Horrid N66U Dual-Band Wifi

[Jamster001]

Hoping to get a helping resolution to this irritating issue. I have TWC 50/5 internet. I have my own Motorola SB6141 (white) modem which is brand new and not refurbished. Connectted to the modem is a 6 month old Asus RT-N66U router. When I connect ethernet directly from laptop to modem, I get my speeds. When connected to either 2.4 or 5 Ghz wifi, I get the following:

I am running Merlin's em_2 firmware and was sure to do a reset and reconfigure prior to updating. I have tried 1, 6, and 11 channel on 2.4 and different channels on 5Ghz. The only change I mad was to the power from 80 to 100 power. I made sure QOS was disabled and also WMM was enabled. The above speedtest is recommended when my ISP is troubleshooting and again it shows accurate speeds when directly connected from laptop to modem. I have also tried different ethernet cables. Is their a problem with firmware? Any recommendations?

 

[jlake]

What happens when you connect a laptop to one of the N66u's LAN ports?

Have you removed your old wireless profiles from computers, phones, etc?

Have you tried unplugging your cable modem for 10-20 minutes?

Have you tried cloning your PC's MAC address?

Probably if you search the forum you can see all sorts of problems/solutions that beginners have had in past.

http://kb.linksys.com/Linksys/GetAr...less_Network_Profiles_.xml&pid=80&converted=0

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12825

 

[jlake]

Most people reset to defaults and reconfigure from scratch after the update and not before.

 

[RogerSC]

Yes, I don't understand why you would reset and reconfigure before flashing the new firmware. You need to reset after flashing new firmware, and manually re-enter your settings after the reset to factory defaults. I think that if you do that, you may well find your problems cleared up.

 

[stevech]

Don't use WiFi when assessing ISP speeds.

WiFi speeds are of course governed, mostly, by
Signal Strength from Client Device at router's receiver
Signal Strength from Router at client device
Competition for air time (channel busyness) due to high traffic at neighbors. The number of SSIDs seen in a WiFi survey is not important.
Use of 40MHz mode in 2.4GHz is often a net negative.

Crummy hardware, e.g., router with over-driven amplifier causing a distorted transmitted signal, esp. at higher raw WiFi bit rates.

Don't expect WiFi's net IP layer yield in throughput to be much better than 60% of the indicated WiFi connection speed.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
My head is listing one way in puzzlement. OP's subject line is pretty strong statement.
How did it do with stock f/w? Was it bad too like this? Or you updated f/w right out of box? There should be a logic in every thing we do.

 

[Jamster001]

Sorry for any confusions.

I thought I reset router prior to doing a firmware update. I misread; sorry. Anyways, I have tried leaving modem and router powered down for several minutes and restarting modem, waiting for another few min., then powering on router. If I connect my laptop by ethernet to router, I get +/- what I pay for (50/5). BUT when wirelessly connected to either 2.4 or 5 Ghz, I get the speeds I pictured in OP. I am thinking of installing new firmware this afternoon, then reseting router, reconfiguring from scratch and be sure I give the bands totally different SSIDs and removing any old SSIDs from laptop. Hopefully, this will fix the issue. Can SSID passwords and certain settings still be the same? Settings such as Wifi MAC address filtering enabled, hiding the SSID from being broadcast, and changing the default LAN IP and DHCP pool range? Is this okay to do when fully updated to new firmware and AFTER resetting router?

 

[Jamster001]

I also enable a static IP to be used in DMZ for my wired PS3; instead of port-forwarding. Should this static IP that is used for my PS3 be assigned outside my set DHCP pool?

Finally, if I set my PS3 to use that DMZ IP, do I also have to enable UPnP on both the router AND PS3?

Really confused with all of this.

 

[RogerSC]

You don't have to do that. Unless you have a router restore setting file before updating then it's a lot of work especially if you have a lot of settings reconfigured before.

Sometimes it is an absolute MUST to reset your router after upgrading firmware, and re-enter your settings NOT USING A SAVED SETTINGS FILE from the previous firmware version. A saved settings file will contain the nvram variable values from the version on which it was made, and these values may well cause problems in some upgrade situations. Particular changes in the defaults needed by different versions of firmware, such as different versions of wireless drivers, and other changes, can create the situation where if you don't clear the nvram from the previous version, the firmware version that you're upgrading to won't work right.

The further apart the current and next versions of firmware are, the more important this is. For example, if you're switching from Asus stock firmware to RMerlin's firmware, you absolutely need to reset and re-enter your settings.

And, if you're having problems, like wacky wireless speeds, a good way to get your router to a known state for the the current firmware is to simply reset it, and manually re-enter your settings.

There are ways to automate most of the manual set up, but they don't include using a saved settings file for a previous version when upgrading, or a saved settings file made on the current version if you're resetting to factory defaults to fix problems.

I'm sorry if this creates more work, but I find it more frustrating to be dealing with problems that I could have prevented by resetting my router to factory defaults and re-entering my settings than to just do that as a matter of practice.

This is my preference, you can do whatever you want *smile*.

 

[DrTeeth]

It is a PITA to do, and I do not update as often as I would like, but I have taken screenshots of all my settings from the GUI to aid any transfer.

Currently on the last SDK5 build, waiting for the 'em' tweaks of the N66U firmware to become the default.

 

[jim769]

Don't use WiFi when assessing ISP speeds.

WiFi speeds are of course governed, mostly, by
Signal Strength from Client Device at router's receiver
Signal Strength from Router at client device
Competition for air time (channel busyness) due to high traffic at neighbors. The number of SSIDs seen in a WiFi survey is not important.
Use of 40MHz mode in 2.4GHz is often a net negative.

Crummy hardware, e.g., router with over-driven amplifier causing a distorted transmitted signal, esp. at higher raw WiFi bit rates.

Don't expect WiFi's net IP layer yield in throughput to be much better than 60% of the indicated WiFi connection speed.

That's all true except you can and I do get my full speed via wifi I pay for 50/10 and get about 58/12 all tests taken wifi both 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands.

Zoom 5341J and Asus RT-AC68U, 374_39 FW

 

[RogerSC]

That's all true except you can and I do get my full speed via wifi I pay for 50/10 and get about 58/12 all tests taken wifi both 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands.

Zoom 5341J and Asus RT-AC68U, 374_39 FW

I get almost my full wired download speed (28Mbps) on wifi as well. Of course, that's using speedtest.net, and may or may not reflect what I get with real connections.

 

[legitsu]

sounds like a issue with the laptops wifi adapter
also unless you have aftermarket 9dbi antennas keep the tx power between 70 to 82mw as you will most likely make it worse by increasing the tx power without better antennas to handle the gain
1. lower the TX power to 50Mw
2.change to 20Mhz channels
3.disable WMM/QOS
4. make sure the router's antennas are properly aimed DO Resist the Urge to point them in the general direction of the laptop as that will murder the signal
you either want them straight up or in a slight concave-fan pattern

metal walls/lapp board walls will kill wifi signal
as always the higher you can elevate the router the better

 

[jim769]

Disabling WMM is not a good idea it will revert the router back to wireless G standards and his speeds will be no more then 54mbps that translates into real world speeds of about 28 Mbps max. Why would one want to have a great N router and make it perform like a old outdated G router.

 

[DrTeeth]

also unless you have aftermarket 9dbi antennas keep the tx power between 70 to 82mw as you will most likely make it worse by increasing the tx power without better antennas to handle the gain

I'm sorry, but that is just not correct at all. So, according to your logic, the lower the gain the lower the power it can handle? Radio just does not work like that. You are either dead wrong or have explained yourself in a very confusing way.

 

[sm00thpapa]

If you are using your own modem did you call your ISP and tell them you were? If so they need to make a change in the signal coming to your house to use your own personal modem.