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New Asus RT-AC56U 802.11ac Gigabit DualBand Wireless Router

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They could have revised the specs either for stability or to avoid overheating issues.

Changes can always potentially happen between the public announcement at a tradeshow and the actual product launch. Once again, look at the RT-N66U for an example (and in fact, if I remember correctly it was originally announced as the RT-N76U). So, we won't know for sure until the product is actually on store shelves.
 
OT

Just came back from my local ASUS essence of sound event today



I have a chance to chat more with ASUS staff from ASUS TW HQ

In regards on the ASUS new routers, ASUS networking/firmware team is feverishly getting the firmware ready in time for the product launch announcement of ASUS RT-AC56U @ Computex Taipei on 4-8 June, so current ASUS RT-66U/AC66U firmware releases will kinda slow a bit.

Just take it as a pinch of salt, as all these information are hearsay until i receive more information from ASUS SG

I hope I'm provide more concrete details/specifications of this new ASUS router and other new networking peripherals nearing to Computex Taipei 2013 event

 
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Certification ID

Asus RT-AC56U: http://certifications.wi-fi.org/pdf_certificate.php?cid=WFA19392

Company: ASUSTeK Computer Inc
Product: Dual-band Wireless-AC1200 Gigabit Router
Model/SKU #: RT-AC56U/
Category: Access Point for Home or Small Office (Wireless Router)
Code:
 Tested             Spatial
Dual-Band          Concurrent
 Streams         2.4GHz | 5.0GHz
_________________________________

Transmit          2    |   2
Receive           2    |   2

Asus RT-AC68U: http://certifications.wi-fi.org/pdf_certificate.php?cid=WFA19421

Company: ASUSTeK Computer Inc
Product: Wireless-AC1900 Dual Band Gigabit Router
Model/SKU #: RT-AC68U/RT-AC68R
Category: Access Point for Home or Small Office (Wireless Router)
Code:
 Tested             Spatial
Dual-Band          Concurrent
 Streams         2.4GHz | 5.0GHz
_________________________________

Transmit          3    |   3
Receive           3    |   3
http://forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=14:58696-2#38 ;)
 
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The RT-AC56U specs are up on a lot of sites, all published yesterday.
I wonder how they get to 1900 for a three antenna router though - 3x 80Mhz AC Channels (1300) and 3 N channels (450) only make AC1750 and we already have that in the form of the RT-AC66U. So I wonder where they get the additional 150mbit from.
 
The RT-AC56U specs are up on a lot of sites, all published yesterday.
I wonder how they get to 1900 for a three antenna router though - 3x 80Mhz AC Channels (1300) and 3 N channels (450) only make AC1750 and we already have that in the form of the RT-AC66U. So I wonder where they get the additional 150mbit from.

The RT-AC56U is a dual-stream router, (300 + 866),for a total of 1200 Mbps:

https://www.asus.com/Networking/RTAC56U/

1900 is for the rumoured speed of the still unannounced RT-AC68U.

802.11ac supports (amongst other things) insanely large channels (160 MHz). So expert some crazy speed being announced in the coming years as manufacturers try to reach higher rates.
 
Asus RT-AC56U

Asus RT-AC56U @800MHz (default):
Code:
./cpubench
This is CPU and memory benchmark for OpenWRT v0.6. This will then take some time... (typically 30-60 seconds on a 200MHz computer)
Overhead for getting time: 1us
Time to run memory bench: 1.62[secs]
Time to run computation of pi (2400 digits, 10 times): 6.64[secs]
Time to run computation of e (9009 digits): 5.22[secs]
Time to run float bench: 0.05[secs]
Total time: 13.5s

You can copy/paste the following line in the wiki table at: http://wiki.openwrt.org/HardwarePerformance
|| 2013-06-02 || ''Author'' || 1.6s || 6.6s || 5.2s || 0.0s || v0.6 || ''OS'' || ''DeviceModel'' || ''CPU model'' || ''CPU Frequency'' || ''LinkToHwPage'' ||
Asus RT-AC56U @1000MHz (overclocked):
Code:
This is CPU and memory benchmark for OpenWRT v0.6. This will then take some time... (typically 30-60 seconds on a 200MHz computer)
Overhead for getting time: 1us
Time to run memory bench: 1.51[secs]
Time to run computation of pi (2400 digits, 10 times): 5.32[secs]
Time to run computation of e (9009 digits): 4.19[secs]
Time to run float bench: 0.04[secs]
Total time: 11.1s

You can copy/paste the following line in the wiki table at: http://wiki.openwrt.org/HardwarePerformance
|| 2013-06-02 || ''Author'' || 1.5s || 5.3s || 4.2s || 0.0s || v0.6 || ''OS'' || ''DeviceModel'' || ''CPU model'' || ''CPU Frequency'' || ''LinkToHwPage'' ||
CPU:
Code:
# cat /proc/cpuinfo
Processor    : ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
processor    : 0
BogoMIPS    : 1599.07

processor    : 1
BogoMIPS    : 1595.80

Features    : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementer    : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant    : 0x3
CPU part    : 0xc09
CPU revision    : 0

Hardware    : Northstar Prototype
Revision    : 0000
Serial        : 0000000000000000
Toolchains:
Code:
arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi-cc -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi-cc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/root/asuswrt-arm/release/src-rt-6.x.4708/toolchains/hndtools-arm-linux-2.6.36-uclibc-4.5.3/bin/../libexec/gcc/arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi/4.5.3/lto-wrapper
Target: arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi
Configured with: /projects/toolchains_build/buildroot-2012.02-brcm/output/toolchain/gcc-4.5.3/configure --prefix=/projects/hnd/tools/linux/hndtools-arm-linux-2.6.36-uclibc-4.5.3 --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --target=arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi --enable-languages=c,c++ --with-sysroot=/projects/hnd/tools/linux/hndtools-arm-linux-2.6.36-uclibc-4.5.3/arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi/sysroot --with-build-time-tools=/projects/hnd/tools/linux/hndtools-arm-linux-2.6.36-uclibc-4.5.3/arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi/bin --disable-__cxa_atexit --enable-target-optspace --disable-libgomp --with-gnu-ld --disable-libssp --disable-multilib --disable-tls --enable-shared --with-gmp=/projects/hnd/tools/linux/hndtools-arm-linux-2.6.36-uclibc-4.5.3 --with-mpfr=/projects/hnd/tools/linux/hndtools-arm-linux-2.6.36-uclibc-4.5.3 --with-mpc=/projects/hnd/tools/linux/hndtools-arm-linux-2.6.36-uclibc-4.5.3 --enable-threads --disable-decimal-float --with-float=soft --with-abi=aapcs-linux --with-arch=armv7-a --with-tune=cortex-a9 --with-pkgversion='Buildroot 2012.02' --with-bugurl=http://bugs.buildroot.net/
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.5.3 (Buildroot 2012.02)
http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?3...-%F0%EE%F3%F2%E5%F0%EE%E2&p=261151#post261151 :cool:
 
The RT-AC56U seems to be in stock now at various places (seen it on NCIX amongst other things).

Good timing, cause I think I fixed my last crashing bug only this week :) Going to use my RT-AC56U as my main router for a few, and if everything looks good then I will publish builds of my FW.
 
The RT-AC56U seems to be in stock now at various places (seen it on NCIX amongst other things).

Good timing, cause I think I fixed my last crashing bug only this week :) Going to use my RT-AC56U as my main router for a few, and if everything looks good then I will publish builds of my FW.

Has anyone tested this new ac router? I can't find any reviews online yet. It'll be great if you can share your review with us here.
 

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I've got a problem with this router (or maybe I am the one who is doing something wrong?)

When I received this router and connected old USB 2.0 hard drive it deleted some of my files and some of them had just a name with 0kb size. This hard drive has been working fine for the last 1.5years with Asus RT-n16 (tomato firmware).

Than I connected to RT-AC56U my new 1TB USB 3.0 2.5" toshiba external hard drive. I started copying files on it. It has been working fine for a week FTP and within my home network (transfers- read about 45-50 mb/s, write about 10-15mb/s).
After rebooting router doesn't see the hard drive connected to usb 3.0 so it requires disconnecting, connecting, rebooting a few times etc to make the router see the drive again (which is annoying - is it standard with all the asus usb 2.0 routers and asus firmware? or is it because it's 2.5" hard drive (no additional power supply)? or is it because it's usb 3.0?).

Yesterday my toshiba hard drive disappeared from the network, after connecting it directly to my PC again some of the files were gone and some of them were corrupted. I connected it again to the router and now hard drive is almost empty, few files left mostly empty folders....

Does anyone know what could cause that? Both of the drives were formatted as NTFS. I unmount the drive if I want to unplug it from the router but I only unplug it when router doesn't see the hard drive so than I can't unmount.
 
Overclocking RT-AC56U

HOW TO OVERCLOCK RT-AC56U

1. Navigate to http://192.168.1.1/Tools_RunCmd.asp

2. OverClock: run in the cmd window, copy paste/enter:
Code:
nvram set clkfreq=[B]1200,800[/B]
nvram commit && reboot
- this will set CPU clock to 1200MHz and memory to 800 (for comparison - the stock is 800/533)

Stock:
Code:
nvram set clkfreq=[B]800,533[/B]
nvram commit && reboot
Warning: your router may hang at this point. Let it stay for couple minutes, if it does not come back, power cycle.
If you cannot get the router back after power cycling, follow to restore procedure outlined above.

3. After successful reboot, you can check the clocks in the UI: http://192.168.1.1/Tools_Sysinfo.asp
Code:
# CPU

CPU Model 	ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)  -  (Cores: 2)
CPU Frequency 	[B]1200 MHz[/B]
CPU Load Average (1, 5, 15 mins) 	0.09,  0.07,  0.05

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

Processor	: ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
processor	: 0
BogoMIPS	: [B]2398.61[/B]

processor	: 1
BogoMIPS	: [B]2398.61[/B]

Features	: swp half thumb fastmult edsp 
CPU implementer	: 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant	: 0x3
CPU part	: 0xc09
CPU revision	: 0

Hardware	: Northstar Prototype
Revision	: 0000
Serial		: 0000000000000000
4. openssl speed:
Code:
# openssl speed aes-256-cbc

Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 16 size blocks: 5298660 aes-256 cbc's in 2.98s
Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 64 size blocks: 1473282 aes-256 cbc's in 3.01s
Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 256 size blocks: 380765 aes-256 cbc's in 3.00s
Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 1024 size blocks: 95997 aes-256 cbc's in 3.00s
Doing aes-256 cbc for 3s on 8192 size blocks: 12042 aes-256 cbc's in 3.00s

OpenSSL 1.0.0j 10 May 2012 built on: Sat Aug 24 22:13:38 EDT 2013
options:bn(64,32) rc4(ptr,char) des(idx,cisc,16,long) aes(partial) idea(int) blowfish(ptr) 
compiler: arm-brcm-linux-uclibcgnueabi-gcc -fPIC -DOPENSSL_PIC -DOPENSSL_THREADS -D_REENTRANT -DDSO_DLFCN -DHAVE_DLFCN_H -ffunction
-sections -fdata-sections -DTERMIO -O3 -Wall -DOPENSSL_BN_ASM_MONT -DSHA1_ASM -DSHA256_ASM -DSHA512_ASM -DAES_ASM -DGHASH_ASM

The 'numbers' are in 1000s of bytes per second processed.
type             16 bytes     64 bytes     256 bytes    1024 bytes   8192 bytes
aes-256 cbc      [B]28449.18k    31325.60k    32491.95k    32766.98k    32882.69k[/B]
5. Temperature check: go back to http://192.168.1.1/Tools_RunCmd.asp
Code:
# cat /proc/dmu/temperature
I am seeing 58 degrees (that's with the cooling) BCM4708A is officially rated for 1000 MHz, so ASUS seems to deliberately
underclocking it for AC56U at 800MHz; my guess is that they are keeping full clocks for AC68
Code:
nvram set clkfreq=[B]1000,667[/B]
nvram commit && reboot
So far I cannot find clear guidance on what are the safe temperatures for the CPU
You just re-affirmed my suspicion - your router is simply overheating (at 80 degrees).
AC56U does not have internal fan, so the only hope convection cooling (right, with those tiny holes) or add-on cooling.

My suggestion: if you can, remove the rear cover (no one sees it in the closet anyway, right?) and you can use standard
80mm case fan just standing few inch away from the router connected to 5-7 volt DC power source (does not have to be USB).
Lower than 12V power will reduce the RPM and noise while still providing sufficient cooling.

Before any overclocking, try to cool off your router to sub-60 and measure performance with VPN on - see if there is any improvement...

6. Memory: used in Asus RT-AC56U - 256 MB (ESMT M15F2G16128A) which is according to M15F2G16128A.pdf
is DDR3 capable of 667/800Mhz! I am going to try 667MHz now. so I applied 1200,667 and... it still works!

The memory in the router is rated for 667 at CL9 or 800 at CL11. Honestly I do not know which one would be more beneficial,
BUT definitely 667 is a lot better than stock 533... and for any real performance difference, we should compare stock memory
speed with maximum - that should yield something.

I would not go anywhere beyond 800 - this is not a PC, and I cannot increase any voltages... Let me try to set 800MHz... and it booted!!!!

7. VPN: So I measure the internet speed using 200Mb file download at testmy.net and this is highest ever on VPN: 22.5 Mbps
Turning VPN off, the same site: 24.5 Mbps This is, ladies and gentlemen, reason I overclock :cool:
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12578 :D
 
Merlin FW 3.0.0.4.374.33 Beta 1

Merlin FW 3.0.0.4.374.33 Beta 1 :) http://www.mediafire.com/asuswrt-merlin/#llun1z4o429fn

3.0.0.4.374.33 Beta 1 (9-Sept-2013):

- NEW: Merged with Asus 374_119 code from RT-AC56U GPL (newer than 374_164 from N66U)
- NEW: Added support for last seen devices on Ethernet port status (Tools-> Sysinfo)
for RT-AC56U.
- NEW: Repeater mode (was originally only in experimental builds, now available
in the regular builds for all supported routers)
- NEW: Dual WAN (was originally only in experimental builds, now available
in the regular builds for all supported routers).
Note that there are still a few issues left, such as recovery
from failover mode when the primary WAN comes back up.

- CHANGED: Enabled Syn Cookies for ARM devices (RT-AC56U)
- CHANGED: Allow selecting the Download2 folder for media server location.
- CHANGED: MIPS builds optimized for mips32r2 code generation.
A quick iperf+openvpn benchmark showed a very measurable
performance improvement. (N16/N66/AC66)
- CHANGED: Increased OpenVPN crt/key fields to allow up to
3499 characters - enough to accomodate even a 4096-bit key.

- FIXED: Samba binding to WAN interface would cause warnings
about WINS/master browser (regression in 374)
- FIXED: The ARM kernel was missing the Advanced IP Routing option,
preventing some of the "ip" command functions from
working (was breaking Astrill's plugin) (RT-AC56U)
- FIXED: Build 374 fixed the Samba priority which was set too
high, by setting it to the lowest possible, resulting in
low average Samba performance (and even lower under higher
CPU load). Now Samba will run with a default priority of
0, providing more balanced performance. (N16/N66/AC66)
- FIXED: Some fields would allow invalid characters (such as
single quotes) which might break the webui JS. There might
still be a few unprotected fields.
- FIXED: Memory leak in httpd service (Asus bug)
- FIXED: Incorrect firewall rules were created with certain schedules
on Parental Control (patch provided by Makkie2002)
- FIXED: Potential key truncation in httpd if one was to use very
large OpenVPN keys and certs in all fields of all four instances.
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12730 ;)
 
Hi. Just got myself a ac56u. And everything worked great until i flashed latest asuswrt 3004374134, then enabled VPN. Now i got the same problem as grahnen. No response from external ip inside of LAN (i guess NAT loop-back is the name for it). Tried different ports on different LAN machines, external ip, dyndns etc. works from outside LAN but not from inside, switching router and everything works so definitely router related. Changing to older firmware or to Merlin does not help, neither does factory default. Even tried factory default through WPS button and through safe mode.
 

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