I'm giving up with Asus

[pimseb]

I've been looking for months for a mesh system I could install in my quite big house. My goal is to set one main router, 2 satellites wired to the router via an ethernet backhaul, and 1 satellite linked over wifi to another unit.
I also want my connection to switch to 4G when main wan fails.
I've naturally started my tests with Asus as I own a RT-AC88U for 2 years.

- First well known problem : this router randomly looses conection of its 5-8 ethernet ports. Don't expect them to work after an AC power loss. Asus never communicated on this issue beacause it's an hardware problem and they can't do anything.

- Secondly some of my wifi devices don't connect to the router when it reboots or if they loose their connection to it. I have a wifi camera close to the router. Everything worked fine for months with my isp router. With the RT-AC88U it's not the same. Even if I disable Airtime fainess, the connection to this cam isn't reliable.

- Third and the worst thing is the dual wan feature. They shouldn't ommunicate on this feature because it's not working at all. I've set failover and fallback with ping to 8.8.8.8. If I unplug the wan ethernet cable the router will switch to my 4G Huwaei dongle like...let's say 70% of time. But in real life this doesn't happen, nobody will pull the ethernet cable out off the router.
What happens in real life is the fiber connection being lost. So I pull the fiber out of my ONT to see what happens and ... nothing. (alternatively cold-standby, disconnected, dhcp error, ...) The router doesn't switch to the 4G usb connection. Even worse : when I plug the fiber back in the ONT, the router won't go back to the primary WAN. Connection is lost forever.

So ... we have : a connection lost after wan swtich that won't come alive anymore, 4 ethernet ports lost after a power failure, some cameras not connecting to wifi after reboot.
These problems are no go for me => unusable hardware.

I also tried Merlin firmware (with hard reset before and after flashing) : same results

The only good point was the mesh network between my router, my Lyra voice and my RT-AX92U unit. Switching from an access point to another one works good with my phone. I also enjoyed the Lyra voice (even if the speaker quality could be better).

I really wanted everything to work and to use Asus in my house. But now I'm so disappointed. I only can send everything back and sell all this Asus stuff . I'll give now Synology a try.
Sorry for average english

 

[ClemDaddy]

Interestingly, my reason to throw away asus is its aimesh implementation. In your case that's its strong point! I don't use the features you have issues with and i haven't noticed the port failure on a power loss. I do rarely have to power cycle but i don't recall it being due to power loss. I had tomato firmware prior to switching to aimesh and never had to power cycle.

My main issue with aimesh is when video chatting (skype or FaceTime). Most noticeable on ios devices (less often with android). When i walk between access points , the handover is not seamless. A lot of times the connection simple drops all together and I have to recall the person.

Other than video chat, i don't notice the mesh hand-offs (as it should be).

Curious if you are able to seamlessly walk between access points multiple times within a call without interruption.

Thanks

 

[OzarkEdge]

I've been looking for months for a mesh system I could install in my quite big house. My goal is to set one main router, 2 satellites wired to the router via an ethernet backhaul, and 1 satellite linked over wifi to another unit.
I also want my connection to switch to 4G when main wan fails.
I've naturally started my tests with Asus as I own a RT-AC88U for 2 years.

- First well known problem : this router randomly looses conection of its 5-8 ethernet ports. Don't expect them to work after an AC power loss. Asus never communicated on this issue beacause it's an hardware problem and they can't do anything.

- Secondly some of my wifi devices don't connect to the router when it reboots or if they loose their connection to it. I have a wifi camera close to the router. Everything worked fine for months with my isp router. With the RT-AC88U it's not the same. Even if I disable Airtime fainess, the connection to this cam isn't reliable.

- Third and the worst thing is the dual wan feature. They shouldn't ommunicate on this feature because it's not working at all. I've set failover and fallback with ping to 8.8.8.8. If I unplug the wan ethernet cable the router will switch to my 4G Huwaei dongle like...let's say 70% of time. But in real life this doesn't happen, nobody will pull the ethernet cable out off the router.
What happens in real life is the fiber connection being lost. So I pull the fiber out of my ONT to see what happens and ... nothing. (alternatively cold-standby, disconnected, dhcp error, ...) The router doesn't switch to the 4G usb connection. Even worse : when I plug the fiber back in the ONT, the router won't go back to the primary WAN. Connection is lost forever.

So ... we have : a connection lost after wan swtich that won't come alive anymore, 4 ethernet ports lost after a power failure, some cameras not connecting to wifi after reboot.
These problems are no go for me => unusable hardware.

I also tried Merlin firmware (with hard reset before and after flashing) : same results

The only good point was the mesh network between my router, my Lyra voice and my RT-AX92U unit. Switching from an access point to another one works good with my phone. I also enjoyed the Lyra voice (even if the speaker quality could be better).

I really wanted everything to work and to use Asus in my house. But now I'm so disappointed. I only can send everything back and sell all this Asus stuff . I'll give now Synology a try.
Sorry for average english

I would use a different AiMesh router that didn't have hardware issues.

OE

 

[pimseb]

@ClemDaddy I didn't test a facetime call over Aimesh. But I walked through my house with a wifi analyzer app. I was quite happy with the results. Sometimes the signal dropped quickly to 0. I think it would end up a the call then. But maybe it was an area where I should add another hotspot.

@OzarkEdge yeah I could try the AX92U as main router and see if everything works better. But do you think that double wan is better on this unit than on the old Rt-ac88u ? I've read everywhere that the failover doesn't work well. Maybe this quite new model would do the job ?

 

[ligeza]

I'm also thinking about to give up with Asus. I have 2 x AC86U and AC68U. I tried all possible configuration, "nuclear reset" and still some clients drops WiFi and can't connect again. I thought that one router is broken and replaced it for new one, but it doesn't helped. Maybe I have to many wifi clients (about 30)? Is there any limit?

 

[SeeSawSam]

I'm also thinking about to give up with Asus. I have 2 x AC86U and AC68U. I tried all possible configuration, "nuclear reset" and still some clients drops WiFi and can't connect again. I thought that one router is broken and replaced it for new one, but it doesn't helped. Maybe I have to many wifi clients (about 30)? Is there any limit?

i can answer the easy question. I have ~70 clients (~60 wifi). So the 'limit' is north of that.

 

[OzarkEdge]

@OzarkEdge yeah I could try the AX92U as main router and see if everything works better. But do you think that double wan is better on this unit than on the old Rt-ac88u ? I've read everywhere that the failover doesn't work well. Maybe this quite new model would do the job ?

You'll have to turn it ON and try it. If it's anything like trying to use a router-attached USB HDD for network storage, I would not depend on it. Good networking should not tolerate occasional issues that undermine uptime and purpose.

Establish the highest spec router as the router. Once that is working reliably, continue building out the network one step at a time. If it's iffy, stop and fix it or replace it. Once it feels right and you can trust it, then you can build on it and your users can depend on it.

OE

 

[bbunge]

I'm also thinking about to give up with Asus. I have 2 x AC86U and AC68U. I tried all possible configuration, "nuclear reset" and still some clients drops WiFi and can't connect again. I thought that one router is broken and replaced it for new one, but it doesn't helped. Maybe I have to many wifi clients (about 30)? Is there any limit?

Would be glad to accept your Asus routers as a donation for a not for profit I volunteer with. We refurb PC's to (almost) give away to folks that need them and recycle what dosen't work. Am looking to upgrade the AC68U's there into a mesh system.

 

[dosborne]

First well known problem : this router randomly looses conection of its 5-8 ethernet ports. Don't expect them to work after an AC power loss.

Would installing a UPS in your environment be an option? Personally, all my infrastructure equipment runs on UPS power. May be worth considering regardless of what you end up doing with your routers.

 

[Tech Focus]

I for one departed from my Wifi 6 Aimesh setup I had it for a whole year. It was decent but not the best due to lack of stability. I think Aimesh is great concept and I was truly excited when I first saw it but way too many hardware combination and implementation for any company to ensure full compatibility. It is the dilemma of tech. More options/features, more potential issue and user commitment required.

 

[MarkyPancake]

I guess there are many variables at play that can interfere with AiMesh performance, as I'm using an 86U router downstairs and 68U node upstairs via DWB, both on Merlin 384.17, and it's performing great and is solid. Great signal and throughput all round the house on both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks, despite many 2.4 and 5 GHz networks all around us from neighbours.

 

[sanke1]

Dual WAN failover has NEVER worked for ANYONE ever, including myself. I gave up on that idea long ago after I tried it on RT-AC68U, RT-AC88U and now on my RT-AX88U. My RT-AX88U has different 8 port problem. 1-4 ports are extremely slow to gain IP address from DHCP (10-15 seconds) and the remaining 5-8 ports get DHCP IP in 1 second. Merlin had mentioned that Asus is NOT using 2 4 port switches with 1 gigabit interconnect in RT-AX88U. But looks like 8 LAN ports behave like 2 x 4 port switches on all 3 of my RT-AX88U units. If true, it is an incredibly dumb design. Basically I just don't use ports 1-4 as they cause instability in my entire network.
AX88U has got a first (somewhat) stable firmware in May 2020 after 1.5 years of being on sale. How incompetent can your software engineers be to be unable code a stable firmware after so long? Even Merlin firmware is more stable.

 

[Pak Kriss]

Dual WAN failover has NEVER worked for ANYONE ever, including myself. I gave up on that idea long ago after I tried it on RT-AC68U, RT-AC88U and now on my RT-AX88U. My RT-AX88U has different 8 port problem. 1-4 ports are extremely slow to gain IP address from DHCP (10-15 seconds) and the remaining 5-8 ports get DHCP IP in 1 second. Merlin had mentioned that Asus is NOT using 2 4 port switches with 1 gigabit interconnect in RT-AX88U. But looks like 8 LAN ports behave like 2 x 4 port switches on all 3 of my RT-AX88U units. If true, it is an incredibly dumb design. Basically I just don't use ports 1-4 as they cause instability in my entire network.
AX88U has got a first (somewhat) stable firmware in May 2020 after 1.5 years of being on sale. How incompetent can your software engineers be to be unable code a stable firmware after so long? Even Merlin firmware is more stable.

Works well since 1 year after I understand the underlying mechanics

Sent from my SM-T805 using Tapatalk

 

[pimseb]

I totally agree with sanke1 : dual wan never worked well. Just do a search on the forum and you will find it out.
I solved the problem : synology rt2600ac works like a charm. It switches from first to second wan within 30 seconds and comes back to the first connection as quickly. It works in every way : pulling out the ethernet cable or the fiber cable.

Even better, my wlan coverge significally increased compared to my asus router. For me this thread is now closed...

Below : wifi mesured 2 rooms away from router