[ROG RAPTURE GT-AX11000] Experiences & Discussion

[Gouldin]

I have a questions about AiMesh and the AX11000.

I'm getting a second AX11000 today from a friend. He went a different way with this network. My plan is set it up as an AiMesh endpoint at my desk.

My plan is the following:

• Deploy AiMesh via WiFi
• Connect 2 laptops via RJ45
  • (One has a failing WLAN adaptor)

Questions

• Anyone have issues with Ring devices connecting via AiMesh?
• Can the AiMesh endpoint LAN ports be used?
• Can the USB port application be used on the AiMesh end point?
  • One of the RJ45 connect devices will be a Mac. I would like to use Air Time Machine locally on the AiMesh end point and backup the attached Mac.
• Are there any features unique to AiMesh once enabled?

My ring devices are quite happy on the 2.4ghz network, no issues for numerous months.

Ai mesh nodes also act as a media bridge, so yes, Lan ports are fine to use. ( It's what my nodes mainly get used for around the house)

In terms of time machine on the node, can be enabled via enabling the GUI via SSH. (Saw a post on one of threads on here about it, can't remember which thread it was posted in though)

Edit: this post - https://www.snbforums.com/threads/set-up-usb-samba-and-download-master-in-ainode.63373/

 

[gundrted]

My ring devices are quite happy on the 2.4ghz network, no issues for numerous months.

Ai mesh nodes also act as a media bridge, so yes, Lan ports are fine to use. ( It's what my nodes mainly get used for around the house)

In terms of time machine on the node, can be enabled via enabling the GUI via SSH. (Saw a post on one of threads on here about it, can't remember which thread it was posted in though)

Edit: this post - https://www.snbforums.com/threads/set-up-usb-samba-and-download-master-in-ainode.63373/

Thanks for the info. That helped a lot

 

[XFalconX]

I am so disappointed with this router , so many drop outs for a flagship router

Router was updated with latest firmware and followed by a hard reset

Every now and then the router looses connection. With home schooling and work from home this is causing so many issues

ASUS needs to get their shirt together and correct all these issues

Any other router that is stable and fast that someone can recommend?


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[Gouldin]

Ubiquiti stuff is reliable. Be it their edge series, unifi or amplifi range depending on needs.
What you get in stability and support of maximum concurrent connections generally isn't as fast as the likes of asus, netgear etc though. depends if you want stability of speed. (Not that the ubiquiti stuff is slow, far from it)

 

[gundrted]

I have a questions about AiMesh and the AX11000.

I'm getting a second AX11000 today from a friend. He went a different way with this network. My plan is set it up as an AiMesh endpoint at my desk.

My plan is the following:

• Deploy AiMesh via WiFi
• Connect 2 laptops via RJ45
  • (One has a failing WLAN adaptor)

Questions

• Anyone have issues with Ring devices connecting via AiMesh?
• Can the AiMesh endpoint LAN ports be used?
• Can the USB port application be used on the AiMesh end point?
  • One of the RJ45 connect devices will be a Mac. I would like to use Air Time Machine locally on the AiMesh end point and backup the attached Mac.
• Are there any features unique to AiMesh once enabled?

I got my second AX11000 installed last night as an AiMesh endpoint.

I wouldn't say it went as smooth as the instructions laid out. At first it wouldn't complete the AiMesh setup process, but after the following its been up and stable.

1. Various hard resets and reboots
2. Manual upgrade to the latest firmware
3. More resets
4. Changed my SSID to 'no hidden' and manually set WPS to 'on'
5. Connected right away
6. Moved to my desk and plugged in my two laptops
7. Rebooted both headend router and AiMesh node
8. 30 minutes of stable running
9. Changed SSID to 'hidden' and disabled WPS
10. Monitoring connection states

Everything has been stable overnight and this morning. I am using the dedicated channel. For some reason I had to rejoin my iPads and iPhones to the network.

WiFi bandwidth is the same. I haven't seen any performances moving from a 3 channel to a 2 channel wifi. I guess in reality I went from a 3 channel to a 4 channel (two two channel meshed) network. The headend router CPU/RAM look unchanged.

Is there a way to monitor the CPU, RAM and throughput on the AiMesh node?

Wired bandwidth from the AiMesh node is impressive. My 2013 Mac Book Pro went from 125mbps/78mbps on wifi to 355mbps/145mbps on wired to the AiMesh node.

Next I'll trying to enable AiMesh node USB functions via the below steps.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/set-up-usb-samba-and-download-master-in-ainode.63373/

Another thing that I discovered, but probably will get screamed at over here, is that one can access AiNode gui with a change in SSH. Configure everything there and then go back to normal AiMesh

Just try:

nvram set re_mode=0
nvram commit

And when finished editing, just change the setting back from 0 to 1

 

[CaptainRewind]

...
I dont use any wifi 6 devices yet so I had turned off the ax features I had though. So I did some search and found a article from asus tech support on how to improve compatibility with wifi 6.

https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1042475/
...
After doing this I have not had anymore issues. Everything has been super stable.

My experience has been basically the same. After changing the configs in that article, and rebooting for good measure, I am at over 6 days' uptime:

09:45:07 up 6 days, 16:15, load average: 2.04, 2.05, 2.05

And all this during a time when my ISP was seeing a record number of outages at my home. I had 20 ISP drops in a single day on Monday. So I had the ISP come and rewire everything, from the telephone pole all that way to the wall adjacent my modem. I didn't reboot my GT-AX11000 through that entire process.

So, as of now, I'm on a bit of an "uptime challenge," I'm trying to go as many days as I can without rebooting anything and see how it goes. I'm thinking if I get to 30 days, I'm in good shape; I travel sometimes for work and pleasure - at least, not when there is a global pandemic - and I wouldn't expect to be gone longer than that. I like my systems to remain stable while I'm away.

Now, I can't help but wonder what functionality I lost by disabling all those options. The wireless performance seems unchanged, but how would I even know?

Thanks.

 

[Mikeybigs]

Those are all wifi 6 features. If you dont have any wifi 6 devices you havent lost anything. My plan going forward as I get more AX devices to enable the 5ghz-2 for AX and leave the AC stuff on 5Ghz-1. So far I have been up for 18 days without any issuse. I use the open VPN server from work/travel alot and it works flawless. I have GL-AR750s travel router I connect to as an OpenVpn client and it works amazing. I am able to connect my firestick, phone laptop to it and its like Im in my living room. I am able to watch live tv from my amazon recast anywhere. So far I am really impressed with the router. I had a netgear X6S and the VPN would work for a few days then go stale.

 

[XFalconX]

Anyone have more info the HW version 1.1 , is the newer v1.1 more stable?

Anyone have any comparisons ?


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[CaptainRewind]

Those are all wifi 6 features. If you dont have any wifi 6 devices you havent lost anything.

There is one setting in particular that I'm interested in re-enabling. I don't have any WiFi 6 devices, though, but this article doesn't specifically mention it:

https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1042471/

The part about faster switching between APs is ... interesting. So is this strictly for WiFi 6, or can my 5G devices benefit from it? (No rush on the answer to this, as I plan to leave all configuration as-is for a while to ensure no random reboots.)

Thanks.

 

[gundrted]

Today I updated to the latest firmware for my 2 AX11000s (one router one AiMesh node).

I have the weirdest stuff happening.

After I clicked update the firmware on the GUI, everything seems to come back fine. I tried to login and the webpage hung after the usr/pwd prompt. I rebooted the main router a few times with no change. Then I powered off both routers and only powered on the main router. It came up and I was able to access everything, but my ISP said 'disconnected'. The status page listed an external IP and the Internet worked. I powered on the AiMesh AX11000 and the GUI froze. I tried to log back in and it hung after the usr/pwd login. My AiMesh is up and running. I know this because I have 2 USB drives plugged into it. One Apple Time Machine and one serving up a Samba share. Both work just fine.

Any thoughts???????

 

[Hexenhammer]

I am so disappointed with this router , so many drop outs for a flagship router

Router was updated with latest firmware and followed by a hard reset

Every now and then the router looses connection. With home schooling and work from home this is causing so many issues

ASUS needs to get their shirt together and correct all these issues

Any other router that is stable and fast that someone can recommend?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here is a tip you can try, I had lots of different network gear and never ever had any issues of the sort people have like drop outs, slowdowns, overheating, settings that get messed up themselves etc.
I always have all my network gear, routers, modems and switches connected to power strip with a switch and when I go to sleep i turn them off and on again in the morning, im sure some people that have IP cameras cant do that so its not for everyone [but they still can find 10minutes to do this when they awake], but regualr people that only use Internet and iptv can and it helps.
We all know that network gear "supposed to be" 24/7 on but in reality at least the consumer gear doesn't like that and wants to be rebooted, if you do it every night it will solve many issues.
Especially there is an issue with ISP modems that you always get Forum posts about slowdowns and usually most of these people had their ISP modem on for weeks.
In any case it doesnt hurt

 

[gundrted]

Today I updated to the latest firmware for my 2 AX11000s (one router one AiMesh node).

I have the weirdest stuff happening.

After I clicked update the firmware on the GUI, everything seems to come back fine. I tried to login and the webpage hung after the usr/pwd prompt. I rebooted the main router a few times with no change. Then I powered off both routers and only powered on the main router. It came up and I was able to access everything, but my ISP said 'disconnected'. The status page listed an external IP and the Internet worked. I powered on the AiMesh AX11000 and the GUI froze. I tried to log back in and it hung after the usr/pwd login. My AiMesh is up and running. I know this because I have 2 USB drives plugged into it. One Apple Time Machine and one serving up a Samba share. Both work just fine.

Any thoughts???????

Well this is odd .....

I got up this morning an thought I would try my Asus iPhone app. The night before it wasn't connecting to the router. It connected with no issue. I tried to login and again everything worked. The GUI is super fast too. There is almost no lag painting the next page. Maybe it needed to sleep on the firmware flash.

The last odd thing is, the little 'Internet' light is not lite up on the front of the router. Personally I don't care, but it is odd.

 

[XFalconX]

Here is a tip you can try, I had lots of different network gear and never ever had any issues of the sort people have like drop outs, slowdowns, overheating, settings that get messed up themselves etc.
I always have all my network gear, routers, modems and switches connected to power strip with a switch and when I go to sleep i turn them off and on again in the morning, im sure some people that have IP cameras cant do that so its not for everyone [but they still can find 10minutes to do this when they awake], but regualr people that only use Internet and iptv can and it helps.
We all know that network gear "supposed to be" 24/7 on but in reality at least the consumer gear doesn't like that and wants to be rebooted, if you do it every night it will solve many issues.
Especially there is an issue with ISP modems that you always get Forum posts about slowdowns and usually most of these people had their ISP modem on for weeks.
In any case it doesnt hurt

I have scheduled reboot on the router twice a week and router is usb fan below and top to keep it cool. Haven’t tried new firmware yet will install and hard reset ...


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[CaptainRewind]

Update:

I'm at nearly 20 days of uptime and counting.

But today I discovered a new flaw in this silly device. I think it's pretty ridiculous that this router has so many issues. I think I'll probably end up going with UniFi eventually.

Anyway, here goes:

The UPnP settings appear to be completely broken in the UI! I discovered this because I had an app that was reachable publicly on a port that I had not configured. I went into the UI, to the "WAN" section, and under "Internet Connection," I saw that "Enable UPnP" was set to No. So I was very confused.

So, I SSH'd in and can see clear as day that iptables was indeed setting up a VUPNP chain:

admin@GT-AX11000:/tmp/home/root# iptables -L -n -t nat

...

Chain VUPNP (1 references)
target     prot opt source               destination        
DNAT       tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            tcp dpt:52003 to:<LAN_IP>:52002
DNAT       tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            tcp dpt:4433 to:<LAN_IP>:4433
DNAT       udp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            udp dpt:52003 to:<LAN_IP>:52002

And nvram show confirms ... It was still enabled!! (WHAT THE ACTUAL F***!?!?!?!)

admin@GT-AX11000:/tmp/home/root# nvram show | grep -i upnp
...
upnp_enable=1

Like, for real!?! What has gone wrong with Asus? Their UI has always been crap (I had an RT-AC68R for years), but this is just plain egregious.

Anyway, if you're like me and are already in too deep with this piece of garbage router, do this to fix this problem:

nvram set "upnp_enable=0"
nvram show | grep -i upnp_enable
nvram commit
iptables -L -n -t nat

It works as expected now. I think my days of using their crappy UI are over, I'll be configuring this PoS from the command-line from now on.

 

[Smokie]

Anyone having constant drops on this router? At least 2-3 times a day I'm getting yelled at.. Dad the Internet is gone .

 

[CaptainRewind]

do this to fix this problem:

nvram set "upnp_enable=0"
nvram show | grep -i upnp_enable
nvram commit
iptables -L -n -t nat

Actually, scratch that. Even after setting upnp_enable=0 and wan1_upnp_enable=0 (with nvram commit after), again I am seeing UPNP rules being set:

admin@GT-AX11000:/tmp/home/root# iptables -L -n -t nat
...
Chain VUPNP (1 references)
target     prot opt source               destination       
DNAT       tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            tcp dpt:52003 to:<LOCAL_IP_ADDRESS>:52002
DNAT       tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            tcp dpt:4433 to:<LOCAL_IP_ADDRESS>:4433
DNAT       udp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            udp dpt:52003 to:<LOCAL_IP_ADDRESS>:52002

It seems there is only 1 application I'm running which is even issuing such a UPnP request and getting rules set (Deluge v1.3.12 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS), but I haven't been running any checks for this so it's possible there are others.

I will add that this is not a red herring. Those ports are indeed reachable publicly (well, those which correspond to a port which I have allowed via the iptables running on the host, at least). But setting iptables on all hosts will be impossible. It just so happens this is a host where I can get root.

So, how the heck do I disable UPnP? Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[CaptainRewind]

Anyone having constant drops on this router? At least 2-3 times a day I'm getting yelled at.. Dad the Internet is gone .

Not I, but nothing I am reading on this thread is surprising me anymore, and I'm sorry you're out $450.

 

[XFalconX]

Not I, but nothing I am reading on this thread is surprising me anymore, and I'm sorry you're out $450.

Agree this router needs a lot of updates. I basically shut off all AX features and seem to be stable. Have it on 2 schedule reboots per week


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[CaptainRewind]

I have a temporary workaround for the UPnP issue. I'm running this every minute and logging the output to a file:

#!/bin/bash

date
ssh -i <KEY_FILE> admin@<ROUTER_IP> "/usr/sbin/iptables -F VUPNP -t nat ; /usr/sbin/iptables -L VUPNP -n -t nat"
exit

(For those not familiar, the above code flushes only the VUPNP nat CHAIN in iptables, the every minute part is handled in cron.)

So, I guess this is fixed ... kinda.

UPDATE: It turns out this is using NAT-PMP, not uPnP. I disabled NAT-PMP on the application side, and it no longer tries to set those rules. BUT - that isn't a solution, as I want both uPnP and NAT-PMP disabled completely.

 

[Smokie]

I downloaded the log file and was wondering what I would be looking out for to investigate the dropouts? I wanted to contact ASUS and wanted to have my ducks in a line..
Anyone know what I would be looking for in the log file?