RT-AC66U - WL-network really slow and needs a reboot freq

[klobbe99]

Hi all,

A couple of weeks ago i bought the Asus RT-AC66U since my old Linksys WRT-54GL was starting to give up on me after years of faithful service.

Connected to my WL is an iPad3, iPhone 4 and a 4S, Lenovo T410 (Intel Centrino advanced 6200 AGN WL-nic i also tried using my Alfa nic) and some other Lenovo laptops from time to time.

I have started to notice that my WL-network needs a reboot and the end of the day, it gets really slow and logging into the router can take forever, same thing with finding and connecting to the WL when you boot up the laptops (the Apple products does not seem to have the problem to locate my WL-network). After a reboot the speeds improve and the same goes for the login to the router via the gui (problems to find the network for my laptops seems to still be there). The LAN seems to be working normaly though. I have not made that much changes other than hide the broadcast on the networks, almost everything is factory settings.

I run the latest FW on the router 979 i think it is, now i found this thread here on the forum: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=11568 which got me really bummed out.

Anyone know the current status of this router/FW? Is it still a work in progress or is it not acknowledged by Asus and we have to live with this?

Or could it be that I have broken router and it need to be replaced? Could someone who is a bit more up to date in this field help me out? Any 3'rd party firmwares confirmed to work with this router?

Best regards

Newbie

 

[sijuthomas98]

I have 2 RC-AC66U's running in AP and Bridge mode, they are approximately a year old. Perfectly stable no reboots at all needed for WL performance, using Merlin's latest .35_5

 

[Xaan]

I have 2 RC-AC66U's running in AP and Bridge mode, they are approximately a year old. Perfectly stable no reboots at all needed for WL performance, using Merlin's latest .35_5

Did you ever have the problem with any other versions of official/Merlin firmware though? I think the point is that this is:

1) A major issue for some people who have this problem regardless of which firmware they are using
2) A complete non-issue for some people who do not ever encounter it no matter which firmware they are using

So far, I have not seen a single case anywhere in which someone has claimed to have the link speed degradation problem and then has changed firmware to resolve the problem. At most certain versions seem to delay the performance decay by a day or two, but nothing outright fixes the problem.

 

[sijuthomas98]

I had problems with link degradation in 5GHz in Merlin/Asus but since the last three versions have had a stable connection. The media bridge is connected at a stable 1170 to the RT-AC68U, before .35 of Merlin I had the 5Ghz dropping speed and eventually being unresponsive and requiring a reboot every day or every two days or so. Was never happy with 5Ghz till last couple of versions of Merlin firmware which are all based on the last asus Gpl.

 

[sijuthomas98]

Also I have three parallel networks in my house while I had only one earlier. So performance has been fixed. Phenomenal speed and range in 5 and 2.4 now.

 

[Xaan]

Hmm I haven't tried 35_5 but the problem existed for me even with ASUS official newest versions.

:edit: Do you mean 35_4? I don't see 35_5 anywhere

 

[klobbe99]

Thanks for the replies!

I was not able to find the 35_5 ver only the 35_4. I'll give the 35_4 a go and report back after a few days of use.

Btw does Asus acknowledge this problem for the AC66U model as it seems that there is a lot of us having issues? If so do they work on a new firmware right now or maybe have a replacement program in place for us that have gotten a "faulty" router?

 

[Xaan]

Thanks for the replies!

I was not able to find the 35_5 ver only the 35_4. I'll give the 35_4 a go and report back after a few days of use.

Btw does Asus acknowledge this problem for the AC66U model as it seems that there is a lot of us having issues? If so do they work on a new firmware right now or maybe have a replacement program in place for us that have gotten a "faulty" router?

I have seen posts and threads dating back to June with ASUS reps claiming a "fix is in the works". The problem apparently happens for the newer AC68U as well though, so I wouldn't count on it.

35_4 will be this router's last chance. I am getting close to the point where I can't RMA/refund this thing so if this doesn't work I'll return it and get an R6300/R7000.

Messing around with stuff to fix problems is fun, but only when a solution is actually possible.

 

[sijuthomas98]

My bad it's .35_4

 

[Xaan]

Running 34_4 now after nvram reset, firmware installation, and setup from scratch. Guess we'll see if it stays stable until tomorrow.

What I don't get is that my link speed shows 866mbps after reset, but then I run various network throughput tests (NetStress and NetMeter while copying files from my laptop to wired desktop) and nothing is even remotely close to full speed.

Copying a 500MB file from laptop to desktop NetMeter only hits about 180mbps even though network connection status shows 866mbps. Copy speed as per Windows is about 20 MB/sec which is nowhere close to what I see people listing in some of the firmware threads. Laptop has a 1TB Evo and desktop has Raid 0 7200RPMs, so that is not a limiting factor.

Running NetStress only shows a maximum transfer speed of 110Mbps.

Honestly, I don't even really need it to be fast. I never transfer anything across the network and for the few times that I do I'm usually doing something else and not in a hurry. It's just the fact that it is a $200 router and it doesn't work properly. I could have bought some cheap TP Link N router for like $30 and gotten the same speeds as I am getting now without having to reboot it everyday.

 

[RMerlin]

866 Mbps is the link speed. Once you take into account the overhead introduced by encryption, the way wireless works, the fact that the channel is shared by all clients, etc..., you should expect performance to be close to 250-300 Mbps of real throughput.

Just like a 300 Mbps wifi will give you around 125-175 Mbps of real throughput.

 

[Xaan]

866 Mbps is the link speed. Once you take into account the overhead introduced by encryption, the way wireless works, the fact that the channel is shared by all clients, etc..., you should expect performance to be close to 250-300 Mbps of real throughput.

Just like a 300 Mbps wifi will give you around 125-175 Mbps of real throughput.

Ah, I see. That makes it more clear, thanks. Testing it in the morning now I am still seeing 866Mbps link speed and when I dump files across the network NetMeter shows about 225 Mbps so that's fine. Though I am still confused as to why others are claiming 40-50MB/s transfer speeds when I only see half of that. The most I am getting is 20MB/s regardless of which drive (single 7200 vs raid 0 7200 vs ssd in other laptop which is connected by ethernet) I transfer to.

 

[klobbe99]

So far so good with the 35_4 merlin build.

The router has been running with 35_4 merlin build for almost 24h and it performs alot better.

When i boot up my laptop the WL nic instantly locate and connect to my WL network. (It didn't with the Asus 979 build, took 5-10 min to located the WL)

When i log into the router it only takes second instead 3-5 minutes. And i can move around between the differnet tabs without waiting for the page to load.

When i browse the Internet there is no delays in the display of the various pages.

I didn't measure any speed or anything on the org 979 Asus build and haven't done on the Merlin build either but if it stays stable i will take some measurment but best to let the router run for a few days and see how it performs over time. So far so good and keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Xaan]

It's looking better for me as well. I have been checking periodically during the day and link speed has remained 700-866Mbps. Transfer speeds have stayed the same since last night as well.

Now this has me wondering though, for all of the days when the link speed has ended up crippled by the time I get home from work there have been no active devices on the network. Until I turned it on last night to test actual transfer speeds, my desktop had been off for 2-3 weeks (approximately how long I've had the AC66U and my new laptop) and my laptop is always off unless I am using it. No mobile devices connected unless we are in the apartment. Our tv box (WD Live TV) is a piece of junk so it gets turned off when its not in use otherwise it just freezes, and the other laptops get turned off as well. This has been the only day during which a device (1 wired, 1 wireless) has remained on and connected to the network.

Just found out Newegg RMA for routers is 60 days, not 30 like I had thought so I've got a bit more time to mess around. I really do wonder though, if there is no activity on the router does it power itself down somehow despite the absence of settings that would indicate it might do so?

Everyone else with this problem, is there anything actually active on your network (wireless and/or wired) when this happens?

 

[vdemarco]

It's looking better for me as well. I have been checking periodically during the day and link speed has remained 700-866Mbps. Transfer speeds have stayed the same since last night as well.

Now this has me wondering though, for all of the days when the link speed has ended up crippled by the time I get home from work there have been no active devices on the network. Until I turned it on last night to test actual transfer speeds, my desktop had been off for 2-3 weeks (approximately how long I've had the AC66U and my new laptop) and my laptop is always off unless I am using it. No mobile devices connected unless we are in the apartment. Our tv box (WD Live TV) is a piece of junk so it gets turned off when its not in use otherwise it just freezes, and the other laptops get turned off as well. This has been the only day during which a device (1 wired, 1 wireless) has remained on and connected to the network.

Just found out Newegg RMA for routers is 60 days, not 30 like I had thought so I've got a bit more time to mess around. I really do wonder though, if there is no activity on the router does it power itself down somehow despite the absence of settings that would indicate it might do so?

Everyone else with this problem, is there anything actually active on your network (wireless and/or wired) when this happens?

I used to have this exact same problem, but with the latest firmwares (since ASUS updated the wireless driver) its working perfectly for me now.

I have pretty much the same situation, except there are 2 wired devices that are on most of the time (Computer, and a TV)

Rest of the stuff is sleeping most of the time and not actively doing anything.

 

[Xaan]

I used to have this exact same problem, but with the latest firmwares (since ASUS updated the wireless driver) its working perfectly for me now.

I have pretty much the same situation, except there are 2 wired devices that are on most of the time (Computer, and a TV)

Rest of the stuff is sleeping most of the time and not actively doing anything.

Well that's a relief to hear. I think someone in a different thread said they used to have the problem too and now not anymore, but from what I gathered they were running Tomato.

I am almost at 24h now... my link speed stayed stable through the day when I checked, but now that I am home I am see 468, 526.5, 585, 702 and it is bouncing between them every 30 seconds or so. I dumped a 1GB file across the network and it quickly climbed back to 866. When it finished it bounced around for a bit between 400-800 again now now has settled at 866 and isn't changing.

This is the most progress I've seen so far. Tomorrow I'll leave the laptop off and let the desktop sit on the network as it normally would had I not turned it off a few weeks ago due to a rattling fan.

 

[mmstos]

Hi,

I also have some issues with it, firm _979.

I have only an AC Edimax Adapter at notebook, and a NAS(Synology 1512) connected to the router, wire.

I get just 15 MB/s (windows mesure) upload to NAS and around 23 MB/s download from NAS.

My link speed shows 585 to 650 Mbps.

How much should I get and what can I change to try to improve it?

Thanks

Max

 

[klobbe99]

Well i had to restart the router this evening, for some reason it took a lot of time to access the webgui, some times i never even manged to log in via the WL, via the LAN it worked ok.

It was a bit slow to surf the Internet and a bit of delay to find and connect to the WL. It runs a lot better with the Merlin 35_4 then the Asus 979 build but things is not what they should be.

I'm not sure what to do, either RMA it or wait for another FW release from Asus (does anyone know if Merlin is working on 35_5?) or just throw the damn thing in the thrash.

 

[Xaan]

48 hours in and no slowdown. The laptop was off today, so no wireless clients for about 12 hours but my desktop remained on.

So, the difference this time around is that firmware 35_4 along with something always connected to the network seems to be working!

 

[Xaan]

Well, 4 days later and I'm still at full speed, no issues at all.

35_4 worked for me, thanks everyone!