Linksys WRT1900AC First User Reports

[sm00thpapa]

This multiple xBox at one location issue is a problem with Asus (basically all) routers as well. I know this because a gaming friend of mine came to me for help that had a new Asus.

You are not going to believe the solution I gave him. It won't work for everyone because your ISP has to not be paying attention for it to work.

His internet is through a cable modem that was configured as a bridge. This modem could also be configured as a router and it has 4 Ethernet ports.

His previous router was a older Linksys E3000 which he still had left over after replacing it with the Asus.

I told him to plug both the Asus and E3000 WAN ports into the modem's Ethernet ports. Then I told him to make the SSID's different for the Asus and E3000.

After that I told him to power cycle the modem. Guess what each router got a Public IP Address!

So now when he is gaming with his brother one xBox connects to the Asus and one to the Linksys. Problem solved.

Then when he wants to transfer files or media they both connect to the same router.

Just rebooted the modem and router and my NAT is Open again.

 

[RogerSC]

Thought I'd pass along this information, saw it on the Linksys forum. This is a status page that includes an uptime clock, and lots of log and status information:

192.168.1.1/sysinfo.cgi

The IP address above is the IP address of your router.

This cgi script produces a page of status information that was really good to find. Not beautifully formatted *smile*, but very useful.

If you're not logged into your router, just use the usual user name "admin" and your router password.

 

[htismaqe]

Thought I'd pass along this information, saw it on the Linksys forum. This is a status page that includes an uptime clock, and lots of log and status information:

192.168.1.1/sysinfo.cgi

The IP address above is the IP address of your router.

This cgi script produces a page of status information that was really good to find. Not beautifully formatted *smile*, but very useful.

If you're not logged into your router, just use the usual user name "admin" and your router password.

Works on the EA6900. Thanks!

 

[ilukeberry]

Very useful!!! thank you!

 

[sm00thpapa]

I miss my RT-N66W and RT-N66U.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[RogerSC]

I miss my RT-N66W and RT-N66U.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I have some nostalgia here, too. But the R7000 works so well, it doesn't last long *smile*.

 

[sm00thpapa]

I have some nostalgia here, too. But the R7000 works so well, it doesn't last long *smile*.

Routers I still have and will never get rid of.

WRT54G V4
WRT54GL V1.1
RT-N66U
RT-N66W

Currently using the WRT1900AC as my main router.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[sm00thpapa]

Having an issue that I just noticed a few minutes ago. I have a Chromecast upstairs that is showing up 8 times in my Network map with the same IP address but 8 different MAC addressees. I rebooted the Chromecast and it still shows up 8 times. What on earth can be causing this? I'm stumped.

 

[RMerlin]

Having an issue that I just noticed a few minutes ago. I have a Chromecast upstairs that is showing up 8 times in my Network map with the same IP address but 8 different MAC addressees. I rebooted the Chromecast and it still shows up 8 times. What on earth can be causing this? I'm stumped.

Are the MACs all belonging to the same manufacturer? What comes up if you do an OUI lookup on the web for those MACs?

 

[sm00thpapa]

Are the MACs all belonging to the same manufacturer? What comes up if you do an OUI lookup on the web for those MACs?

I rebooted to factory specs and reconfigured the router and it's all back to normal for now. If it happens again I will check. Thanks Merlin for your advice.

 

[sm00thpapa]

Went to the FCC site for data on this router. They have this router listed as a 4x4 and with AC on the 2.4GHz band getting 800Mbps.

 

[pete y testing]

hi

i have just been comparing the wrt1900ac against the netgear r7000 and asus rt-ac68u

all 3 above with their generic firmware have their best points and as suggested in smb reviews there is no real outstanding winner

the obvious and clear best feature on the wrt1900ac is its USB 3 performance

with real world throughput figures of

usb 3 to ethernet

read 81 MB/s write 23.5.5 MB/s

and very impressive 5 gig AC performance of

asus pce-ac66 @ 10 feet

read 51 MB/s write 35.5 MB/s sync 1.0 gig

asus pce-ac66 @ 20 meters 2 rooms away

read 45.5 MB/s write 35.6 MB/s sync 877.5M

the above are average throughput tested using networx speed meter results , so is what you can expect in real world terms and not what you get with ipref and or icharriot max throughput results

down side atm is the wrt1900ac 2.4 gig , there is no current way to disable obss co existence and thus the 2.4 gig reverts to 40 or 20mhz and thus the full speed performance of the 600M 2.4 gig cant be achieved in noisy wifi environments

its gui is also quite limited in features and flexibility as its hampered by the linksys smart router setup and control , yes this simplified gui may be a blessing for those not so tech savvy , but limits its capability for advanced users

pete

 

[sfx2000]

hi

<snip>

down side atm is the wrt1900ac 2.4 gig , there is no current way to disable obss co existence and thus the 2.4 gig reverts to 40 or 20mhz and thus the full speed performance of the 600M 2.4 gig cant be achieved in noisy wifi environments

pete

WiFi alliance requires 20/40 auto mode in 2.4Ghz to get certification. 40MHz only mode would take them out of compliance.

Wide Channels in 2.4Ghz is downright unneighborly in any event, and for the most part, the benefit here is minimal.

Same with QAM256 mode for 802.11n - it's non-standard, and even with clients that support it, not much benefit.

sfx

 

[sfx2000]

hi

<snip yet again>

its gui is also quite limited in features and flexibility as its hampered by the linksys smart router setup and control , yes this simplified gui may be a blessing for those not so tech savvy , but limits its capability for advanced users

pete

How? What areas need improvement here perhaps? There's a lot of stuff in other products that folks would never use - is this similar to tweaking BIOS settings and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to make DOOM.EXE run a little bit better?

Some folks get into that perhaps - tweak settings to get a little bit more, but generally, those tweaks do more harm than good, IMHO...

Most folks look at a SOHO router, and expect it to be an appliance - it makes toast, simple enough..

The Linksys WebGUI, while a bit bugged with stability issues at the moment, exposes the features that 95 percent of the folks would use in a SOHO market situation.

Again, Pete, what would you change here - and don't be a "tweaker"... provide good feedback, not just that it's "limited"...

sfx

 

[pete y testing]

WiFi alliance requires 20/40 auto mode in 2.4Ghz to get certification. 40MHz only mode would take them out of compliance.

Wide Channels in 2.4Ghz is downright unneighborly in any event, and for the most part, the benefit here is minimal.

Same with QAM256 mode for 802.11n - it's non-standard, and even with clients that support it, not much benefit.

sfx

you are correct but the netgear r7000 and a few other router allow you to set 40mhz mode , the specification only requires its set to auto by default , its almost impossible to get the wrt1900ac to run at 600M in normal environments and thus normal users will be disappointed with the results of 2.4 gig

yes its not neighbor friendly to run in 40 mhz mode , but you cant get 600M on 2.4 gig any other way and thats the point

pete

 

[pete y testing]

How? What areas need improvement here perhaps? There's a lot of stuff in other products that folks would never use - is this similar to tweaking BIOS settings and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to make DOOM.EXE run a little bit better?

Some folks get into that perhaps - tweak settings to get a little bit more, but generally, those tweaks do more harm than good, IMHO...

Most folks look at a SOHO router, and expect it to be an appliance - it makes toast, simple enough..

The Linksys WebGUI, while a bit bugged with stability issues at the moment, exposes the features that 95 percent of the folks would use in a SOHO market situation.

Again, Pete, what would you change here - and don't be a "tweaker"... provide good feedback, not just that it's "limited"...

sfx

well adding client and repeater modes to start with that will allow it to be used in more than a wireless router mode

having 3g/4g compatibility / and android tethering support

will be home tomorrow so i can add more once i have in front of me again

like i said the wrt1900ac is great for someone that just wants a fast 5 gig AC router and a blistering fast usb 3 throughput speed , but it does lack other features i would expect in what is a quite expensive wireless router

yes 3rd party fw may bring these features and maybe they wont , but the basics should really be there

pete

 

[htismaqe]

its gui is also quite limited in features and flexibility as its hampered by the linksys smart router setup and control , yes this simplified gui may be a blessing for those not so tech savvy , but limits its capability for advanced users

I'm tech savvy and I still prefer the Linksys GUI (when it doesn't crash the router).

I don't need all those extra bells and whistles and outside of not having telnet/SSH access, I find that configuring it is much, much faster than the others, especially Netgear.

 

[sfx2000]

well adding client and repeater modes to start with that will allow it to be used in more than a wireless router mode

It does... dig around the settings, you'll find it.

having 3g/4g compatibility / and android tethering support

3G/4G/Android Tether - all the same thing, and trust me, it's a bag of hurt to support - there is only one OEM/Vendor that I know of that has this down pat - Cradlepoint, because that is their market niche, and they're truly masters of that domain.

For the other 97.84 percent of the market, 3G/4g/Android Tethering isn't an issue, because it's not supported.

like i said the wrt1900ac is great for someone that just wants a fast 5 gig AC router and a blistering fast usb 3 throughput speed

cool...

but it does lack other features i would expect in what is a quite expensive wireless router

Other features, yes???

3rd party fw may bring these features and maybe they wont , but the basics should really be there

pete

the basics are very much there - the items you mention are outliers at best...

sfx

 

[htismaqe]

About the only feature the WRT1900AC lacks that the other major vendors have is OpenVPN support. That's really it. What else does Netgear have in their stock firmware that Linksys SmartWifi doesn't? I can't think of anything.

 

[sfx2000]

About the only feature the WRT1900AC lacks that the other major vendors have is OpenVPN support. That's really it. What else does Netgear have in their stock firmware that Linksys SmartWifi doesn't? I can't think of anything.

yeah, and OpenVPN is a userland application - makes it portable perhaps, but since this is an app, all those wee little packets need to go up the stack and back down, thrashing memory in their little paths... and this is why OpenVPN is slow... but as an app process, it's good at hole-punching thru NAT's/Firewalls perhaps - so it works until someone tries to use it for something useful.

Now L2TP/IPsec, that's a different story, part and parcel of the BSD/Linux IP stack but nobody wants to hear about that... been down that road...

sfx