GT-BE98 WIFI 7

[L&LD]

Hope always dies last.

However, with hardware, only pay for what you get 'today'. Never assume anything will be delivered (even if marketing promises otherwise).

 

[madhatter01]

do you see better range with the 2 or 5 ghz bands

A little better then the GT-AXE16000 for those bands. My Samsung Fold 5 will not connect to 6ghz unless I am right in front and no more the 10 feet. I about have to force it. I think its more Samsung bug then Asus. My Asus laptop with a BE200 Wifi 7 card connects fine on 6ghz at 35ft and one wall. I do get full bars downstairs and across the house on 5ghz. Maybe I missed the option, but I wish there was a force device to 6Ghz band.

 

[madhatter01]

Using an Intel BE200 card, I'm obtaining only 108/2882 Mbps D/U speed in 6GHz band; in 5GHz is 2882/2882 Mbps.
Also, I understand this router will have a later MLO implementation, should I hope for doubling the speed?
Then, it's a nightmare working with older ESP8266 IoT devices; finally I disabled every bit of technology older than WiFi4 in 2.4GHz band.

In theory you can get your highest speed on 5ghz and 6ghz, BUT I would minus 20% for overhead. Its only a guess until Windows, the driver for the nic and the router get updated.

 

[L&LD]

To only use a 6GHz band, only associate your device(s) on that SSID.

 

[codyrocco]

there's no other 802.11 activity in 6ghz band in my neighborhood , other than my two devices

anyway, further tests raised some particular questions: if i'm using only 160MHz channel in 6GHz band, reported (and live tested) speed is also 2882/2882; 320MHz channel will throw me back in 108/2882; changing channels (no auto) will bring mixed results, anyway no more than 2882/2882.
I believe it's about country set for wireless - in Europe only the lower part of 6GHz band is available (and 320MHz channel isn't available in my location, something like that):
wl3_country_abbrev_override=DE
wl3_country_code=E0
wl3_country_rev=101
which I could modify, just I'm not in the mood to experiment with a 1000€ equipment yet. Maybe a future Merlin fw will bring this option.

 

[RMerlin]

which I could modify, just I'm not in the mood to experiment with a 1000€ equipment yet. Maybe a future Merlin fw will bring this option.

The region is hardcoded and cannot be changed.

 

[codyrocco]

The region is hardcoded and cannot be changed.

changing those country_* variables in nvram will not produce any effect? sure, even in lower part of 6GHz band I have a 320Mhz channel, should be enough, but I'm wondering if is possible.

 

[RMerlin]

changing those country_* variables in nvram will not produce any effect? sure, even in lower part of 6GHz band I have a 320Mhz channel, should be enough, but I'm wondering if is possible.

The wireless driver may ignore it, and the bootloader may also revert them at boot time.

Regions are locked down at the hardware level due to local regulations.

 

[sfx2000]

The wireless driver may ignore it, and the bootloader may also revert them at boot time.

Regions are locked down at the hardware level due to local regulations.

My experiences with WL is that it will say "ok," and then politely ignore it on some of the WL commands...

There's some OTP/eFuses that get popped on production just for this reason...

 

[codyrocco]

My experiences with WL is that it will say "ok," and then politely ignore it on some of the WL commands...

There's some OTP/eFuses that get popped on production just for this reason...

Strictly academically speaking, I observed that some manufacturers will let you choose another country, giving access to respective channel range, selectable and usable. QCA, for example.
I set country_abbrev_override to US for test, is kept after restart, but I know that other settings must be modified accordingly - country_set and country_rev, values which I don't know.

 

[ffodi]

Same here using GT-AX11000 as a mesh node.
Additionally, I also noticed, that the guest network settings (e.g. access intranet) are not properly forwarded to the mesh nodes.


Performance is very good in my opinion. I have tested it using ProtonVPN (Wireguard), result can be seen in the attachment (native speed is 800/25 Mbps).

And here are some other experiences and bugs using the latest firmware (33001), which I have reported to Asus as well:
1. 6 GHz SSID can not be hidden, even with "Hide SSID = yes" the SSID is visible.
2. "Smart Connect rules" is a mess, settings are not saved and/or not shown properly.
3. If the WAN/LAN1 connector is used for WAN connection, the VPN speed (Wireguard) is capped at about 170 Mbps, else (10G WAN) see result below.
4. VLAN not possible using WAN/LAN-1.
5. If you enable link aggregation, the 10G (LAN6) and 1G (LAN5) are bonded, despite the fact, that GUI says LAN1+LAN2 (which would be logical...). I don't want to comment this.
6. After a reboot there are cases when Wireguard client needs to be reconnected manually. GUI says "Connected", but there is no Internet at all.
7. Guest network pro: Where to start...
- There is no MAC filtering option
- The WPA2 password is limited to 32 characters (instead of 64 as shown by the GUI).
- If a guest network is created with the same subnet as the main network (so without VLAN), intranet access is always on (no matter if client isolation is enabled and/or intranet access is disabled).
- If a guest network is created with VLAN and a local DNS resolver is set (WAN), DNS resolving is not functional for this subnet until the server address is set manually to the subnet's gateway address.
- VLAN port isolation is not functional (settings are not saved)
- If the subnet mask for a guest network (using VLAN) is other than 255.255.255.0 error messages are generated in the log.

In addition to these, the router is quite stable and wired/wireless transfer speeds (LAN and WAN) are better compared to my "old" GT-AX11000.
You can see an example in the attachement, where the "system structure" is the following:

Server(host) <10 GbE> BE98 <WiFi6 5GHz_2> AX11000 4x4 as media bridge <2.5 GbE> PC (client)
Distance: approx. 8 m + 1 lightweight wall in between

A new firmware version 3.0.0.6.102_33570 is available on the official website.
Some previously detailed issues are resolved now, but not all of them...

1, Not fixed
2, Fixed
3, Not tested
4, This is a HW/FW limitation
5, Fixed
6, Fixed
7, WPA password length and port isolation functions are fixed, MAC filter option still not available, had no time to test all listed points

 

[codyrocco]

Manually updated fw, reported speeds improved in 6GHz:

probably just modified those numbers (yeah, C., tell us, how much do you want to display there? ) ) , iperf shows ~1.2Gbps transfer

 

[Plak]

Damn that's some crazy speeds! Hopefully they release firmware for the PRO model soon as well.

 

[codyrocco]

1469/1469 - windows speed reporting, which seems to be more realistic. And only if i force 320MHz channel in 6GHz band, also control channel set to auto.
Anyway, real speeds won't exceed 1.2Gbps. Almost sufficient for a DAS connected to router's USB 3 port - ~160MB/s read, ~100MB/s write, on ntfs partition (using wired 2.5Gbps connection), DAS maximum speed being 230MB/s R/W (connected directly to PC)
Also, i'd like to see implemented a compatibility mode for Samba, for older but still great devices, like Oppo BDPs; bonding for LAN1&2, not LAN5&6 (which personally consider to be useless, like, what difference will make 11Gbps link versus 10Gbps?); activity LEDs to stay off after a network restart, if set.

 

[glens]

iperf shows ~1.2Gbps transfer

I can get just about that wireless client to wireless client using 160MHz wifi 6 (different APs connected via 2.5Gb ethernet).

 

[codyrocco]

I can get just about that wireless client to wireless client using 160MHz wifi 6 (different APs connected via 2.5Gb ethernet).

well, the difference resides in marketing

 

[glens]

Agreed

 

[ffodi]

Well, after some testing it turned out that LAN speed (wireless) is very unstable with the new firmware (33570) especially if at least one WireGuard client is active (?!).

Sometimes, during e.g. copying bigger files between a local server (wired) and a wireless client, one CPU core is fully utilized and the transfer speed is heavily fluctuating.
Previously, I could measure (using locally hosted speedtest) stable download speeds of around 1,8-2 Gbps using a Wifi6 client near (3-4 m) to the router, now it is usually 700-800 Mbps, sometimes going down to approx. 200 Mbps.

Despite the fact, that some problems were fixed in the new FW, rolled back to 33001 for now...

 

[AndyD]

A new firmware version 3.0.0.6.102_33570 is available on the official website.
Some previously detailed issues are resolved now, but not all of them...

1, Not fixed
2, Fixed
3, Not tested
4, This is a HW/FW limitation
5, Fixed
6, Fixed
7, WPA password length and port isolation functions are fixed, MAC filter option still not available, had no time to test all listed points

ASUS GT-BE98 Firmware version 3.0.0.6.102_33570

Version 3.0.0.6.102_33570
64.98 MB 2024/01/31
Bug Fixes and Enhancements:

- Resolved the issue of the client being unable to bind on the AiMesh node.
- Fixed the problem where an AiMesh node could not broadcast WiFi signal normally - when creating a Guest Network Pro WiFi-only
- Corrected the UI display error related to Link Aggregation.
- Addressed the error in the Guest Portal function.
- Enhanced the stability of the AiMesh system.
- Resolved issues where Guest Network Pro and VPN connections were unable to access the internet due to DNS errors occurring when certain functions were activated.
- Removed execute mode from the backup file.
- Addressed translation issues in Guest Network Pro - Guest Portal - Terms of Service.
- Corrected the VPN WireGuard client profile name issue.
- Modified VPN routing rules.
- Fixed the access LAN issue after deleting the IoT Network.
- Addressed the VPN default connection issue.

Please unzip the firmware file, and then verify the checksum.

SHA256:
62d3f73da44d5eb61d60a9aad9e9e49d53a9488535494680baa6791af2be0f58

 

[ffodi]

ASUS GT-BE98 Firmware version 3.0.0.6.102_33570

Version 3.0.0.6.102_33570
64.98 MB 2024/01/31
Bug Fixes and Enhancements:

- Resolved the issue of the client being unable to bind on the AiMesh node.
- Fixed the problem where an AiMesh node could not broadcast WiFi signal normally - when creating a Guest Network Pro WiFi-only
- Corrected the UI display error related to Link Aggregation.
- Addressed the error in the Guest Portal function.
- Enhanced the stability of the AiMesh system.
- Resolved issues where Guest Network Pro and VPN connections were unable to access the internet due to DNS errors occurring when certain functions were activated.
- Removed execute mode from the backup file.
- Addressed translation issues in Guest Network Pro - Guest Portal - Terms of Service.
- Corrected the VPN WireGuard client profile name issue.
- Modified VPN routing rules.
- Fixed the access LAN issue after deleting the IoT Network.
- Addressed the VPN default connection issue.

Please unzip the firmware file, and then verify the checksum.

SHA256:
62d3f73da44d5eb61d60a9aad9e9e49d53a9488535494680baa6791af2be0f58

Thank you, I saw the updated changelog on the website as well.
Good to see that these problems were addressed, but it is time to report newly observed ones.

Maybe I will try the new FW after a factory reset again, because last time it was only a dirty update.