Rt-ac68u

[MaX PL]

i have this weird glitch with 205 that ive noticed the past two nights.

i'll run a speedtest over wireless in the evening and my speeds on 2.4ghz are like half of what i should be getting. so to confirm that its not my isp, i wire it up to test, and my speeds are fine. then when i go back to test over wireless the speeds are hitting the wired speeds.

ive done twice now with the same result.

 

[Chickenbeard]

i have this weird glitch with 205 that ive noticed the past two nights.

i'll run a speedtest over wireless in the evening and my speeds on 2.4ghz are like half of what i should be getting. so to confirm that its not my isp, i wire it up to test, and my speeds are fine. then when i go back to test over wireless the speeds are hitting the wired speeds.

ive done twice now with the same result.

This only happens at night or you only use it/notice it at night?
My 2.4Ghz channel was uselessly slow (like, 1Mbps) until I switched the Channel Bandwidth from 20/40 Mhz to just 20 Mhz. Then it ran full speed. This has been the case with every FW up and including 291 for me.

 

[PrivateJoker]

i have this weird glitch with 205 that ive noticed the past two nights.

i'll run a speedtest over wireless in the evening and my speeds on 2.4ghz are like half of what i should be getting. so to confirm that its not my isp, i wire it up to test, and my speeds are fine. then when i go back to test over wireless the speeds are hitting the wired speeds.

ive done twice now with the same result.

2.4ghz is so sensitive to surrounding RF and also what else is going on in your own network (not that 5ghz is less sensitive, there's just far less RF and much more widely spaced, non overlapping channels).

You didn't mention the device you're testing with, (both examples @ 5ghz) but at 20' from my router I can get a 450Mb link rate if my laptop faces one way, and about half that if it faces another. At 60' my phone can pull down 40Mb/s Speedtest app download facing my router dead on, but if I rotate it 90° (rotate the yaw axis if my phone is standing upright) in either direction the speed drops precipitously.

Long story short, it's actually pretty hard to get repeatable, comparable results from wireless devices in the wild. Especially from a Speedtest server that is testing your device in only two short bursts.

 

[MaX PL]

2.4ghz may be sensitive, but my speedtest results were so much better on my e3000 at 2.4ghz. extremely consistent in fact when compared to what i'm getting now.

and no, its not network saturation issue in the evening. that used to be the case but my isp has fixed that a year ago.
this is at 20mhz as i have 20/40 disabled as i find 40mhz extremely unstable on any router.

anyway, gonna try 306 today. when compared to yesterday early morning when i hit 120Mbps, my isps max, I'm hitting between 40 to 60Mbps this morning. i bet if i went and wired it up to test i'd be hitting 120Mbps right now.

 

[Fester1952]

My 2.4GHz transmission on this router is abysmal, 5GHz is very good.
I have it just on test at the moment and have gone back to my RT-N66U for the time being. I have many wireless security cameras, hopeless on the 2.4GHz band on the AC68U, fine on the N66U.



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[steve7929]

I bought both N66U and AC68U routers at the same time and have found that N66U seems to be working really good without any issues. I need decent speedy wireless reception coverage for my house with 2 floors for a couple of phones and ipad because I have LAN wiring in all the rooms where I have lot of devices hooked up to network switches in each room that I use for DNLA streaming and online streaming.

With that being said I have only 1 week left to return either one of the routers and I was wondering if I can please get some advise on whether I should return N66U or stick with AC68U

 

[chamberc]

I bought both N66U and AC68U routers at the same time and have found that N66U seems to be working really good without any issues. I need decent speedy wireless reception coverage for my house with 2 floors for a couple of phones and ipad because I have LAN wiring in all the rooms where I have lot of devices hooked up to network switches in each room that I use for DNLA streaming and online streaming.

With that being said I have only 1 week left to return either one of the routers and I was wondering if I can please get some advise on whether I should return N66U or stick with AC68U

I've had the N66U, an AC66U and now the AC68U. There is no comparison in performance or range. Stay with the AC68U.

 

[RMerlin]

I bought both N66U and AC68U routers at the same time and have found that N66U seems to be working really good without any issues. I need decent speedy wireless reception coverage for my house with 2 floors for a couple of phones and ipad because I have LAN wiring in all the rooms where I have lot of devices hooked up to network switches in each room that I use for DNLA streaming and online streaming.

With that being said I have only 1 week left to return either one of the routers and I was wondering if I can please get some advise on whether I should return N66U or stick with AC68U

The current N66U driver reduced its range quite measurably. I would recommend the AC68U if coverage is important for you and you don't mind the price difference.

Also if your DLNA server is a USB disk, the USB3 disk will greatly improve your overall performance for shared medias (around 50 MB/s versus 15 MB/s read speed).

 

[steve7929]

The current N66U driver reduced its range quite measurably. I would recommend the AC68U if coverage is important for you and you don't mind the price difference.

Also if your DLNA server is a USB disk, the USB3 disk will greatly improve your overall performance for shared medias (around 50 MB/s versus 15 MB/s read speed).

Thanks Merlin. Would you suggest to have me flash your alpha build for AC68U or stick to stock? Or do you have a newer version of your build you plan to release in the next few weeks?

 

[mikey]

Just an update. I did end up exchanging the AC68R at Best Buy for a Netgear R7000. I've had the R7000 running for about 29 hours now and not a single problem. None of my security cameras have dropped connection, both the 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz WiFi are solid with no random slow-downs, and my phone has not gotten one instance of "authentication failed" using the 5 Ghz WiFi as it did on the AC68 using the exact same settings.

So for me at least, the R7000 seems orders of magnitude more stable. On the down side, I certainly like the features in the Asus firmware better than the R7000. In addition, there's no way to adjust Tx power on the R7000 so with the AC68 set to 120mW, I get about 5dBM less with the R7000. Signal is still very good though and meets my needs so a drop of 5dBM is not an issue for me. Just wish there was a way to boost it like the AC68 because I suspect the R7000 is hard-coded to 80mW.

Mike

 

[ronan_zj]

Just an update. I did end up exchanging the AC68R at Best Buy for a Netgear R7000. I've had the R7000 running for about 29 hours now and not a single problem. None of my security cameras have dropped connection, both the 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz WiFi are solid with no random slow-downs, and my phone has not gotten one instance of "authentication failed" using the 5 Ghz WiFi as it did on the AC68 using the exact same settings.

So for me at least, the R7000 seems orders of magnitude more stable. On the down side, I certainly like the features in the Asus firmware better than the R7000. In addition, there's no way to adjust Tx power on the R7000 so with the AC68 set to 120mW, I get about 5dBM less with the R7000. Signal is still very good though and meets my needs so a drop of 5dBM is not an issue for me. Just wish there was a way to boost it like the AC68 because I suspect the R7000 is hard-coded to 80mW.

Mike

DDWRT will release FW for R7000 this week.

 

[whsbuss]

I see Newegg.com has put a "release date: 11/11/13" for the AC68U on their website.

 

[PCTools]

Go figure...

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[Fester1952]

Just flashed to Asus 3.0.0.4.374.306 expecting some 2.4GHz improvement.
I did get some improvement but now my 5GHz transmission has suffered badly!
I think this is going to be a long and slow road to getting this thing right!
Back to the RT-N66U again.

 

[PCTools]

I had all kinds of trouble with the N66U. Loaded Merlin firmware and will see if that is an improvement.

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[bigcid10]

This.

If stability is what you are after, then you should never buy a new product that was just released, and go with a more mature product instead. There is a reason why corporate products often tend to use technologies that are older than what is sold to home consumers. These days, be it with hardware or software, companies tend to ship products that are so complex that they can't fully test them in lab setups. It takes real world scenarios to shake down the last remaining kinks, and then to fix these through firmware updates.

With routers this is even more true, due to their need to interoperate with an insane amount of environments and client configurations.

I expect the R7000 to also have its own share of issues while the firmware matures.

then maybe companies should put a label on the box

"Bear with us while we give you countless firmares to fix all the bugs in our router.It should take about 6mths or so.If you want a reliable product ,don't buy this"

they won't do that because they tell the public their product is perfect

 

[RMerlin]

then maybe companies should put a label on the box

"Bear with us while we give you countless firmares to fix all the bugs in our router.It should take about 6mths or so.If you want a reliable product ,don't buy this"

they won't do that because they tell the public their product is perfect

In this day and age with the Internet, looking up reviews before purchasing a new product makes it easier than ever to know before hand if a product can be trusted. I know I never buy any electronic product without looking it up online first.

Putting such a label on a box many people purchase online won't do any good in the first place...

 

[PCTools]

Actually, we probably need to talk about robustness and reliability. Asus is lacking these qualities.

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[janosek]

I understand these issues are frustrating, but Asus is a business and it is subject to competitive pressures. They can't wait until they perfect the firmware before releasing because Linksys and Netgear are releasing their devices with imperfect firmware.

The key question to ask is: Is Asus standing behind their product by constantly improving it? I think the answer is yes. Their reputation is certainly better than Netgear, who seem to abandon their devices early, before they are stable enough not to have to reboot every few days.

I also like how Asus communicates with the community, giving RMerlin early builds, test routers and access to developers.

Bottom line, if you want rock-solid devices, don't be an early adopter.

 

[ronan_zj]

I understand these issues are frustrating, but Asus is a business and it is subject to competitive pressures. They can't wait until they perfect the firmware before releasing because Linksys and Netgear are releasing their devices with imperfect firmware.

The key question to ask is: Is Asus standing behind their product by constantly improving it? I think the answer is yes. Their reputation is certainly better than Netgear, who seem to abandon their devices early, before they are stable enough not to have to reboot every few days.

I also like how Asus communicates with the community, giving RMerlin early builds, test routers and access to developers.

Bottom line, if you want rock-solid devices, don't be an early adopter.

I have my AC68U for almost 2 weeks, and I feel I am fine with it. maybe I don't use fancy function, such as VPN. wifi strength looks fine on my router.