ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 (Owners)

[Grisu]

Yeah, so far, so good, other than the missing power button everything is ok, no signs of mishandling at all. About the antennas, I don't know, they just seem flimsy compared to the ones on my prior TP Link Archer, although those were not removable (and different). About the router itself, the Hardware version is still A, but manufacturing date is May18, I'm on the last firmware version and have not experienced any trouble so far, but I have not tried every option on the router yet due to lack of time.

the power button is totally senseless on these all time on units, the power plug is 1cm beside, to press power button twice for power cycle is even more work than unplug/replug the plug. E.g. my fritzbox and other modems dont even have any power switch therefore.
Antennas are as is. Because of the heat many are broken at buttom plastic nut after one or few years (at least seen this on some 68U).

 

[Rolo]

the power button is totally senseless on these all time on units, the power plug is 1cm beside, to press power button twice for power cycle is even more work than unplug/replug the plug.

Except that a proper power-cycle is to power off, unplug it, hit the power button ON for a moment to discharge capacitors, then power off and reconnect power and then power it on

 

[Grisu]

Except that a proper power-cycle is to power off, unplug it, hit the power button ON for a moment to discharge capacitors, then power off and reconnect power and then power it on

Hey mr. electronic engineer!
Have you ever heard about soft switch and hard switch? This may happen only to laptops and similar products with only soft switching power off where no cut off the lines occure by pressing the power button..

You're totally wrong, there is electrically absolutely no difference in powering off by power button or removeing the power plug into the device (as I wrote 1cm beside the power button, not the power adaptor out of the main-plug).
If you remove the plug from device the circuit still tries to consume power and discharging capacitors, with and without power button (pressed or released)!

 

[eJC]

SOLVED:

Was able to solve this issue this under SETUP 2 (enable all devices to go through the VPN tunnel all at once while allowing certain others to only use the Internet):

1. Go to your device (bluray, etc) and change setting from Auto IP to Manual IP. Give it an IP address you like (or that you will be able to remember)
2. Reboot your device
3. In your router, under the VPN Fusion tab, select your VPN tunnel and make it your "Default" connection (check bubble). ****DO NOT ACTIVATE THE VPN YET*** (leave gray minus sign as is). Select Apply.
4. Under the Exceptions Tab click on the + sign to find your device and add it there. Note this will also add your device IP to the DHCP list (see LAN tab)
5. Under the Exceptions Tab, ACTIVATE YOUR DEVICE (click to green check mark) and Apply.

Marin,
Congrats on working this through! It's grueling, but I hope you feel it was worth it. For what it is worth, you really shouldn't have had to do step #1. You must, however, assign a static IP address to any exception device. When you set the static IP address using the router (as opposed to setting it on the device), DHCP will always assign the same reserved IP address to the device you have identified as needing a static IP address.

At any rate, congrats again. Please continue to share your experience with regard to how well it works over the long run.

 

[eJC]

Nice review of multiple ASUS routers, including the Rapture: https://techreport.com/review/34005...-cave-and-lyra-trio-wireless-routers-reviewed

 

[eJC]

Hi All,
Since latest firmware 384.32738 i have constant reboots of the router, 5-6 times a day.

Are you using the "band steering" functionality of the router with SmartConnect?

Can you share the information from the system log around the times of the reboots?

 

[MarkSW]

Got banned in the ROG Forums for basically calling Asus out on a half finished router 18 months after release.
The following sentence is what started the whole event and is a part quote from the Asus Rep on the Forum:

"We understand that VPN Fusion was a key factor for some people when purchasing the Rapture, because no one else offered such a feature. The first impression of VPN Fusion for some people isn't what we had hoped but the team is doing their best to make it perform as initially expected for everyone."
To which I responded:
"So nearly 18 months after release, you are basically admitting that the function you most pushed on this router still does not work 100%?
Add to this the multitude of other issues people are still experiencing and all you have is a product that promised nearly everything and delivered almost nothing?
Please give us a stripped down firmware, or allow us to remove the gimmicky and problem laden apps on this router, or better yet get Merlin involved. As I have previously stated his custom firmware leaves anything that you guys can produce in the dust."
After that I continuously called them out and welcomed the multitude of people with problems with this hardware to the 1/2 finished GT-AC5300 Owners Club and told Asus to step up and admit that they had stuffed up with this router.
Then all of those posts disappeared and when I called them out on that and the "great freedom of speech" I was banned.
I admit I got pissy , but who wouldn't after all the issues experienced with a so called "Premium Product"

 

[sfx2000]

"We understand that VPN Fusion was a key factor for some people when purchasing the Rapture, because no one else offered such a feature. The first impression of VPN Fusion for some people isn't what we had hoped but the team is doing their best to make it perform as initially expected for everyone."

Hehe... someone ran afoul of marketing.... and got ban-hammered - this happens///

Marketing did promise this...

Which it kind of does, as do most AsusWRT devices outside of the marketing propoganda...

For many - this is a marketing insult - WTF, not that WTFast...

Because that more of a problem than a solution...

Getting pissy with the Support mods, yes, ban-hammered, even though they likely needed to get held accountable for promises by marketing...

 

[OzarkEdge]

For many - this is a marketing insult - WTF, not that WTFast...

I considered WTFast a marketing play on acronyms that they thought would appeal to adolescent gamers... along with the blood red background.

OE

 

[HowIFix]

WTFast is a garbage, I was banned from a game for using that garbage...

Using the application that is installed on the PC, that's why I never use that garbage again or use VPN when I play.

 

[drabisan]

Can we share an maximum uptime without issues?
Mine is 9 days. After that 5GHz#2 disappeared. Trying and trying, with Asus support, I end up reloading my GT every Sunday at 1AM.
I'm using a mesh and the node, a 68U, wants a reload once per month. That has to be a manual process, cause I don't know any other way.
With a 7 day max uptime I'm super happy! But I wouldn't mind for more!

 

[Maahfu]

Can you elaborate on the disappearance. My second channel will disconnect my devices every once in a while but I have never not seen it active.

Can we share an maximum uptime without issues?
Mine is 9 days. After that 5GHz#2 disappeared. Trying and trying, with Asus support, I end up reloading my GT every Sunday at 1AM.
I'm using a mesh and the node, a 68U, wants a reload once per month. That has to be a manual process, cause I don't know any other way.
With a 7 day max uptime I'm super happy! But I wouldn't mind for more!

 

[sfx2000]

WTFast is a garbage, I was banned from a game for using that garbage...

Using the application that is installed on the PC, that's why I never use that garbage again or use VPN when I play.

A lot of folks did get banned in games - sometimes unfairly, as many game servers looked at IP's, and not user accounts...

 

[Marin]

Marin,
Congrats on working this through! It's grueling, but I hope you feel it was worth it. For what it is worth, you really shouldn't have had to do step #1. You must, however, assign a static IP address to any exception device. When you set the static IP address using the router (as opposed to setting it on the device), DHCP will always assign the same reserved IP address to the device you have identified as needing a static IP address.

At any rate, congrats again. Please continue to share your experience with regard to how well it works over the long run.

Well my excitement only lasted so long after this post. As soon as I turned off my Blu-ray to do something else, when I turned it back on it no longer connected to Netflix. However, its other installed apps did access the Internet. This behavior makes me wonder if there some VPN “leaking” into the Exception rules that specifically interferes with Netflix functionality when the device is turned on. I can’t figure it out for some reason.

On my RT-AC5300 (and Merlin) I was able to do this by creating a policy rule by having all devices access VPN and the Blu-ray access WAN. But in this device I am completely lost as to why I can’t make this work when I am simply following the setup Asus suggests in their GUI.

Thinking that it was perhaps my ROG that is doing this, I used another ROG to see if this would fix the problem but no-the same issue repeats.

As soon as I tried Setup 1 (where the default connection is the Internet), the Netflix works again. I’m thinking there must be something in the “Default” connection settings (VPN vs Internet) that somehow does not allow the router to clearly separate such connections between devices.

I retried everyone suggestions to do one activation step at a time, restored router several times but no luck.

As I mentioned before I wish I could be happy with setup 1 but the thought of having to manually add each device on my network to the Exception tab just to have Netflix working (with Internet and not even a VPN!!) is such a tedious and very time-consuming process. The purpose of the Exception tab should be to have a few devices listed there-then what is the point of listing everything in that section, otherwise they are no longer “exceptions”!! [emoji36]Plus, my other devices seem to experience a significant lag when accessing the Internet when using Setup 2.

After this experience, I completely agree that VPN Fusion has a long way to go in order to convince many folks in this community that it serves a real purpose....Such an interesting device, so many hours spent on tweaks to make it work like it is “supposed to”and so many lost opportunities!

I am hoping the next FW upgrade will bring a solution to this. For those of you who don’t seem to have any issue with this functionality would you mind sharing what FW version are you currently using?

Marin




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[drabisan]

Can you elaborate on the disappearance. My second channel will disconnect my devices every once in a while but I have never not seen it active.

It didn't happen to me in a good while. I can't tell if it's because of weekly reload or from firmware. I'll have to remove that weekly reload to check if it's still happening.
Sometimes between 7 to 10 days uptime, I wasn't seeing any BSSID broadcasted by the 2nd 5GHz radio. In wireless log I wasn't even seeing that radio! A reload was always solving the problem. I had several cases with Asus, but all were "work in progress" and I got tired to follow-up and configure that weekly reload.

 

[drabisan]

I freaking jinx it!
Today my Pixel XL couldn't connect to wireless. My laptop could, on 5GHz#1. No clients on 5GHz#2. Although I could see the bssid on both laptop or phone. Phone reboot - no change.
Reboot the router - problem solved!
Uptime was less than a day!
Yeah, too tired of sending feedback to Asus! Plus, I was supposed to collect wlan logs, that takes time...


I wonder at what point I stopped believing feedback is too annoying Vs results? Next time I'll try to do better...but it's Asus' premium product! Everything should just work!

Grrr... either I did a bad investment either a feature I'm using on this router is really f...ked up!

 

[Rolo]

Hey mr. electronic engineer!
Have you ever heard about soft switch and hard switch? This may happen only to laptops and similar products with only soft switching power off where no cut off the lines occure by pressing the power button..

You're totally wrong, there is electrically absolutely no difference in powering off by power button or removeing the power plug into the device (as I wrote 1cm beside the power button, not the power adaptor out of the main-plug).
If you remove the plug from device the circuit still tries to consume power and discharging capacitors, with and without power button (pressed or released)!

Layin' it on a little thick, aren't we?

Unless you have an actual schematic of or disassembled that unit, you have no way of knowing if that's a mechanical switch or not. Don't forget different hardware revisions, so yours may not match his.

 

[Grisu]

Unless you have an actual schematic of or disassembled that unit, you have no way of knowing if that's a mechanical switch or not. Don't forget different hardware revisions, so yours may not match his.

on mine there is a hardware switch cutting off power lines, and they has been the same on all about 10 different devices I had in the past (DSL-AC and RT-AC types).
Software switches usually realized with cheap pushbuttons.
You can feel the difference and a mechanical switch is much too expensive to use it only for software switching.
Thats why they changed the "light" button from mechanical to simple bushbutton.
Only power button remained as real mechanical switch.

And yes, I opened mine to improve thermal contact for better cooling without fan.

 

[eJC]

Well my excitement only lasted so long after this post. As soon as I turned off my Blu-ray to do something else, when I turned it back on it no longer connected to Netflix. However, its other installed apps did access the Internet. This behavior makes me wonder if there some VPN “leaking” into the Exception rules that specifically interferes with Netflix functionality when the device is turned on. I can’t figure it out for some reason.

Do you know if you router rebooted in between the time it was working and then not working for you? That used to be an issue that I had.

Also, can you check the IP address assigned to your Blu-ray player (from the player itself) to make sure it matches the IP address the Rapture expects for that device?

 

[Marin]

No, i didn't need to reboot the router at all during this time. But I had to reboot it several times throughout this process to see if that would fix my problem. I also rebooted my Bluray too. And yes my Bluray does pick up the IP I specify in the DHCP list and that has not been a problem at all. I only have 1 VPN tunnel that I set as my Default connection and the Bluray on the Exception list set to access the Internet (so I can watch Netflix).

The only way that Setup 2 works (temporarily that is) is if I activate the Exception first, log in Netflix and begin watching a movie. Once that happens and a movie is playing I then activate the VPN 0n the Server list. This is the only way I can get this to work.....

....However, this lasts until I decide to turn off my Bluray so I can watch something else, say regular TV. When I try to login back to my Netflix, I get an error that says "you may not be connected to Internet". I am very sure now that this is due to "VPN leaking". The bluray still has the same IP yet other apps such as Pandora and Youtube work just fine. So the device is getting some internet connection but since Netflix does not work with the VPN I am using that tells me that either when the device is off or when both VPN connection (on Server list) the Internet one (on the Exception list) are activated at the same time, somehow the VPN connection rule overrides that of Internet one.

If I follow exactly the instructions in VPN Fusion GUI and hit Apply after I activated the VPN (first) and the Exception (second), then Netflix does not work at all.

As I mentioned previously, I have another ROG so when I try to set VPN Fusion the same way as in the first router, the problem repeats again!

I downgraded to a different FW to see if this would fix the issue but that didn't help at all.

I also tried to: Aactivate the VPN tunnel as the Default connection first--->then hit APPLY--->then activate the Internet connection in the Exception list second--->hit APPLY again, but that did not work either.

I miss using Merlin software on my RT-AC5300, as there under the Policy rules I was able to specify such connections as below:

---All Devices 192.168.50.0/24 VPN
---My bluray 192.168.50.200 WAN

and my Netflix (through my Bluray) always worked wonderfully. Unfortunately, the RT-AC5300 does not give the VPN connection speeds I get with GT-AC5300, that is why I chose to use the GT.

Again, the only option that works is Setup 1 which means I choose the Internet as my Default connection on the Server list and then manually add all my devices (35-40 of them!!) into the Exception list and specify there what tunnel which one uses (Internet or VPN). However, I seem to experience quite a lag when surfing to different websites and connections are a bit slower.

Arghhhhh!!