Hawk
Very Senior Member
Not sure if I should start a new thread for this but I'm having an issue with this firmware version and the RT-AX88U. I just got this router and after updating to the latest Asus firmware I then flashed to Merlin. Everything works fine except my 5 GHz radio. I normally use Smart Connect (I know it's known to not work very well but it's always worked fine for me on my RT-AC3200 with default rules. Small house). With smart connect I rarely see any clients connect on the 5 GHz band, they always want to stay on 2.4 GHz. I turned of roaming assistant, beam forming, changed the rule, etc... and no difference. I then tried to separate the 2.4 and 5 GHz, giving them different SSID, the 5 GHz would not even show up on my available network list on multiple devices tested.
I thought it was the router so I flashed it back to Asus firmware getting ready to take it back and boom it worked fine on the factory firmware. I even flashed it back to Merlin again after wiping the router to factory default and had the same issue. I'm currently running on the Asus firmware. Anyone else seen this?
Also noticed the signal strength with the RT-AX88U is a bit weaker with this router then my RT-AC3200, same device same location will show -65 dBm vs -60 dBm respectively. Multiple devices have similar results.
Regarding 5 GHZ it is known issue, since wireless components are close sourced, merlin can't make changes to it. However you can manually select control channel and it will bring 5 GHZ up and devices will able able to join it. If you choose dfs channel which are between 52 to 144, there is wait about a minute before router will use that channel.