ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 (Owners)

[Rolo]

So what happens when you mix a dual band (RTAC86u) with a triband router(s) (2 x GT5300's) in Aimesh? Does this compromise the ability of the 2 5300's to use the backhaul channel because one of the pieces is dual band? Also, what would be the difference if all 3 were wired vs one being wireless?

I can't fathom any reason to do this: you're bottlenecking the two GT5300s through a router with fewer radios and a fraction of the processing power. Most likely--though you'd have to experiment--one GT will be on the 86's 2.4GHz channel (which may be better anyway if the 2.4GHz signal does better than a 5GHz one due to distance and environmental factors), making its two 5GHz radios mostly pointless.

If you have such a large area to cover, seriously consider running some wire, better router placement, or replacing this expensive setup with one designed to be a mesh with a single controller and nodes (I mean, you're getting within Cisco price-range at this point), like Ubiquiti.

 

[livefeed]

Still waiting on a FW update to have my Lyra AiMesh to my GT-AC5300, come on ASUS I know you said later in 2018 but how much later?

Thanks,
love my AC5300

 

[Miguel Stanic]

Ideally 3 band should be router and dual band node.
There's no easy answer to your question.
If node is wired, backhaul is over ethernet.
If not:
- combined with smart connect it will choose 2nd 5GHz for backhaul if there is good 5GHz connectivity between.
- if it can't connect via 5, it will do it via 2.4.
- without smart connect you can define a SSID for the first 5GHz band but clients will share the 2nd 5GHz with backhaul.

If dual band is router and 5300 node you just got yourself a 5GHz radio that you can't use on the node. At least that was the case with the first AiMesh release. I don't know if something changed meanwhile.

In my case, the GT5300 is router, the 2nd GT5300 is a wired node and the one AC86u is a wired node. Would I be better off using a triband router instead of which Asus only makes the 5300's or the 3200.

 

[Miguel Stanic]

I can't fathom any reason to do this: you're bottlenecking the two GT5300s through a router with fewer radios and a fraction of the processing power. Most likely--though you'd have to experiment--one GT will be on the 86's 2.4GHz channel (which may be better anyway if the 2.4GHz signal does better than a 5GHz one due to distance and environmental factors), making its two 5GHz radios mostly pointless.

If you have such a large area to cover, seriously consider running some wire, better router placement, or replacing this expensive setup with one designed to be a mesh with a single controller and nodes (I mean, you're getting within Cisco price-range at this point), like Ubiquiti.

It's a 3 floor home but the main router/5300 is in the basement - can't move it. The other 5300 is way upstairs on the 3rd floor. I had them running this way for some time and inside the house all seemed good with stable speeds everywhere. However, on the main floor and opposite corner to where the 5300 is upstairs, the signal would be strong but not the same as everywhere else. Plus as soon as I got outside the signal would weaken drastically - again, front being opposite side of where the node 5300 is upstairs. I decided to try an 86u in the corner of the main floor then. It seems to all works and I get full strenghth everywhere inside now. And, outside it's way faster now. I agree, its seems like overkill but I'm getting full speeds everywhere inside now. Maybe, I should have tried the 2nd 5300 in the main floor and middle of the house. It's connected over a Netgear Powerlline 2000 which seems to be rock solid upstairs so don't want to tamper with that.

I tried Orbi and Velop and Orbi was decent but Velop was bad. Orbi speeds were not as good as the Aimesh setup with the 2 or now 3 routers.

 

[Miguel Stanic]

Still waiting on a FW update to have my Lyra AiMesh to my GT-AC5300, come on ASUS I know you said later in 2018 but how much later?

Thanks,
love my AC5300

That would be swell. Does Lyra work well on its own. Never tried this mesh - only Orbi and Velop.

 

[Vexira]

Curiosity has the port conflict issues been resolved yet?
I'm qurious to see if it's been fixed by now, the bug where if two applications request the same port number one will get open Nat the other will get moderate nat eg.. Two pics running call of duty black ops 3. The first PC will get open the second will get moderate Nat.
Does this unit still stuffer from the issue?

 

[mrkillerhomer]

Hi, i just bought this router and should be able to pick it up today.
I been searching a bit looking if there is any custom firmware, and it sounds like its being worked on?
Is that correct or is there already one i am missing?
I would very much like to try "Merlin" firmware. or is there other types i should look for?

 

[Vexira]

Hi, i just bought this router and should be able to pick it up today.
I been searching a bit looking if there is any custom firmware, and it sounds like its being worked on?
Is that correct or is there already one i am missing?
I would very much like to try "Merlin" firmware. or is there other types i should look for?

There is none Merlin doesn't support it.

 

[mrkillerhomer]

There is none Merlin doesn't support it.

Hmm, is there any other custom firmware for it? or being worked on?

 

[Rolo]

It's a 3 floor home but the main router/5300 is in the basement - can't move it. The other 5300 is way upstairs on the 3rd floor. I had them running this way for some time and inside the house all seemed good with stable speeds everywhere. However, on the main floor and opposite corner to where the 5300 is upstairs, the signal would be strong but not the same as everywhere else. Plus as soon as I got outside the signal would weaken drastically - again, front being opposite side of where the node 5300 is upstairs. I decided to try an 86u in the corner of the main floor then. It seems to all works and I get full strenghth everywhere inside now. And, outside it's way faster now. I agree, its seems like overkill but I'm getting full speeds everywhere inside now. Maybe, I should have tried the 2nd 5300 in the main floor and middle of the house. It's connected over a Netgear Powerlline 2000 which seems to be rock solid upstairs so don't want to tamper with that.

I tried Orbi and Velop and Orbi was decent but Velop was bad. Orbi speeds were not as good as the Aimesh setup with the 2 or now 3 routers.

So I understand: your objective is to get full strength signal everywhere...? Is that necessary? (versus having an adequate signal everywhere)

A consideration: you have 8 radios competing with each other in addition to whatever your neighbors are using, so that may diminish throughput. Signal strength isn't the only variable for throughput.

How do you have your antennas pointed? They should alternate between upright and at a 45-degree angle. Might even consider trying laying two of them flat on the basement router (any RF experts who could comment on that?).

The second 5300 should definitely be on the main floor and should obviate the need for the 86u.

 

[Vexira]

Hmm, is there any other custom firmware for it? or being worked on?

None as far as I'm aware of, one of the reasons I won't buy one other than the exorbitant price is the Nat conflict bug that exists in stock firmware but was fixed in Merlin.

 

[tanoanian]

None as far as I'm aware of, one of the reasons I won't buy one other than the exorbitant price is the Nat conflict bug that exists in stock firmware but was fixed in Merlin.

No NAT conflict here...couldn't be more happy with this router on gigabit internet.

 

[Skyler LaVey]

No NAT conflict here...couldn't be more happy with this router on gigabit internet.

Have you run two Xbox’s or ps4s at the same time playing the same game and check if the NAT is open on each device?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Vexira]

No NAT conflict here...couldn't be more happy with this router on gigabit internet.

Even try two copies of call of duty on pc. Eg back ops 3 or ghost's then check the Nat reading, also get two Xbox one consoles set them both to the same port number manually then check the Nat reading, Merlin fixed this in his firmware but Asus has yet to address this issue, soon as its fixed it will allow me to buy a rapture.

 

[Rolo]

soon as its fixed it will allow me to buy a rapture.

[Main Router] RT-AC88U
[Access Point]RT-AC87U
[Additional Hardware]RP-AC68U X2

What benefit(s) do you expect to get over your current setup?

 

[Vexira]

What benefit(s) do you expect to get over your current setup?

I don't understand your question?
I'm looking to replace my 88u because I'm going to give it to family.

 

[drabisan]

@Vexira
I bought a GT for a simple reason: I was shopping around for a router with 8 LAN ports and I found a great offer.
RT-AC88U was the other option I had. But price difference balanced my decision towards GT-AC5300.
I'm not into gaming so I'm not really in this product's target.

I was hoping for a super stable router. My old 68U was and still is such a stable product.
GT is not! Even with my super simple and clean setup I'm having a stupid problem: one 5GHz radio vanishing. AiMesh works perfect and most time the router works. But every 7-10 days I loose a radio. And that simply pisses me off! Good part is Asus knows the problem and they are working on it. But this is not a new product so I'm not too optimistic. I don't regret by purchase decision! But I was expecting more from a high-end Asus router.

Maybe you have a specific game related need that only GT-AC5300 delivers. But if you can game without this router, do not replace a RT-AC88U for a GT!

 

[ribits]

I bought the GT-AC5300 because the VPN Fusion option seemed like a great idea. My initial intent was to use the VPN as default then assign Internet to certain devices as needed. expressVPN was my first choice and worked as non-default but when set to default, nothing was connecting and router interface response suffered. So I tried NordVPN and it worked so I was initially thinking it was something with the service itself.......

But then I saw a post on the ASUS ROG site that referenced a similar issue and it came down to the OVPN file config from expressVPN.

GT-AC5300 does not properly resolve the server qualified hostname to the IP address so by changing the server name in the expressVPN OVPN file to the numerical IP address it was able to connect and work properly (so far). I looked at the NORD OVPN file and sure enough - they used the IP address for the server which is why it worked.

I also was messing with the WAN DNS and setting it to Goog DNS 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4 versus using my provider's default DNS but have not gone back to see if that made a difference too.

​

Hi everybody,

I had both, the RT-AC5300 and and GT sitting side by side on the shelf and the purchase price difference was so small I had to take the "better" on - or it least I thought so :-/

I purchased the router for 2 particular reasons, "policy driven VPN" - VPN-Fusion here, and the router being powerful enough functioning as a NAS via USB3 port.

Now, coming to my issue: I cannot make my OPEN-VPN work in VPN-Fusion, it just does NOTHING and I do follow every rule of the book.
The internet is just blocked altogether (nothing goes through - everything times out)

My VPN provider is EXPRESSVPN and everything works just fine when I use their apps for iOS and Windows as well as Android.
I do have Samsung TV sets that cannot have apps and I need to stream to them via the router but it just doesn't work.

I am writing this because I read many things here and it all said the the firmware is buggy and not working. Is that so?
I have now 3 updates behind me, today was the last one to Firmware Version:3.0.0.4.384_20648 but STILL, OpenVPN is not working.

Would someone please be kind enough to enlighten me why it works perfect with my old Asus router model RT-AC55UHP but not with this one?
I do follow the steps, setting up the proper server, uploading the proper files and it does connect to VPN server.

Is there anything that I am missing here or is it really just not working at all?


Thanks you for your advice in advance.

Regards,
jAKE

 

[ribits]

UPDATE:

So I made the mistake of rebooting the GT-AC5300 and was not able to connect to the internet. After a lot of trial and error, I came up with something that works, but is a hassle and points to more work needed to get VPN FUSION to work every time (hello ASUS?).

VPN FUSION:

SERVER LIST 2 connections : Internet (non-default), expressVPN (marked as default)

EXCEPTION LIST: xbox one (using Internet)

After a reboot or power-cycle:

1) log into GT-AC5300 and go to VPN FUSION menu - this takes a few minutes for some reason
2) deactivate expressVPN
3) edit expressVPN and re-upload the OPVN file. Click OK and reactivate. As previously mentioned. I am using a modded version of the expressVPN OPVN file where I replaced the server host name with the numeric IP of that server.
4) for each entry in your EXCEPTION list that you want to use the non-VPN server, deactivate and activate and then apply to ensure it is not using expressVPN settings.

This was based on the following personal experience:

1) reboot or power cycle GT-AC5300 and no connections on any devices.
2) logged into AC5300 and went to VPN FUSION page (which took a few minutes to load) my default expressVPN was still checked as default and indicated a working connection, but no devices were able to connect to the web.
3) Changing SERVER LIST to Internet as the default restored connectivity, but changing the default back to expressVPN lost it.
4) Tried activate/deactivate on expressVPN but nothing
5) I was finally able to restore the expressVPN connection by reloading the OVPN file! Did not have to delete the expressVPN setup....just reloaded the OVPN file (which I modded to the numeric IP address of the expressVPN server rather than keeping the hostname) and clicked ok. Just to test, I tried the original one with the host name and it would not connect.
6) Now all devices worked - wired and wireless had internet but now I noticed the XBOX thinks it was connected to expressVPN - (its internal connection test showed Latency of 100+ ms, MTU of 1344 and double-NAT)
7) deactivate/activate XBOX on exception list and now MTU latency of 45ms, MTU 1480 and OPEN NAT

Obviously the VPN Fusion is not doing a good job of retaining the underlying settings vs the indicators in the GUI after a reboot or powercycle. Hopefully ASUS will eventually address this since it seems to work well once the setup is done. It's just that getting to there is a really challenge.

I bought the GT-AC5300 because the VPN Fusion option seemed like a great idea. My initial intent was to use the VPN as default then assign Internet to certain devices as needed. expressVPN was my first choice and worked as non-default but when set to default, nothing was connecting and router interface response suffered. So I tried NordVPN and it worked so I was initially thinking it was something with the service itself.......

But then I saw a post on the ASUS ROG site that referenced a similar issue and it came down to the OVPN file config from expressVPN.

GT-AC5300 does not properly resolve the server qualified hostname to the IP address so by changing the server name in the expressVPN OVPN file to the numerical IP address it was able to connect and work properly (so far). I looked at the NORD OVPN file and sure enough - they used the IP address for the server which is why it worked.

I also was messing with the WAN DNS and setting it to Goog DNS 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4 versus using my provider's default DNS but have not gone back to see if that made a difference too.

​

 

[Tyler Morris-Ditto]

Eveything was working fine for me for about two weeks. I did have the problem of having to re enable the exceptions, but that was bearable. Every since I set up raspberry pi as plea though, the vpn fusion has not been working as default.