Is ASUS dead or going under ?

[pfm]

I bought a RT-N66U 2-3 months ago. It had a stubborn problem where it was dropping "internet" connection (yellow exclamation but signal good) only on Win7 machines. They asked me to RMA it and I also got it back today, and its as if they just shipped the same unit back without doing anything. It still behaves exactly as it did before I sent it. I spent practically all of my afternoon trying to reach them via online chat and phone but I just cant get through. Their phone system either disconnects on its own (deja vu!) or goes into an endless loop transfering me back to the main menu. Online chat says "no agents available" and chat for another product area says they just simply can do anyything to help me.

These are telltale signs of a company going under, they no longer care and their internal workings are in such bad shape they cant pick up their own weight. Is that what is happening with asus ? Should I just give up on them and tell who I care about not to buy asus products any more ? At one point I thought highly of asus but looks like they have become a complete disaster.

 

[RMerlin]

Internet issues are more often a modem or ISP issue if you still have access to the router.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[L&LD]

I bought a RT-N66U 2-3 months ago. It had a stubborn problem where it was dropping "internet" connection (yellow exclamation but signal good) only on Win7 machines. They asked me to RMA it and I also got it back today, and its as if they just shipped the same unit back without doing anything. It still behaves exactly as it did before I sent it. I spent practically all of my afternoon trying to reach them via online chat and phone but I just cant get through. Their phone system either disconnects on its own (deja vu!) or goes into an endless loop transfering me back to the main menu. Online chat says "no agents available" and chat for another product area says they just simply can do anyything to help me.

These are telltale signs of a company going under, they no longer care and their internal workings are in such bad shape they cant pick up their own weight. Is that what is happening with asus ? Should I just give up on them and tell who I care about not to buy asus products any more ? At one point I thought highly of asus but looks like they have become a complete disaster.

To paraphrase a little:

The imminent demise of Asus is greatly exaggerated; by you.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Wonder what things OP tried on the problem? Just RMA and trying to get help from tech support? On the W7 machine, is the device driver latest to begin with? Is the WiFi card advanced setting is in order? What band is it on, 2.4 or 5GHz and what mode?, W7 has all the updates? Does it happen on wired connection as well?

 

[pfm]

I tried a hundered things based on suggestions here and also lot of searches on the web, nothing helped. Yes I do mean everything from drivers to settings on the wireless card to the router to Win7.
But here's the kicker - my almost 10 year old Netgear that I pulled out to substitute for this junk while it was (supposedly!) being "repaired" worked flawless with those same Win7 machines! How is that possible ? I know asus has a lot of fan following here but sorry this is as bad as it gets.

 

[4Leaf]

I use to have problems with my internet going out all the time with my rt-n66r and for a while I was convinced it was something to do with the firmware or the router maybe even had faulty hardware. Turns out, the entire time I was getting packet loss from my ISP. After everything I tried to do to fix the problem it's ironic that there is nothing I could have done anyways.

I would make sure I wasn't getting any type of packet loss before just assuming that your netgear router is working instead of your asus router.

A good way to test for this type of issue would be to open your command prompt on your pc and then type in this command "ping -t 8.8.8.8". You don't have to use the 8.8.8.8 dns server. Any dns server would be fine, preferably your main dns server provided by your ISP.

To stop the ping test enter the cntrl key and the c key on your keyboard at the same time. This way, you will receive results based on how many packets were received and how many were lost.

If you are indeed receiving packet loss from your ISP, next hard wire your pc directly into your modem and see if you still get any packet loss. This would confirm for a fact that your ISP is the problem and you can call them and have them attend to the issue.

 

[stevech]

do packet loss ONLY on a wired connection to eliminate WiFi from the picture.

Rather than ping 4.2.2.2 or 8.8.8.8, to a tracert to show you the first hop IP address in your ISP's access network - well before the Internet. Use that IP, in ping. Or better,
Download and use nagware pingplotter. It'll graph over hours and hours.
http://www.pingplotter.com/

This is key, as using the first hop IP address helps decide between ISP and Internet.

 

[4Leaf]

do packet loss ONLY on a wired connection to eliminate WiFi from the picture.

Rather than ping 4.2.2.2 or 8.8.8.8, to a tracert to show you the first hop IP address in your ISP's access network - well before the Internet. Use that IP, in ping. Or better,
Download and use nagware pingplotter. It'll graph over hours and hours.
http://www.pingplotter.com/

This is key, as using the first hop IP address helps decide between ISP and Internet.

The best way to test for packet loss is to hard wire directly into the modem
and test a dns server that way. If you are getting packet loss it would show no matter what IP or DNS server you used.

The ping -t test will last as long as you want it to. It will run until you stop it or exit out of the command prompt.

Either method will work. I just prefer this way lol. In my experiences with packet loss it doesn't take a whole lot of time to pick it up when testing for it.

 

[pfm]

I don't have any issues streaming video (Netflix etc) on my TV either wired or wireless. Do y think it might still be worth doing a packet loss test ? Still why does the packet loss not bother the old netgear ? TV has netflix built in.

 

[stevech]

Why are you on this packet loss track? Packet loss rate too high on wired? (WiFi is a different story).

 

[pfm]

I haven't done an extended PL test but I did a few (~100) pings to the first hop as you suggested and so far haven't found anything and that was on wireless. Might do one later on wired just for confirming but I dont expect any surprises.

 

[Daybreak]

I bought a RT-N66U 2-3 months ago. It had a stubborn problem where it was dropping "internet" connection (yellow exclamation but signal good) only on Win7 machines. They asked me to RMA it and I also got it back today, and its as if they just shipped the same unit back without doing anything. It still behaves exactly as it did before I sent it. I spent practically all of my afternoon trying to reach them via online chat and phone but I just cant get through. Their phone system either disconnects on its own (deja vu!) or goes into an endless loop transfering me back to the main menu. Online chat says "no agents available" and chat for another product area says they just simply can do anyything to help me.

These are telltale signs of a company going under, they no longer care and their internal workings are in such bad shape they cant pick up their own weight. Is that what is happening with asus ? Should I just give up on them and tell who I care about not to buy asus products any more ? At one point I thought highly of asus but looks like they have become a complete disaster.

Howdy,
wow, you do know that ASUS is a international company. What time zone are you in? What time zone is ASUS online chat at? Is there a holiday there? were they already closed for the weekend?
Do you know what the settings do with the router? Do you know what open channels are around you? Do you have any other interference? It really does not sound like it is a issue with the ASUS router, but with your configuration on your systems.
A telltale sign of not knowing.

 

[pfm]

save your breath mike, I know a thing or two about networking. and about working with tech support of various brands which for the most part are international. What does timezone and holiday and sh!t matter when I am contacting them during their "business hours" ???
other product area chats were working and they actualy refused to even transfer me over to a supervisor or manager.

as of today morning, Networking products chat is still unavailable and I hung up after being on hold for 20 minutes.
I was patient even after spending 2 months figuring this out and until asus asked me to do an rma for a replacement. It was when they just sent the junk back to me within 2 days without doing anythign about it.

If there is a problem with my system then why is the old netgear working perfectly ? I am 100% confident the router is defective.

 

[WVUTampaAlum]

OP what you describe is SOP on their full line of tablets.