Downgrade from AC87R to AC68U?

[DaveMishSr]

OK. I now know why I wasn't going to get the AC87R. The initial rollout of any product is bound to be rocky but this is bad. When I upgraded to 376.2044 my 2.4GHz band assumed a life of its own. It runs on Channel 1 no matter what (unless I use legacy mode which limits speed to 54Mbps) and is listed as having a max speed of 216.7Mbps by inSSIDer. The 5GHz band is also "stuck" on auto but is streaming video without issue. I have to leave adaptive QoS enabled otherwise throughput slows to a crawl.

So now I am contemplating going back to my AC68U until Asus gets its act together. I have tried reflashing, reflashing after a reset to factory defaults and nothing has seemed to correct this.

 

[damir]

OK. I now know why I wasn't going to get the AC87R. The initial rollout of any product is bound to be rocky but this is bad. When I upgraded to 376.2044 my 2.4GHz band assumed a life of its own. It runs on Channel 1 no matter what (unless I use legacy mode which limits speed to 54Mbps) and is listed as having a max speed of 216.7Mbps by inSSIDer. The 5GHz band is also "stuck" on auto but is streaming video without issue. I have to leave adaptive QoS enabled otherwise throughput slows to a crawl.

So now I am contemplating going back to my AC68U until Asus gets its act together. I have tried reflashing, reflashing after a reset to factory defaults and nothing has seemed to correct this.

As said many times, RT-AC87U is way tooo new, you can't expect everything to work as it should (same story was with RT-N16, RT-N66U, RT-AC66U, RT-AC68U and the same story is with RT-AC87U).

You guys simply paid to beta test new hardware\software. *where YOU should be PAID to test it* - RT-AC87U is something i was considering as well, but, it will wait another year or so before i even start considering it.
I was asking around - when we can expect it in Canada, but, after reading multiple forums\issues, i am gonna wait, as most of the people should.
Not gonna spend time i can with my family, or watching movies\playing games, testing and reporting issues to Asus.

I think RT-AC68U is way to go for now, or Netgear R7000 (is what i have it at the moment, and i love it).

 

[LoneWolf]

Odd. What channel bandwidth are you set to for 2.4GHz?

My router was set to channel 1 (auto) on 20Mhz/40MHz, but when I locked it at 40MHz, it went to 6+10 automatically.

Of course, I prefer to have most of my devices on 5GHz anyway; an InSSIDer scan of my neighborhood shows that the nobody else in my range has a 5GHz router, the best after mine are 2.4GHz units with 40MHz channel bandwidth.

Know that ASUS has another firmware scheduled for next week if it passes QC. If you have a return window, you might wish to wait for it.

 

[clayhans]

I Did

OK. I now know why I wasn't going to get the AC87R. The initial rollout of any product is bound to be rocky but this is bad. When I upgraded to 376.2044 my 2.4GHz band assumed a life of its own. It runs on Channel 1 no matter what (unless I use legacy mode which limits speed to 54Mbps) and is listed as having a max speed of 216.7Mbps by inSSIDer. The 5GHz band is also "stuck" on auto but is streaming video without issue. I have to leave adaptive QoS enabled otherwise throughput slows to a crawl.

So now I am contemplating going back to my AC68U until Asus gets its act together. I have tried reflashing, reflashing after a reset to factory defaults and nothing has seemed to correct this.

After 3 days with the AC87R I had enough and went back to my AC68U. I don't want to be a beta tester. I'll wait until the AC87U bugs are ironed out.

 

[DaveMishSr]

OK I finally squared away my AC87R. I redownloaded the 376.2044 file, performed a factory reset, flashed to the original firmware release and then flashed the 376.2044 trx file. Now it is working as it did when purchased.

 

[DaveMishSr]

OK I finally squared away my AC87R. I redownloaded the 376.2044 file, performed a factory reset, flashed to the original firmware release and then flashed the 376.2044 trx file. Now it is working as it did when purchased.

Guess what. My RT-AC87R is doing it again! I didn't change anything from yesterday when it was running fine. I check with inSSIDer and WiFi Analyzer and the 2.4GHz channel is using any channel it wants with 20MHz bandwidth even though those settings yesterday worked just fine. 40 MHz bandwidth with channel set to the set channel I select. Now it is doing exactly what it did before.

 

[RMerlin]

Guess what. My RT-AC87R is doing it again! I didn't change anything from yesterday when it was running fine. I check with inSSIDer and WiFi Analyzer and the 2.4GHz channel is using any channel it wants with 20MHz bandwidth even though those settings yesterday worked just fine. 40 MHz bandwidth with channel set to the set channel I select. Now it is doing exactly what it did before.

The router will downgrade to 20 MHz if there's any interference. This is a requirement of the 802.11 standards. What is happening is simply that your neighbour causing interference wasn't actively using his network yesterday, and now it is, forcing the router to downgrade to 20 MHz.

 

[jim769]

The router will downgrade to 20 MHz if there's any interference. This is a requirement of the 802.11 standards. What is happening is simply that your neighbour causing interference wasn't actively using his network yesterday, and now it is, forcing the router to downgrade to 20 MHz.

That should not cause the router to switch channels if you have selected a channel of your choice and not set to auto. I understand the router forcing 20 MHZ but not force a channel change.

 

[DaveMishSr]

The router will downgrade to 20 MHz if there's any interference. This is a requirement of the 802.11 standards. What is happening is simply that your neighbour causing interference wasn't actively using his network yesterday, and now it is, forcing the router to downgrade to 20 MHz.

That may be true but I have a shirtload of neighbors and all are running WiFi networks. The AC68U, AC66U or N66U never had a problem with interference. Even if this is the case why are inSSIDer & WiFi Analyzer reporting that the 2.4GHz band is using channel 1 even though I have it configured to run on channel 6 fixed?

 

[RMerlin]

That should not cause the router to switch channels if you have selected a channel of your choice and not set to auto. I understand the router forcing 20 MHZ but not force a channel change.

The channel switching to a different one isn't normal, it's simply a well known bug, and something that is done by the closed-source wireless driver, so I can't do anything about it.

 

[DaveMishSr]

The channel switching to a different one isn't normal, it's simply a well known bug, and something that is done by the closed-source wireless driver, so I can't do anything about it.

Well I tried another factory default and have flashed the firmware that shipped with it, version 376.1779, and am not going up to 376.2044. It ran fine until I tried upgrading to 376.2044. Perhaps leaving 376.1779 in place will help solve my issue.

 

[DaveMishSr]

The channel switching to a different one isn't normal, it's simply a well known bug, and something that is done by the closed-source wireless driver, so I can't do anything about it.

I never expected you to do anything Merlin. This is the first I have heard about the bug. So far the router has been stable running 376.1779 for 12 hours as of this writing. This "hijacking" of the router as I call it has only occurred with 376.2044 and your 376.44_beta3. So here's to keeping one's fingers, and toes, crossed...

 

[DaveMishSr]

I have had my AC87R running for 40 hours now on the firmware it shipped with, version 376.1779. If my router were to be "hijacked", for lack of a better term, it would have happened by now. Every time I upgrade to 376.2044, or Merlin's builds that are based on that code, the router will only broadcast at any channel other than channel 1 in the 2.4GHz band is to set it to legacy mode but that limits connection speed to 54Mbps.

 

[DaveMishSr]

I keep seeing this error message in the system log:

Aug 4 16:48:35 kernel: Dead loop on virtual device vlan2, fix it urgently!

Does anyone have any idea what that means?

 

[sinshiva]

I keep seeing this error message in the system log:

Aug 4 16:48:35 kernel: Dead loop on virtual device vlan2, fix it urgently!

Does anyone have any idea what that means?

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18450

 

[DaveMishSr]

OK so I have tried upgrading again to Merlin 376.44 release version. I performed a factory reset on 376.779, the firmware it shipped with, and let the router upgrade itself to 376.2044. Then I performed another reset to factory default and flashed Merlin's 376.44_0. The router has been running stable for 5 hours and the 2.4GHz band is still set to channel 6! I am now very, cautiously optimistic that this time the router has been successfully updated.

 

[RMerlin]

OK so I have tried upgrading again to Merlin 376.44 release version. I performed a factory reset on 376.779, the firmware it shipped with, and let the router upgrade itself to 376.2044. Then I performed another reset to factory default and flashed Merlin's 376.44_0. The router has been running stable for 5 hours and the 2.4GHz band is still set to channel 6! I am now very, cautiously optimistic that this time the router has been successfully updated.

No need for all those acrobatics When you flash a firmware, it completely replaces whatever previous firmware it was running, and when you do a factory default reset, it replaces all settings with the default settings from the FW you are currently running.

So, you can directly flash to the desired version, and do the factory default reset right after flashing it.

 

[DaveMishSr]

No need for all those acrobatics When you flash a firmware, it completely replaces whatever previous firmware it was running, and when you do a factory default reset, it replaces all settings with the default settings from the FW you are currently running.

So, you can directly flash to the desired version, and do the factory default reset right after flashing it.

I know and usually I do just that. However, after two failed attempts at flashing 376.2044, or your versions based on that version, I wanted to be extra, super-special-type, anally-redundant! Almost 6 hours of uptime now on your 376.44_0!

 

[3dguru]

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18450

Again this link is DEAD

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Again this link is DEAD

Not entirely true, it works ....
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=18450