Rt-ac68u

[Pierino]

The antennae on the rt-ac68u are dual band. They are all external.

 

[L&LD]

The RT-AC68U has external dual band antennae. They are not on the PCB.

The performance difference you'll see is the much better RT-AC68U has better hardware, design and wireless drivers. But the FCC rules have changed since you bought your N53U and may impact some of those improvements. The net result should still be a faster and more stable wireless network.


Which firmware are you running on the N53U? Is it the most current available on the Asus website?

ASUS RT-N53 Firmware version 3.0.0.4.374.4561

http://www.asus.com/Networking/RTN53/HelpDesk_Download/

Direct link: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-N53/FW_RT_N53_30043744561.zip


I think you'll find a healthy improvement over your current router, but keep in mind the ever changing rules and conditions that also need to be met to run a WiFi network, legally.


I would recommend you immediately flash the RMerlin firmware on your new RT-AC68U.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/mdfyb801vf942iu/RT-AC68U_3.0.0.4_376.48_1.zip


Thread: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=7846

 

[lucassp]

Thanks for the clarification guys. Is ASUS the first one who uses the same antennae for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz? Why does everybody else use one antenna per stream per band?

 

[L&LD]

I don't think that is accurate?

Even if they do use one antenna per stream per band, that is just a design choice (which would turn me off of that product) if I had noticed it before I bought it.

External antenna are usually superior at a given class of product, almost always.

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks for the clarification guys. Is ASUS the first one who uses the same antennae for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz? Why does everybody else use one antenna per stream per band?

Using the same external antenna for both 2.4 and 5 GHz is common.

Routers with two antennas weren't using one per band, but one per stream (or one for tx and one for rx in ancient models).

 

[lucassp]

Using the same external antenna for both 2.4 and 5 GHz is common.

Routers with two antennas weren't using one per band, but one per stream (or one for tx and one for rx in ancient models).

Yes, that's what I wanted to say, one antenna per stream for each of the two bands. Sorry, my english isn't working all the time

 

[xilitol]

Hello, everybody!
I bought an AC68U router and I upgraded the bootloader from 1.0.1.6 (EU) to 1.0.2.0 (EU) and installed Merlin's firmware 376.49_4. So far, everything works OK, but I noticed the following error in General log:

* Invalid signature of oopsbuf: 7F-FF-DE-FD-FE-DF-EF-FF (len 4294901759)
or
* Invalid signature of oopsbuf: 7F-FF-DA-FD-FE-5F-EF-FF (len 4294946815)
or
* Invalid signature of oopsbuf: FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF (len 4294967295)

This error occurs only when I reset the router by power interruption. When router is rebooted through his interface, this error does not occur.
Is this related to hardware and should I worry?

 

[hggomes]

Try this:

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=156250&postcount=30

 

[RMerlin]

Hello, everybody!
I bought an AC68U router and I upgraded the bootloader from 1.0.1.6 (EU) to 1.0.2.0 (EU) and installed Merlin's firmware 376.49_4. So far, everything works OK, but I noticed the following error in General log:

* Invalid signature of oopsbuf: 7F-FF-DE-FD-FE-DF-EF-FF (len 4294901759)
or
* Invalid signature of oopsbuf: 7F-FF-DA-FD-FE-5F-EF-FF (len 4294946815)
or
* Invalid signature of oopsbuf: FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF (len 4294967295)

This error occurs only when I reset the router by power interruption. When router is rebooted through his interface, this error does not occur.
Is this related to hardware and should I worry?

Just ignore that. In recent releases, Asus added a new feature that allows crash information to be stored, so they can be retrieved after the reboot. This simply denotes that this storage buffer isn't initialized, probably because it wasn't ever used so far. The bootloader caused the rootfs partition to be enlarged, which means the oops buffer is probably now located at a different address than before.

 

[hggomes]

I don't see that message showing on my AC68U with new CFE 1.0.2.0 (64MB rootfs).

 

[xilitol]

I tried all methods to reset the NVRAM / reset to default with no luck. The same situation after flashing the new CFE 1.0.2.0 (64MB rootfs).
Trying different firmwares, I found that the error don't occur until 3.0.0.4_374_5656 version and appear starting with 3.0.0.4_376_1663 so I assume that the modification mentioned by RMerlin was made between these two versions.
What intrigues me now is that I also have an AC56U (1.0.2.3 EU bootloader and 48_1 firmware) that does not have this problem.

 

[hggomes]

AC56U bootloader didn't increased rootfs to 64MB like it did on AC68U. That should not afect your router in any way.

 

[xilitol]

OK, I understood, thank you.