R9000 + DD-WRT

[shez]

Hi guys

Got this router to replace the RT-AC88U after having tried 2 and they both failing on me. The router is ok. It's a bit ugly but I like the fact it has 6 ports.

The wireless range on both 2.4 and 5GHZ is rather poor tbh - anyone else having these issues?

The web UI is atrocious. I can't believe we're in 2017 and Netgear sells a router this powerful and expensive with a 1998 looking Web UI that responds as slow as a pre 90s webpage.

I'm thinking of installing DD-WRT on it. Can someone advise me on the pros and cons of doing this? Will the wireless range suffer even more? And will I lose any features by installing this firmware?

I'm willing to give the router another chance before I return for a Synology AC2600.

Thanks in advance.




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[microchip]

IIRC, dd-wrt doesn't have hardware acceleration for this model, so if you have a beefy line, like a Gbps, then you won't be able to utilize it fully. Also, NG has the most outdated and ugly GUI of all consumer router vendors. Its internal components are also very out of date, some many years old. I suggest you return it

 

[shez]

IIRC, dd-wrt doesn't have hardware acceleration for this model, so if you have a beefy line, like a Gbps, then you won't be able to utilize it fully. Also, NG has the most outdated and ugly GUI of all consumer router vendors. Its internal components are also very out of date, some many years old. I suggest you return it

What do you mean by hardware acceleration? The latest Kong DD-WRT apparently has hardware cryptic acceleration - is this what you meant?

And do you know if DD-WRT would lower or higher my wireless range/stability/speeds at all?

Thanks


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[microchip]

What do you mean by hardware acceleration? The latest Kong DD-WRT apparently has hardware cryptic acceleration - is this what you meant?

And do you know if DD-WRT would lower or higher my wireless range/stability/speeds at all?

Thanks


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HW acceleration is also known as CTF (cut through forwarding). It's a method in switches and consumer routers to start passing data as soon as it's received and bypass some of the kernel's stuff. CTF is always closed source (binary blob module) and tied to a kernel provided by the chip designer to the router manufacturer. Since DD-WRT uses its own kernel, unless Kong has access to the sources of CTF so he can compile it for the kernel used by DD-WRT, it most likely doesn't support it. Without CTF, you'll never reach Gbps speeds for WAN -> LAN and LAN -> WAN on current HW consumer routers

I do not know if DD-WRT will help you on the WIFI side.

 

[pete y testing]

Got this router to replace the RT-AC88U after having tried 2 and they both failing on me

in what respect ?

Synology AC2600

certainly no better wifi coverage than ether the 88u or x10

what sort of coverage do you need as none of the current routers will have greater wifi coverage than others as we have hit the max transmission levels , you may want to consider one of the mesh / dw systems if wifi coverage is important

 

[shez]

5GHZ band died after 2 days on first device. Second device kept having random reboots every 30 minutes. (I tried everything - judging from what people are saying it's a problem with this latest batch from ASUS.

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I had an RT-AC3200 which had the best range I've ever had on a wireless router. The AC88U when it did work for them minutes wasn't as good - and the R9000 has been even worse. A lot of people have mentioned the Syno AC2600 has the best 5GHZ range and performances

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My router is in the garage in 1 house and provides signal 2 floors up and also the house next door (semi detached) 3 floors. Again the RT-AC3200 provided 5GHZ over both houses all 3 floors without an issue.




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[pete y testing]

A lot of people have mentioned the Syno AC2600 has the best 5GHZ range and performances

i can tell you that in my testing the synology 2600 is no better than any other wave 2 ac wifi wise , the asus rt-ac3200 actually slightly suffered from crosstalk on its two 5 gig bands

3 floors. Again the RT-AC3200 provided 5GHZ over both houses all 3 floors without an issue.

i think your memory might be a bit skewed as there is no way 5 gig would or could or should cover that much area , its a simple matter of physics as 5 gig just doesnt punch through walls etc very well no matter what wifi router you use

why dont you get another rt-ac3200 if you believe it has the best wifi but i think you might be disappointed

 

[psychopomp1]

OP, the R9000 (X10) is one of best routers for range both on 2.4ghz & 5 ghz. Personally I find Qualcomm Atheros (QCA) based routers give me better wifi coverage than their Broadcom counterparts and don't forget that Mu-Mimo is still in beta on Broadcom whereas on QCA routers it works reasonably well (provided you have Mu-Mimo clients of course) By all means try out the Synology 2600 (or Netgear R7800) as they are supposed to be very good.

 

[psychopomp1]

IIRC, dd-wrt doesn't have hardware acceleration for this model, so if you have a beefy line, like a Gbps, then you won't be able to utilize it fully. Also, NG has the most outdated and ugly GUI of all consumer router vendors. Its internal components are also very out of date, some many years old. I suggest you return it

I agree, the GUI on the R9000 is very antique but it does the job for me, and anyway once you have the router all setup and working you don't really need to mess around with its settings.

As for its internal components being "very out out of date", with the exception of the Asus GT-AC5300 which is buggy as hell, the Netgear R9000 is the most powerful consumer router out there currently with its Alpine 1.7ghz quadcore CPU, 1GB DDR3 RAM and 512MB flash memory.

 

[shez]

i can tell you that in my testing the synology 2600 is no better than any other wave 2 ac wifi wise , the asus rt-ac3200 actually slightly suffered from crosstalk on its two 5 gig bands



i think your memory might be a bit skewed as there is no way 5 gig would or could or should cover that much area , its a simple matter of physics as 5 gig just doesnt punch through walls etc very well no matter what wifi router you use

why dont you get another rt-ac3200 if you believe it has the best wifi but i think you might be disappointed

Memory is defo not Skewed. The AC3200 provided wifi for 2 houses which are semi detached (only 1 solid wall splitting the houses - internet walls plaster board). Not only did it provide 5G over all 3 floors it also provided it around 2-3 meteres outside of the property all the way round.

Now the X10 does cover the house with 5G (without a problem) but it's not as tough outside compared to the AC3200 IMO.


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[ulaganath]

R9000 is not old router. It was designed to give 10gbps and Plex 4k streaming. Dont compare other brands with netgear.

Netgear is stronger in its place. Who needs a wonderfull gui with broken functionality. I have heard that Asus router initial series were with broken wifi.

Netgear is more stable and even ran for 45+ days without a hicups with support upto 20+ devices easily. The best example was R7000. Still its own flagship in the Wave 1 series.

Wave 2 have many and one among the first is X4s and it will be wave 2 ranker soon. Few more firmware updates will make this as well equal to top performer.


Only Asus high end router work at least. Mid and lower is not upto the mark for its price or projection.

 

[microchip]

I agree, the GUI on the R9000 is very antique but it does the job for me, and anyway once you have the router all setup and working you don't really need to mess around with its settings.

As for its internal components being "very out out of date", with the exception of the Asus GT-AC5300 which is buggy as hell, the Netgear R9000 is the most powerful consumer router out there currently with its Alpine 1.7ghz quadcore CPU, 1GB DDR3 RAM and 512MB flash memory.

with internal components I was referring to its internal software. For example, dnsmasq is so out of date that it doesn't even support IPv6 hence why NG uses another IPv6 server for that

 

[pete y testing]

The AC3200 provided wifi for 2 houses which are semi detached (only 1 solid wall splitting the houses - internet walls plaster board). Not only did it provide 5G over all 3 floors it also provided it around 2-3 meteres outside of the property all the way round.

Now the X10 does cover the house with 5G (without a problem) but it's not as tough outside compared to the AC3200 IMO.

then you have both a faulty r9000 and 88u as i can assure you both have better wifi than the rt-ac3200

have you tried fixing channels on the 2.4 and 5 gig channels

 

[avtella]

The AC88U is a pretty good unit, you were just unfortunate. The R7800 actually has a small bit better 5Ghz (probably the best performing router I have seen on 5Ghz) performance advantage over the RT-2600AC but its not day and night, as they pretty much share the same hardware. Overall though if you don't mind spending $50 more over the R7800 the Synology offers Dual WAN and a better UI and more frequent updates. If you are into open source the R7800 is pretty popular at LEDE (OpenWRT) & DDWRT with the devs, with hardware acceleration just backported to the new kernel on LEDE but not yet commited, you can enable it by downloading the patch before compiling if you can't wait for pre-built firmwares. One of the advantages I see with LEDE over stock and DD-WRT is SQM-QoS, its by the same people who worked on CODEL.

As for the AC88U failures I have a feeling the blame is on Broadcom not on ASUS, because the R8500 had the exact same issues earlier. I'm pretty sure the newer AC88Us use the BCM4366C0 vs the B1 I believe previously. Linksys also made the change on the EA9500. I mean Pete and many others don't have any issues so you just got really unlucky. Pete anyway you can check the chip revision on yours?

 

[Deleted member 22229]

I bought the 3100 the little brother to the 88U but same machine back when it first released and it has been rock solid never had any failures or issues. I only use the 5 Ghz band and it covers the whole house with very good signal and speed.

 

[trem0lo]

HW acceleration is also known as CTF (cut through forwarding). It's a method in switches and consumer routers to start passing data as soon as it's received and bypass some of the kernel's stuff. CTF is always closed source (binary blob module) and tied to a kernel provided by the chip designer to the router manufacturer. Since DD-WRT uses its own kernel, unless Kong has access to the sources of CTF so he can compile it for the kernel used by DD-WRT, it most likely doesn't support it. Without CTF, you'll never reach Gbps speeds for WAN -> LAN and LAN -> WAN on current HW consumer routers

I do not know if DD-WRT will help you on the WIFI side.

Actually the newest builds of dd-wrt include SFE (shortcut forwarding engine), which improves speeds significantly. I saw at least one report of near-gigabit speeds on the R7000.

 

[avtella]

Same in LEDE, someone got CTF equivalent working for Atheros units, and Hardware NAT is in staging on the way to be committed for QCA8337n/IPQ8065 combo units like the R7800 and possibly the R9000 in the future. Broadcom's CTF itself from what I was told isn't really hardware NAT, its more like a proprietary software bypass, not sure that was the right word to use.

 

[slobodan]

An RT-N16 (approved by FTC in 2009) running DD-WRT with SFE handles OK an internet connection of 200 Mbps download speed. So, I don't know about your router, but speaking of my RT-N16 and RT-AC56U, they perform very well with DD-WRT.

For Gigabit WAN-to-LAN I would stick to CTF, though.

 

[Almighty1]

Does SFE in the latest DD-WRT actually support ipv6 because according to this, it only supports ipv4 currently:
https://source.codeaurora.org/quic/qsdk/oss/lklm/shortcut-fe/plain/README?h=banana

 

[primitivo]

One problem to keep in mind with SFE is that it breaks VPN policy routing... I learned it the hard way.