PCE-AC68 paired with RT-AC68U

[ikoul]

Does anyone else use the AC68 adapter with the AC68 router? How is your performance?

I pre-ordered both and have been using them since they came out. The router has been great, working as expected and having good 5 Ghz throughput with all of the firmware builds released since launch (2.4 is okay but not great because pretty much every channel is crowded around me).

The above is true for all of my clients except the PCE-AC68. The software available for it doesn't seem very good (crashes sometimes, doesn't display signal values all the time), and the options for beamforming, interference mitigation, and TurboQAM don't seem to have any real effect on performance as far as I can tell.

On 5 Ghz, I get ~170 Mbps throughput (which pretty much lines up with the 175 Mbps link rate it claims to have), however I can't help but feel like I should be getting a better connection. My only other ac client is a Galaxy S4, which claims a link rate of 433 at the same spot but I don't know of a good tool to actually test throughput on an Android device so who knows how accurate that is.

I've read some reviews on Amazon and Newegg where people say they have similar issues, and most of them have replies by ASUS reps that promise new drivers "in a few days", but they're all from weeks ago and clearly those drivers haven't been released.

I'd like to hear about other people's experiences (haven't seen too many people posting about using this particular hardware combination).

 

[Kris404]

My Windows 7 PCE-68 connects to the AC68U in the next room at 1Gbps.

I have tested throughput of 60MBytes/sec = 480Mbps from my wired Synology NAS.

I have since switched to DD-WRT because of stability issues on the official firmware and haven't tested the throughput again, yet.

 

[ikoul]

What kind of signal level do you have, to get those speeds? I'm running Windows 8.1 so maybe that's a factor too.

Trying DD-WRT is another thing I've been meaning to do, just to check it out.

 

[xDonkey]

I have the same setup in Windows 7. Have not checked any performance but if you advice me how to check those I can have a look.

 

[ikoul]

I have the same setup in Windows 7. Have not checked any performance but if you advice me how to check those I can have a look.

I usually test my throughput by doing a transfer over smb from a machine connected to the router with gigabit ethernet (in my case a laptop with an SSD so I know it can serve the file as fast as the network connection allows). You can also use various programs to do it assuming you have more than one machine available, and there are articles about them on smallnetbuilder.

For signal level, I either check the value in the Asus utility that comes with the adapter, or I use a neat program called inSSIDer that shows all the networks around and their channel/signal level.

 

[ehume]

I had an RT-AC68U on my main floor, with a PCE-68 in the basement. I was getting 300-450 Mbps. It felt fast.

However, "legacy" clients like a March 2013 Windows laptop and an October 2012 iPod were having slow speeds (laptop) and non-coverage (iPod) on their 11n connects. So I put back my 2009 Netgear WNDR 3700. All is well again for them, but I am getting 100-162 Mbps in the basement.

 

[Cumulonimbus]

What kind of signal level do you have, to get those speeds? I'm running Windows 8.1 so maybe that's a factor too.

Trying DD-WRT is another thing I've been meaning to do, just to check it out.

DD-WRT does not support Hardware-Acceleration of the ASUS (AC66/AC68), so you have much lower transfer rates. For best Performance, use the Router and the WLAN-Adapter with Original oer Merlinfirmware. If you want more Features, use DD-WRT. I think, DD-WRT never support Hardware Acceleration :-(

Performance with my two AC66 (Client-Bride Mode):

With DD-WRT-Firmware: 255-275 Mbit / Ping 12-16ms to Router
With Merlin/Asus i get 390-420 Mbit / Ping <2ms to Router

Tested on best 5GHz Channel (60) in my Enviroment.

 

[Kris404]

DD-WRT does not support Hardware-Acceleration of the ASUS (AC66/AC68), so you have much lower transfer rates. For best Performance, use the Router and the WLAN-Adapter with Original oer Merlinfirmware. If you want more Features, use DD-WRT. I think, DD-WRT never support Hardware Acceleration :-(

Performance with my two AC66 (Client-Bride Mode):

With DD-WRT-Firmware: 255-275 Mbit / Ping 12-16ms to Router
With Merlin/Asus i get 390-420 Mbit / Ping <2ms to Router

Tested on best 5GHz Channel (60) in my Enviroment.

The acceleration is for WAN-LAN wired Ethernet. Unless you have Gigabit fiber, it won't make much of a difference. The WiFi performance difference could be because of different channels etc. Ping response can be minimized in DD-WRT (via command line) but that may also impact throughput.

 

[Cumulonimbus]

The acceleration is for WAN-LAN wired Ethernet. Unless you have Gigabit fiber, it won't make much of a difference. The WiFi performance difference could be because of different channels etc. Ping response can be minimized in DD-WRT (via command line) but that may also impact throughput.

Are absolutly sure?

With DD-WRT-Firmware: 255-275 Mbit / Ping 12-16ms to Router
With Merlin/Asus i get 390-420 Mbit / Ping <2ms to Router

Why are we have with Merlins Firmware more WLAN-Speed? It can be reprodced with two Linksys E4200-Routers. Tomato has 25% more Overall-Speed over WLAN.

 

[RMerlin]

Are absolutly sure?

With DD-WRT-Firmware: 255-275 Mbit / Ping 12-16ms to Router
With Merlin/Asus i get 390-420 Mbit / Ping <2ms to Router

Why are we have with Merlins Firmware more WLAN-Speed? It can be reprodced with two Linksys E4200-Routers. Tomato has 25% more Overall-Speed over WLAN.

DD-WRT uses a completely different kernel, and different driver. I know that recently Kong has been experimenting with different Ethernet switch configuration, for a while it was configured to provide higher throughput but also higher latency. I didn't expect the latency increase to be so high however, I was expecting something closer to 5-10 ms.

 

[tikiman1]

ikoul, have you tried turning the 5Ghz radio off & back on? Or going into the Wireless Professional page & clicking apply again?

I ask this because this is what my Rt-AC66R requires everyday to utilize the maximum throughput. Mine requires this whether I'm using Merlin's firmware or the stock Asus firmware.

I get connection rates from 866mbps down to 175mbps until I go into the router & click apply again. Then it reconnects @ 1.3Ghz & I get the full speed again. My max wireless throughput that I've seen is 109MBps (read Megabytes Per Second) with an average of 60 to 80MBps depending on the file types being transferred.

I'm still waiting for a decent firmware that does not require this manual type of radio reset. I've been waiting 9 months now.

 

[ikoul]

ikoul, have you tried turning the 5Ghz radio off & back on? Or going into the Wireless Professional page & clicking apply again?

I ask this because this is what my Rt-AC66R requires everyday to utilize the maximum throughput. Mine requires this whether I'm using Merlin's firmware or the stock Asus firmware.

I get connection rates from 866mbps down to 175mbps until I go into the router & click apply again. Then it reconnects @ 1.3Ghz & I get the full speed again. My max wireless throughput that I've seen is 109MBps (read Megabytes Per Second) with an average of 60 to 80MBps depending on the file types being transferred.

I'm still waiting for a decent firmware that does not require this manual type of radio reset. I've been waiting 9 months now.

I haven't tried that. I always figured that the radio restarts already most of the times changes are made to the settings (and when I try new firmware), so anything fixed by a reset would have already happened.

Your post reminds me of something I noticed during my testing:
On a lot of the 5Ghz channels I'll get higher link rates like 867 Mbps, but 10-20% lower throughput despite there not being any other networks in range. On 149 (or whatever the lowest channel in the higher set is), I get the speeds I mentioned in the original post (which are the highest I've been able to get). So clearly the link rate itself doesn't always correlate to the actual speeds you see (which other people have noted on this forum, I think including RMerlin).

Anyway, I'll try restarting just the radio like you said and I'll post an update later to report whether it helped or not.

 

[tikiman1]

You have to test which channel works best for you in your environment. For me it is channel 157. I get the highest throughput on this channel, and also the highest link rate. With the lower channels I can get a good link rate (866 or so) but the throughput is atrocious.

I think one of my neighbors has a 5Ghz cordless phone or something. In the mornings before they leave for work or in the evenings when they get home the throughput drops for all channels, but channel 157 stays within an acceptable range. Say 50 to 60MBps or so. The lower channels really take a dive when they are home, like wireless n 70mbps range.

 

[ikoul]

Yesterday I tried just resetting the radio, and it didn't seem to make any difference as far as I could tell. Same throughput before and after. For what it's worth, at the speeds I'm getting I haven't noticed the "throughput degrading over time" issue that so many people seem to have on this forum. So maybe restarting the radio is a temporary fix for that, but not for a consistently "slow" (I'm still pretty happy with it, I just like to see bigger numbers and faster transfers) connection.

Also tried the new 371 firmware and it didn't have any effect either (but I don't think its change log claimed to improve wireless performance anyway).

One thing I still kind of suspect is that some of my antennas might be bad on either the router or adapter, and the decent connection I get happens despite that (from 2 out of 3 or something). But I don't really know of a good way to test that.

 

[geops]

ikoul, have you tried turning the 5Ghz radio off & back on? Or going into the Wireless Professional page & clicking apply again?

I ask this because this is what my Rt-AC66R requires everyday to utilize the maximum throughput. Mine requires this whether I'm using Merlin's firmware or the stock Asus firmware.

I get connection rates from 866mbps down to 175mbps until I go into the router & click apply again. Then it reconnects @ 1.3Ghz & I get the full speed again. My max wireless throughput that I've seen is 109MBps (read Megabytes Per Second) with an average of 60 to 80MBps depending on the file types being transferred.

I'm still waiting for a decent firmware that does not require this manual type of radio reset. I've been waiting 9 months now.

You're joking, right? 109MB/s is not physically possible on ac1300. You can get around 68MB/s under near-perfect conditions.

 

[Igb]

I personally noticed that, despite having a insane ping to router increase with DD-WRT (from average 1ms with stock or merlin fw to about 10-15ms with DD-WRT), performace out-of-the-network seems quite unaffected.

I don't think is related to the latest changes in the switch behaviour, i noticed since i first tried dd-wrt (can't remember what build it was, probably some 21-ish kong build), but ping to the exterior of the network seems to be very less affected (about ~+5ms at most), so it wasn't really a problem for me (just a bit weird i got better pings to my dns servers than to my router)

 

[tikiman1]

You're joking, right? 109MB/s is not physically possible on ac1300. You can get around 68MB/s under near-perfect conditions.

I've seen it with my AC1750 router. It maxed out at 109MBps once for about 10 seconds. Granted that's not very long, or a sustained speed. My average is between 60 to 80MBps depending on the file types being transferred.

I removed the metal screens from the windows in the computer room for the winter & keep the shades up when doing large transfers or testing. This, I found, creates an ideal wireless environment. Chairs in a certain position also effect the signal.