Is anyone able to use 5GHz?

[mightyoakbob]

I am finding the 5GHz wireless network to be pretty useless. I had a set of issues with one router and got Amazon to swap it out thinking it was faulty but the replacement has the same problem.

The router is set to 40MHz width and there are no signals from neighbours at this frequency. Using inssider on a Sony laptop the signal is very unstable swapping continuously from 40 to 20 to nothing at all and then back to 40. This repeats over and over again.

For a few hours I did get it stable long enough to connect a computer to it and although inssider said it was a 450 connection speeds were appallingly bad. I couldn't get more than 30Mb/s or around 3MB/s from my NAS.

I have kept an eye on temperature and find that the 5GHz is usually 2c lower than the 2.4 temperature at 51c.

I have been using the original firmware .260 and the Merlin build .254.27 but both versions have the same issues on both routers.

Have to say I'm very disappointed with this router indeed. Is anyone doing any better, if so how?

Thanks,

Bob.

 

[SoCalReviews]

I'm using the RT-N66U's 5Ghz radio broadcast with 40mhz bandwidth connected to a Trendnet TEW-680MB wireless bridge. The performance is fantastic. The connection is rock solid and stable. The 2.4Ghz band is crowded where I live so the 5Ghz band tends to be more reliable (never drops) than 2.4Ghz with 40mhz bandwidth and higher performance than 2.4Ghz with 20mhz bandwidth.

The only problem with 5Ghz and this applies to ALL 5Ghz radios is that it's range is almost always going to be less (weaker signal strength) than 2.4Ghz when used indoors at medium to longer distances. This has to do with the nature of the 5Ghz frequency and it's tendency to be have problems going through solid objects like reinforced walls more than 2.4Ghz. 5Ghz tends to bounce off solid objects and is best used when it's in line of site or short distances where the signal can bounce around objects to reach it's 5Ghz clients. Your physical environment puts the biggest limitations on 5Ghz and that has little to do with your RT-N66U router's 5Ghz radio. In areas saturated by 2.4Ghz broadcasts and when used over shorter distances indoors 5Ghz is the way to go. Note that the quality and signal strength of the 5Ghz client's radio is also very important.

 

[mightyoakbob]

Good for you, I can't get two of them to work for 24 hours, so please tell me how!

 

[mikeg]

I have no problems with 2.4 or 5 Ghz bands. I installed TomatoUSB Shibby and everything is runinng withoot any problems on 3 pc:s with Asus USB-N53.

Good for you, I can't get two of them to work for 24 hours, so please tell me how!

 

[mightyoakbob]

Have you any suggestions as to how I can get mine working?

Bob.

 

[RMerlin]

Yes, use either the original 3.0.0.4.220 (which is getting old however) or Asuswrt-Merlin 3.0.0.4.270.26b (last official stable release, uses the same wireless driver as Asus's build 220).

The two versions you mentioned (official 260 and Asuswrt-Merlin 354.27 BETA) both have known stability issues with wifi.

 

[redpants]

I had the same issue with my old vaio running an intel 5100 NIC and just like you i thought my router was busted but as i bought a new vaio it now works flawlessly. Try renaming the 5ghz SSID. Ever since i did that the 5ghz network has never gone down. Very strange solution but it worked on this new vaio and i've had an uptime of 1month, while before the record was 2-3days.

Might not work for you but give it a try...

 

[RogerSC]

I'm using 3.0.0.4_270.26b at the moment, and my laptop is connected using the 5GHz. network. It has been totally reliable and stable since I started using it (not counting a couple of excursions to 3.0.0.4_354.27 *smile*). I just looked and my log shows 12 days and 22 hours uptime at the moment. That isn't the full extent of it, though, as I said, I did make a couple of trips to a later version, and also tried a couple of things that resulted in my having to reboot the router *smile*.

So I'd suggest that you try that...