RT-AC66U crashing with NAT Acceleration and 15+ clients

[jimocallaghan]

Hi,

Just found this forum recently if I could please pick your brains for any suggestions I'd be grateful.

With the Covid-19 lockdown, there are more devices on my WLAN than usual - probably about 15 including a few phones, laptops, TVs etc. I suspect it's specific recently introduced Android devices causing the issue (though maybe it's just the number of clients), but it tends to happen when someone arrives home with their phone (haven't pinned down which person / phone), and just after they auto-connect, all the clients are kicked off the wireless network. After reading through the suggestions here, I've turned off NAT acceleration, which has stopped the crashes / disconnections. Though this change seems to have fixed the problem, I've noticed the speed on connected devices after disabling NAT acceleration has dropped from 300Mbps (my provider's max) to < 100Mbps. I'm running stock firmware, latest version, 3.0.0.4.382_51641.

I have this router fronting a Hitron cable modem from the network provider - the Hitron is fine for wired clients but the Wifi isn't great on it, so the Asus is managing the WLAN. I haven't bought new hardware in a while, so if it's the case that this router is just getting on, or not up to the task with a larger number of client connections, I'd welcome suggestions for an upgrade. I'd definitely value spending a few hundred on rock-solid wifi over losing hours / days diagnosing this issue.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[K-2SO]

What about the other eventual solution?
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...connects-to-its-wifi.48421/page-2#post-531919
BTW, like the Asus response. Our router is crashing because of your device.

 

[jimocallaghan]

What about the other eventual solution?
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...connects-to-its-wifi.48421/page-2#post-531919
BTW, like the Asus response. Our router is crashing because of your device.

Hi, K-2SO, thanks for the response. I had messed up the formatting of the link in my earlier post - fixed now - it's the same post you refer to. So it fixes the reboot problem but brings the network speed for clients down from 300Mbps to <100Mbps - I guess the extra work being performed on the old CPU is slowing things down. I'm wondering of there's any fix option that doesn't throttle the network speed so drastically.

 

[K-2SO]

it's the same post you refer to.

One suggestion is to put IPv6 in Passthrough mode, post #21. The other is to turn off NAT acceleration, post #22. What about the post #21 suggestion? Your router with no NAT acceleration can do up to 150Mbps. This is why you see the speed reduction.

 

[jimocallaghan]

One suggestion is to put IPv6 in Passthrough mode, post #21. The other is to turn off NAT acceleration, post #22. What about the post #21 suggestion? Your router with no NAT acceleration can do up to 150Mbps. This is why you see the speed reduction.

Thanks for the suggestion K-2SO - I think I tried that first suggestion without success and then tried the second without reverting the first, but will try each more methodically in isolation over the next few days and report back. Cheers.

 

[jimocallaghan]

To keep the thread updated, no luck on trying Passthrough mode on its own. With NAT changed to the original setting, auto, the router is crashing / disconnecting other clients fairly frequently when another device connects, ex. upon arrival to the building. Changing NAT back to disabled, albeit with the known drop in throughput, seems to be the only way to avoid these regular disconnects / crashes. With both settings changed, the router seems very stable with 10~15 clients. I'm considering leaving the config as is and tolerating the lower throughput - having clients (whether or not they are being good citizens) causing router crashes / disconnects is a pretty poor state of affairs. I recall other posts flagging similar issues where the suggestion of disabling IPV6 on the problem devices has been raised - though I can probably pinpoint when this issue started, and from that identify when the problem devices were introduced, it seems like a fragile fix.

 

[K-2SO]

I would try this firmware as a last resort:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork-asuswrt-merlin-374-43-lts-releases-v43e6.18914/
If it doesn't work, you may have to replace the router.

Hitron modem? Rogers network? Upgrade idea, excellent offer:
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/asus-wireless-ac2900-dual-band-gigabit-router-rt-ac86u/11281277
Much better WiFi router. I would replace RT-AC66U right away.

 

[jimocallaghan]

Thanks for the suggestions K-2SO - I'd probably steer away from that firmware - at the moment my only backup is an older LinkSys and if I bricked the Asus I'd probably find the door locks changed . The Hitron is with an Irish network provider. That AC2900 on offer you suggest looks like a good price - I might look for it on special closer to home. I didn't realise the specs had changed that much between the AC66U and the AC86U.

 

[K-2SO]

AC86U is indeed much faster in everything.
What makes it a popular choice is Merlin support and hardware AES. It can do 200Mbps+ with OpenVPN connections.