SMP Thu Jul 9 04:55:23 CEST 2015 armv7l

CC

 

[faur]

Hi, I have 1Gbps over PPPOE. Do you think that DDWRT FW will be able to deliver NAT at this speed without having HW acceleration?!
DDWRT can be maybe the answer for those that have max 300 up/download but i don't think that it's the answer for 1Gbps or more...


Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[Adam64]

This is running perfectly on my RT-AC87

Firmware: DD-WRT v3.0-r27506 (07/09/15)
Time: 08:14:53 up 5 days, 15:26, load average: 0.12, 0.07, 0.05

ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/07-09-2015-r27506/asus-rt-ac87u/

I have 4 PC laptops, 2 smart TV's, 4 iphones, 1 Galaxy S6, Oppo 103, 4 iPads, 2 macbook pro's, and a Epson wireless printer. NO disconnects, streaming is flawless. I also have a laptop hard wired into the router with a 2 TB HD set up as a server and I am getting close to 50 mb/sec dl speeds. This is the best I have ever seen. On ALL the recent Asus firmwares my Galaxy S6 had terrible battery drain. As soon as I switched to this version of DDWRT the battery drain is completly gone. I think this is for all Android phones.

Prior to the latest DDWRT release there were problems but whatever they did in this latest release fixed them all. You owe it a try.

I tried all the Asus beta firmware's with the boat built in and they are terrible.

CC

Thanks for the tip. I'm giving it a try.

 

[snbdora]

I came across this link and it seems Asus officially support DD-WRT.

http://www.asus.com/us/site/routers/DD-WRT/

 

[Flomsen]

I just install dd-wrt from this site ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2015/06-01-2015-r27147/asus-rt-ac87u/ on my RT-AC87U.

My internet LED is flashes red now. Is There anybody who have The same problem, and how i fix that ?

 

[dfran1]

Hi CC666!,
I am going to reference my thread
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/dd-wrt-for-rt-ac87r.22421/

I am now back on the latest dd-wrt as lately, my online gaming was just horrible lately with Asus firmware!!
It was sooooooooo BAD no one was dying no matter what I used for guns or time I played, at all (has been happening for weeks now, new Asus betas and all), this morning was the last, my PS4 lag test was good, BUT there was loots of lag on my end!!!
All I did was flash dd-wrt and configure similar to my Asus, and guess what NO LAG, they were dying !!!!! I went from bottom of the list to top of the list in only 10 minutes, the time it took for me to flash and configure!!!!!

So I do not care what anyone says on that, there is nothing to say at all, it was just 10 minutes, no way ps4 servers change that dramatic at all!!!!!

Asus is just putting WAY too much into bloatware!! and not keeping basic things right.

Even this morning my wife said her internet connection is and was slow and it was bugging her, that made me come back.

Now for the long test, and to put it on my friends.

As for the internet light it is normal to flash pink (red) for dd-wrt and no light for 2.4 GHz either.

EDIT: I am also seeing the data rate drop when not in use like it is supposed to.

 

[Flomsen]

As for the internet light it is normal to flash pink (red) for dd-wrt and no light for 2.4 GHz either.

And here is no way to disable the red light so it only shows blue?

 

[dfran1]

And here is no way to disable the red light so it only shows blue?

I have never found anything on changing it, that was easy, I found something on lights but it was complex and I don't recall it changing that color.
You do get used to it after a while.

 

[Flomsen]

I have never found anything on changing it, that was easy, I found something on lights but it was complex and I don't recall it changing that color.
You do get used to it after a while.

Okay, thx for information ;-)

 

[clayhans]

So I read this post and got excited about dd-wrt. I did some research on how to flash to my AC87U and spent two hours on trying to flash it. It was just too much of a hassle for me so I just went back to Merlin 378.55 firmware. I may try again.

 

[cc666]

So I read this post and got excited about dd-wrt. I did some research on how to flash to my AC87U and spent two hours on trying to flash it. It was just too much of a hassle for me so I just went back to Merlin 378.55 firmware. I may try again.

Its simple to flash. you can flash from the Asus Admin page if you want.
after installing you will be instructed to pull the plug.

Plug back in and let it boot completely up (wait 5 minutes)
After 5 minutes unplug
Push and hold the WPS button in the back and plug in the power - keep holding the button down until you see the first light blinking (about 30 secs)
When you see the first light blink unplug router
Plug back in and let it boot up
your done

CC