Last ditch effort with AX58 & AX88

[AxelBigDog]

I have a 3000 sqft house, one AX58U as the router on FiOS, one AX88U as an AIMesh node backhauled with Cat5e in a bedroom hallway (plugged into WAN). Two weeks ago I had two 58Us and thought I would replace one with the 88U to see if there is a difference. Still trouble.

I am running the very latest 384.19 alpha test versions for the respective 58u and 88u. I'm not happy because the wifi signal is not reliable. I run various MacBook pros, iPhone 11Pro, iPad Gen 4. Today, Alexa lost connection to the internet briefly. My gf had her MacBook Pro 13 from 5 years ago next to mine and we were both working when we noticed the wifi signal icon dropped, then came back on.

I am finding these routers generally unreliable. I have never tried the "stock" firmware, always used Merlin, so I have a few questions for the group:

* does everyone just tinker on here and gladly reboot every few days?
* if one just wanted reliable household internet WITH Merlin and NO tinkering, would that be possible?
* is the Asus Broadcom hardware just generally problematic? With an AX58, an AX88, and a (now) unused AX58 sitting in a box, I have put serious money into these with little satisfaction.
* My 2018 MacBook Pro gets max 300mbps when I am getting 900mpbs wired. Is that expected? iPhone 11 Pro gets the same. Is that typical or am I not using the dual/triple bands correctly?
* I don't know what a dirty upgrade is. Perhaps I should not just be installing alphas thru the GUI, letting them reboot, then doing a plug-pull/reinsert? Is there another way?

I would love to have a FAILSAFE procedure, now that they are running the LATEST and GREATEST on RECENT hardware to indicate:

* exact steps for reboot/reset/dirty/clean/reset/whatever to do.
* which one first? The primary 58U or the Mesh 88U?
* What settings? Exact settings? What can I do to get this right?

Thank you!

 

[Mutzli]

I'm living in a 4,200sqft home and use only one AX88U without much of an issue throughout the house. Last time I rebooted the router was about two weeks ago, after installing some new scripts. Your experience is definitely not normal for these routers. I would start with a reset as per L&LD over here. Next you'll have to configure your WiFi correctly that it doesn't cut out by disabling certain settings like Universal Beamforming and Airtime Fairness. Then assign a fixed control channel for both 2.4/5Ghz, more over here. I would also limit the Channel Bandwith on the 2.4GHz radio to 20MHz. Most IoT devices us 2.4Ghz and a high throughput is not necessary but you want reach. Here are some of my settings for the 5Ghz band. I'm getting up to 1.2Gbps on my notebook with Intel 200AX cards:

I'm not as familiar with AiMesh, hopefully someone else on here can help you with that.

 

[jrmwvu04]

* My 2018 MacBook Pro gets max 300mbps when I am getting 900mpbs wired. Is that expected? iPhone 11 Pro gets the same. Is that typical or am I not using the dual/triple bands correctly?

Just popping in to note that the vast majority of Apple products don’t support AX WiFi - to my knowledge only the iPhone 11 and newest iPad Pro models (March 2020) have it. So you won’t be getting any AX features or speed on any iPhones or iPads older than those, and none of the MacBooks support it. The link rate iOS or macOS reports will be higher depending on the make and model in question, but a real world speed of about 300 mbps would be expected and normal on all those devices.

I don’t have an AX router and so can’t really help with the other questions unfortunately. But you’re getting about all you can get out of your AC only devices.

 

[L&LD]

Please have a look at the following link and its suggestions.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ax88-packet-loss.62891/#post-563326

Also, have a look at the link in my signature below for the M&M Config and the Nuclear Reset guides to get your network/router/devices to a good/known state.

As for the AiMesh nodes. Do a full reset and then don't connect/touch them again via their GUI.

Using the main router, 'point' to the fully reset router you want to use as an AiMesh node and let it configure and reboot it. After the network has been running at least 15 minutes, reboot the entire network including the AiMesh node and ideally, reboot one last time after an additional hour of uptime from this point.

Start with all routers off and unplugged except for the main router you will reset fully. Only add an AiMesh node if needed and only add an additional AiMesh node after that if you have first sorted out the ideal distance/location/orientation and power levels of the first node and main routers.

I haven't seen anything with more than 2 nodes work well, no matter how it was set up in a normal home. Unless your home is greater than 5K SqFt or so (on a single level).

HTH.

 

[Mutzli]

Just popping in to note that the vast majority of Apple products don’t support AX WiFi - to my knowledge only the iPhone 11 and newest iPad Pro models (March 2020) have it. So you won’t be getting any AX features or speed on any iPhones or iPads older than those, and none of the MacBooks support it. The link rate iOS or macOS reports will be higher depending on the make and model in question, but a real world speed of about 300 mbps would be expected and normal on all those devices.

I don’t have an AX router and so can’t really help with the other questions unfortunately. But you’re getting about all you can get out of your AC only devices.

Also Apple products might have issues when you have WPA3 active. I had to configure my 2.4GHz channel to run on WPA2 only. Two 3 year old iPad's refused to connect with WPA2/WPA3 enabled.

 

[Stevens243]

A couple of things: First, I'd recommend using the 88U as the router and the 58U as the mesh node. Then, I'd say get off the alfa. If you aren't at a point where you understand what a dirty flash is, best to stay on the final firmware and let the experienced testers evaluate the alfa and beta's. There is rarely anything of critical importance to most of us in the development stuff to mandate the upgrade ahead of a final version and if there is, the final will come quickly enough.

Once you have the 88U set up as master, do what LL&D says and factory reset it on the .18 firmware. Set up your network making minimal changes without a mesh node (leave the node out of the network until the router is set up and functioning well, THEN add the node). I don't have/use apple products so others have said what to look for but go to the wireless settings on the webui and turn off smart connect (others have reported wonderful results but I've never had one bit of luck with my WiFi when it's on), then also in wireless settings, go to professional settings and in 2.4g, turn off: wireless scheduler and AP isolated, DISABLE the roaming assistant (!) and airtime fairness, also turn off universal beamforming. In 5g settings, do the same but leave universal beamforming on.

If you have better luck with your WiFi devices after this, then add the mesh node and make sure you factory reset it as well.

Also, if you have a spare AX58U laying around now, I am in the market for one!

 

[digits n bits]

I'm living in a 4,200sqft home and use only one AX88U without much of an issue throughout the house. Last time I rebooted the router was about two weeks ago, after installing some new scripts. Your experience is definitely not normal for these routers. I would start with a reset as per L&LD over here. Next you'll have to configure your WiFi correctly that it doesn't cut out by disabling certain settings like Universal Beamforming and Airtime Fairness. Then assign a fixed control channel for both 2.4/5Ghz, more over here. I would also limit the Channel Bandwith on the 2.4GHz radio to 20MHz. Most IoT devices us 2.4Ghz and a high throughput is not necessary but you want reach. Here are some of my settings for the 5Ghz band. I'm getting up to 1.2Gbps on my notebook with Intel 200AX cards:
View attachment 24689
View attachment 24690
I'm not as familiar with AiMesh, hopefully someone else on here can help you with that.

thanks for posting your settings, I thought I’d give them a try on my RT-AX58U.
Working fantastic, better than it ever has and it’s the changes to the professional settings. great work.

 

[Mark Taylor]

I'm living in a 4,200sqft home and use only one AX88U without much of an issue throughout the house. Last time I rebooted the router was about two weeks ago, after installing some new scripts. Your experience is definitely not normal for these routers. I would start with a reset as per L&LD over here. Next you'll have to configure your WiFi correctly that it doesn't cut out by disabling certain settings like Universal Beamforming and Airtime Fairness. Then assign a fixed control channel for both 2.4/5Ghz, more over here. I would also limit the Channel Bandwith on the 2.4GHz radio to 20MHz. Most IoT devices us 2.4Ghz and a high throughput is not necessary but you want reach. Here are some of my settings for the 5Ghz band. I'm getting up to 1.2Gbps on my notebook with Intel 200AX cards:
View attachment 24689
View attachment 24690
I'm not as familiar with AiMesh, hopefully someone else on here can help you with that.

With Intel AX200 which is 160 MHz you should actually be getting 2400 not 1200 (80 MHz). I have a AX88U on 384.19 Alpha 2 and noticed some real weird things with the 160 MHz band not connecting. I toggled it on/off and then rebooted the router and it then connected at 2400 on my laptop AX200 and desktop AX200 using the 160MHz channel. I did also set the 5GHz to auto channel which then used channel 36 but have since set it back to 132 as I was having some disconnects. I have not fully tracked down the issue but there is definitely some weird behavior with the 160MHz setting on this build. Best to check the wireless logs to see if it is connecting at 80 or 160 MHz.

 

[ankhazam]

AX88U with AX200 working 115MBps+ (1000Mbps+)

note that I'm in the EU and using a lowerband (40th) channel... it requires DFS scanning but never had a situation when it was triggered.

Then again.. reading from these forums the 100+ seem to be quirky...

 

[AxelBigDog]

Thanks everyone. I tried a couple things: went to using only the AX88U after an MMC, got rid of the AIMesh setup. The 88 should handle the whole house and seems to. I'm hoping the AIMesh was the culprit of the frequent disconnects.

The default settings seem to work fine as of now, with Smart Connect, etc. getting me the fastest speeds I've seen on my iPhone 11Pro (wifi6) and iPad 4th gen (not Wifi6). Strangely, when I change the wireless and Professional settings to those suggested above by Mutzli, speeds go from 350+ consistent to only around 150 consistent (both devices). Going back to default with SmartConnect ON seems to be best.

I have stayed with the alpha for now and hope to not have to restart for a while.

I'm wondering how I can be sure the iPhone 11 Pro is actually using the Wifi6 AX. Does anyone know how to ensure that's the case? More curious than anything, since it's the only wifi6 device I have.

 

[bluepoint]

I'm wondering how I can be sure the iPhone 11 Pro is actually using the Wifi6 AX. Does anyone know how to ensure that's the case? More curious than anything, since it's the only wifi6 device I have.

Look in the wireless log, it'll show you the link rate and ax stream.

 

[AxelBigDog]

For reference, I have:

* 6 Amazon Echos/echo dots/show/etc.
* 7 iPad Minis 2nd Gen (old), in-wall for home automation
* iMac 5k (first gen)
* Mac mini 2018
* 4 Macbook Pros (2015, 2018s)
* Smart Garage Door Opener
* Legacy IR Blasters with Wifi (old)
* 1st gen Ring doorbell
* 3 Apple Watches (3rd/4th gen)
* iPhones, various
* iPads, 3rd, 4th gen
* 4 Apple TVs (some hardwired, some wifi)
* 2 gaming PCs (Windoze), wifi for now

So, the whole step about choosing another SSID was out of the question during the MMC. Hopefully that's not a deal breaker.

 

[L&LD]

Don't forget that you can create a Guest WiFi SSID that is new, 100% 'unseen' previously for only the devices that do have a problem too.

Using a Guest WiFi SSID also allows you to gradually move all your devices to a new SSID at your leisure. If that is the plan, I would create the main SSID to be the new one and use the old/legacy SSID as the Guest SSID until you have moved everything over.

Depending on the client-devices used, you may or may not notice a performance improvement with a new SSID. But on every customer's network I do this on, the mysterious glitches on the network greatly decreased or disappeared entirely. So much so that it is not even a question of 'if' I should do it, it is a 'must' for any new router/network I set up for paying customers.

My only concern in your network at this time would be the number of WiFi devices you have. Most consumer routers start choking at around 32 (max) WiFi clients. Make sure to have less than that on each band/radio for maximum stability.

Glad the M&M Config guide helped in your case too. It usually does.

 

[AxelBigDog]

My only concern in your network at this time would be the number of WiFi devices you have. Most consumer routers start choking at around 32 (max) WiFi clients. Make sure to have less than that on each band/radio for maximum stability.

What? Really? This badass router is going to choke on 32 clients, some doing little to nothing? I would love to do more reading on that if you could point me there.

 

[L&LD]

Yes, 32 wireless clients per radio. Same as almost every other consumer router out there.

Your image is just black, btw.