Do you feel Asus has abandoned support for the AC66U?

[vdemarco]

My 5G signal dropped again--this time after almost 3 days instead of the typical 12 hours.

I don't know what part my updating the wifi nic card driver helped, but the problem is not solved for my part.

It's better, but I would like this thing to go a little further without needing to be babied.

My 2.5GHz is rock solid and the 5G signal dies every 24 hours now, i have given up and just added a cron job that does a service restart_wireless every morning at 4am.

I am glad that you or somebody talked to Asus and they all know about these issues. so hopefully soon we can have a fix.

 

[Grievous Angel]

My 2.5GHz is rock solid and the 5G signal dies every 24 hours now, i have given up and just added a cron job that does a service restart_wireless every morning at 4am.

I am glad that you or somebody talked to Asus and they all know about these issues. so hopefully soon we can have a fix.

Yo. Wanna give me a cheat sheet on that? Would appreciate very much.

I've used the Telnet client and now my way around a linux command prompt (at a rudimentary level . . I can navigate the folders and probably use vi in a pinch)

 

[vdemarco]

Yo. Wanna give me a cheat sheet on that? Would appreciate very much.

I've used the Telnet client and now my way around a linux command prompt (at a rudimentary level . . I can navigate the folders and probably use vi in a pinch)

add this


#!/bin/sh

# restartwifi every night at 4am
cru a ScheduledWirelessRestart "0 4 * * * /sbin/service restart_wireless"


to a /jffs/scripts/services-start file

make sure services-start is executable

chmod a+rwx /jffs/scripts/services-start

this all assumes that you have turned on the jffs partition (you have to be running a merlin build)

 

[Arrow]

So if there really is an issue (I'm not convinced yet it's not something that can be resolved through adjusting the router settings), it must be specific to only some network cards model, and not be present on the Centrino 6230.

Well, you're not using an AC adapter either.

And while it probably doesn't matter, I'm also running Windows 8 x64 Pro.

I just updated the driver for a USB-AC53. No difference.

The only thing that works is clicking apply or rebooting the router.

 

[Arrow]

I am glad that you or somebody talked to Asus and they all know about these issues

I wouldn't be so sure. One rep claims not to be able to reproduce the problem. In fact, this representative went so far as to suggest ISP congestion, despite the fact this issue has nothing to do with ISPs.

 

[virtueme]

I would consider looking for a driver update from Intel if you haven't done so already.

I have the latest update from Intel.

But it looks like the 5GHz dies often. But sometimes it manages to rise from the dead. I'm only using the 5GHz between my ac66u router and the ac66u mediabridge. My Intel 6300 N card is only using the 2.4 GHz against the mediabridge. I'm not sure, but it looks like it could be a memory leakage between the 2.4 and the 5 that causes 5 to go down.

 

[mikeg]

If you search the forum under AC66U you will read about this problem with 5 GHz signal dies or signal degradation several months ago.
I have been having this problem with my AC66U for more than 6 months now.
Asus has taken a chunk of my money as I have bought their USB-N53 just to eliminate any problems with the built in wifi-driver on my Dell Inspiron 1720.
Would be interesting to see how Asus are planning to compensate us with this problem. I do not find it acceptable to have to wait so LONG time to fix
this problem. Jeremy at Asus knows about the issue but I wonder how many AC66U-owners who has this problem ?

My 2.5GHz is rock solid and the 5G signal dies every 24 hours now, i have given up and just added a cron job that does a service restart_wireless every morning at 4am.

I am glad that you or somebody talked to Asus and they all know about these issues. so hopefully soon we can have a fix.

 

[vdemarco]

If you search the forum under AC66U you will read about this problem with 5 GHz signal dies or signal degradation several months ago.
I have been having this problem with my AC66U for more than 6 months now.
Asus has taken a chunk of my money as I have bought their USB-N53 just to eliminate any problems with the built in wifi-driver on my Dell Inspiron 1720.
Would be interesting to see how Asus are planning to compensate us with this problem. I do not find it acceptable to have to wait so LONG time to fix
this problem. Jeremy at Asus knows about the issue but I wonder how many AC66U-owners who has this problem ?

I am hoping that this constant complaining from all of us will make some noise and help get this fixed.

Until this thread i thought it was just me.

It does seem to depend what the client is. For me all of my clients are Macs. WHich is weird cuz all of the macs have a Broadcom chip and Broadcom drivers, which is exactly the same thing that the ac66u has.

 

[oshia86]

To be fair, I don't think it's a plus on Asus's side that they provide firmware updates long after the product is no longer manufactured when it seems they are just taking longer to get to where they should have been on release day. Why even get excited about new features? They won't get them ironed out until the the next series of routers are out anyway. This, imo, makes the product pointless.

Now, I don't think every Asus product is this bad, and I realize I seem to have got the short end of the stick with multiple AC66U's (what are the odds?). It is, however, reflective of my personal experience with their equipment.

 

[DaveMishSr]

To be fair, I don't think it's a plus on Asus's side that they provide firmware updates long after the product is no longer manufactured when it seems they are just taking longer to get to where they should have been on release day. Why even get excited about new features? They won't get them ironed out until the the next series of routers are out anyway. This, imo, makes the product pointless.

Now, I don't think every Asus product is this bad, and I realize I seem to have got the short end of the stick with multiple AC66U's (what are the odds?). It is, however, reflective of my personal experience with their equipment.

My luck has been exactly the opposite, I have two RT-AC66U's and both were purchased as "open box specials" from two different retailers. I paid ~$255 for both and each has run flawlessly for me aside from a few hiccups initially with the 354 Beta firmware. With that said though it has now been five months since an official firmware has been issued for their flagship wireless router. Even the 354 Beta is now three months old and counting. It is now time for some support for those of us who took the plunge and adopted the 802.11ac WiFi technology.

 

[Grievous Angel]

I can't believe this is a quality control issue (with the hardware). ASUS makes a ton of hardware and I think that's their specialty. Let's face it--they aren't software people or aren't known for their software ... I don't know--maybe they make BIOS for their motherboards and laptops? I understand they put their spin on DD-WRT.

I think it's some sort of combination of 5Gz wireless cards interacting in a way with the router that causes it to drop signal. Some people don't experience drops whatsoever. I was at about 12 hours--I updated my driver and went 3 days before a drop.

I won't pretend it makes sense. But that seems to be to be the biggest variable--all the varying devices (and numbers of devices) we connect to the 5G band of the AC66U.

No, for real--that's on ASUS. My Airport Extreme took all comers. As did the two netgear routers before it. It has to be a software issue, and they need to fix it.

 

[vdemarco]

I just got an email from Jeremy at Asus.

The short part of the message was this

From Jeremy--

We are looking in to the problem, but have not found consistent results. I don't see the degrading speeds on the AC66u that I have for testing. It is also more difficult to check for because of the amount of time it takes.

Can you tell me which version of firmware you are using?
Do you see the speeds slowing down on all of your connections?
What wireless adaptor(s) do you have connected to the router?

Anything else you can provide about your setup would be appreciated.

---

I have nothing but Macs hooked connected wirelessly and only the 5Ghz band is having issues, 2.5 is working great.

I am guessing, that this is occurring because i use the machines for a few hours then they go to sleep. and this repeats with the iPads iPhones etc..
I was hoping that everyone that has this issue post the answers to the above questions from Jeremy.

 

[Grievous Angel]

I trust you made reference to this forum and the other people affected by this?

 

[vdemarco]

I trust you made reference to this forum and the other people affected by this?

Yeah, that was the first part of the email to him.

I think he just needs more info. I know what when i have to fix a bug, i need a reproducible case, so i know that i have actually fixed it.

I am hoping that we all either contact him via email (best) or maybe post here.

He needs more info to fix this.

 

[jonstatt]

Yeah, that was the first part of the email to him.

I think he just needs more info. I know what when i have to fix a bug, i need a reproducible case, so i know that i have actually fixed it.

I am hoping that we all either contact him via email (best) or maybe post here.

He needs more info to fix this.

Yes but memory leaks, race conditions and things like this rarely have a reproducible test case unless you get very lucky. In order to narrow down the true cause, a diagnostic firmware build should be created that logs specifics about signal strength or whatever else the developers feel appropriate. That instrumented build should then be given to a user experiencing the issue and hopefully then more data is gathered. Simply stating "We cannot reproduce it" is quite frankly an escape route and not taking the issue seriously.

 

[vdemarco]

Yes but memory leaks, race conditions and things like this rarely have a reproducible test case unless you get very lucky. In order to narrow down the true cause, a diagnostic firmware build should be created that logs specifics about signal strength or whatever else the developers feel appropriate. That instrumented build should then be given to a user experiencing the issue and hopefully then more data is gathered. Simply stating "We cannot reproduce it" is quite frankly an escape route and not taking the issue seriously.

Yeah you are right of course.

 

[virtueme]

So damned frustrated

Today my routers have been bugging me all day long. Even after a restart of the mediabridge I can't get a stable network at all.

The symptoms are:

- Some devices are connected
- Some devices looses their ip-address (Wifi or cabled)
- If i loose the connection (the wifi reports that it's connected ) and if I "forget" my wifi connection, and reconnect I can get access to the net again.
- If I connect directly to the router and back again to the mediabridge I get access to the internet, but I can't connect to the webserver on the mediabridge (That is the strangest part of it in my eyes).

Todays change was to set the main router in AP mode. It worked like a charm for some hours, but when I started to connect clients on the mediabridge the trouble started. It's all about the 5Ghz network link between the routers. It looks like I have to put in a cable to overcome this issues. If so, I will return these expensive "bricks" and get my money back.

I was not happy with the old Netgear WNDR4000 with my 2 WN200RPT repeaters, but at least they worked for some days before I had to reset my repeaters. Now I'm happy if I get some couple of hours from AC66U mediabrigde.

Edit:

The strangest thing is that when I can't connect to internet, I see traffic from other peers when I'm looking at the traffic in wireshark. But my machine seends out a lot of
ARP Who has 10.0.0.x ? Tell 10.0.0.112 (my machine). It looks like there is a routing problem in the Asus box between in the 5 GHz network. As of now I'm connected to the internet, my mediabridge will not answer to any of my calls. Device discovery claims that on of my routers (most likely the mediabridge) has taken the address 192.168.1.1.

Edit 2:
The fix: restart_wireless

It looks like their is a issue in tomato firmware (which asuswrt is built on) http://moonlightknighthk.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/install-tomato-firmware-on-asus-router/
But it might not be related.


Benny

 

[vdemarco]

Got this email from Jeremy

We are working on identifying the problem and do appreciate the details you have provided. I am not sure when, but it should be included in a firmware update. Make sure to check our website - www.asus.com/Networking/RTAC66U/#support_Download
for the firmware updates. Each version lists a change log which will detail what has been changed/improved.

Going to be positive and take that to mean an update will be out soon

 

[mikeg]

Well I have been in touch with Jeremy a couple ot fimes too regarding the 5 GHz band problem. It is hard to be positive and wait for an update when I have been waiting for this for more than 6 months now.

Got this email from Jeremy

We are working on identifying the problem and do appreciate the details you have provided. I am not sure when, but it should be included in a firmware update. Make sure to check our website - www.asus.com/Networking/RTAC66U/#support_Download
for the firmware updates. Each version lists a change log which will detail what has been changed/improved.

Going to be positive and take that to mean an update will be out soon

 

[Michael Scott]

I am hoping that this constant complaining from all of us will make some noise and help get this fixed.

Until this thread i thought it was just me.

It does seem to depend what the client is. For me all of my clients are Macs. WHich is weird cuz all of the macs have a Broadcom chip and Broadcom drivers, which is exactly the same thing that the ac66u has.

Apparently NOT, buddy, cause here I am FOUR YEARS LATER with a six-month old AC66U sitting on my desk that WON'T run in 5Ghz.

And on top of that, (see my other post), the 5Ghz WAS working two weeks ago (when I didn't need it) but when I went into the setup page to get my 5gig working, I saw a "firmware update" notification.....so I made the fatal mistake of downloading and installing it.
Now, not only do I not have 5Ghz capability, I can no longer "see" my Apple Airport Express in order to run iTunes music wirelessly off my Macbook to my stereo. BUMMER.