RT-AC86U - Awful router - Netgear wins

[janthony6]

Look - this firmware is complete trash. I'm coming from an R9000 and I'm pissed. Returning this turd of a router to amazon.

I got it all set up - disabled firewall on ipv4 and 6. How about this:

Netgear router, I'm getting 950/950 on my fiber connection with Native IPV6 working.

Asus - At best 500-750 down, significantly worse wireless performance, and no native ipv6. it can't pull it down automatically! I'm using the latest 384 firmware. Bought this thing for the AiMesh and am 100% disappointed. Pure trash.


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Update - this is incredible: Router refuses to pull an ipv6 address. I plug in my R9000 and boom, pulls native ipv6. i took that info and then plugged it into the Asus, this time setting Ipv6 to Static, and now ipv6 works. So basically, this router can't pull ipv6 native, it needs you to manually enter it in under static? wtf?

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Removed the asus - btw i had 2 of the 86u's so that I could use AiMesh. IDK what all the talk isi about asus firmware, it looks exactly like DDWRT but less functional. The fact that it can't get a native ipv6 while any nether can is enough for me. poor wired performance and worse wireless. I'm back to my R9000 + EX8000 and things are working well. Will be testing a Synology RT2600 tomorrow.

 

[maxbraketorque]

I can't speak for the IPv6 behavior, but there was one guy that recently bought an RT-AC86U who was having a similar issue with slow speeds on gigabit fiber, and it fixed itself. Unfortunately, I don't think he knows what caused it to be fixed.

As for wifi range, its been great for me. I get significantly better data rates at long range than my RT-AC68U, and it has a slight edge on my RT-AC3100. No real difference at close range. I've always wondered if Netgear routers have better range on average than ASUS. I was going to try an R7800 because of the better indicated range than many other routers on SNB, but just as I was going to do it, a guy with an R7800 tried an RT-AC86U and said that RT-AC86U blew away the R7800 for range.

 

[psychopomp1]

Why on earth have you gone from a top end router (R9000) to a budget router (AC86U)? Its a bit like downgrading your car from a BMW 7 Series to a Ford Ka and then saying "pfffft I expected the Ford to be just as good as the BMW". Stick with the R9000 if you're happy with it - its a far, far superior router to the AC86U.

If you must try out a different top end quality router then try getting hold of the Linksys EA9500v2 - its basically EA9500v1 on steroids.

 

[Trentors]

So you are saying a device that costs twice as much performs better? Stop the presses!

 

[janthony6]

The r9000 is basically an r7800 with AD. I have an r7800 that gets better range and speeds than the 9000.

I’m just checking to see if I can find something better.

 

[Flipmode11]

Why wouldn't you go for the RT-AC3100 / RT-AC88u?
Is the 86 / 3100 somehow better in a certain characteristic or feature??
Hmmm, what's "AD"? Active Directory? ... cannot think of any other acronyms...

 

[janthony6]

The 86u is better than the 3100/88u on paper.

- newer, faster, more memory, etc.....88u is 1.4ghz. 86 is 1.8

 

[maxbraketorque]

The 86u is better than the 3100/88u on paper.

- newer, faster, more memory, etc.....88u is 1.4ghz. 86 is 1.8

In my testing, the AC86U is better than the AC88U/AC3100 in many respects.

If you think the R7800 has better range than the AC86U, maybe I'll try it after all.

 

[janthony6]

The 7800 and 9000, when paired with Voxel’s firmware, is significantly better than Asus routers. My experience with Asus has been with a few Broadcom based chips and 1 Quentana. Both very buggy. Both with bad firmware.

 

[maxbraketorque]

The 7800 and 9000, when paired with Voxel’s firmware, is significantly better than Asus routers. My experience with Asus has been with a few Broadcom based chips and 1 Quentana. Both very buggy. Both with bad firmware.

My AC68U has been a flawless performer. When I was out of "router as a hobby" mode, it went six months without a reboot and without issues. And it performed well. Transferring large files over ethernet saturates the 1 Gbps connection bandwidth. Wireless performance was fine at typical distances. So far my AC86U has been working well too. I had the 5 GHz radio become inaccessible with an early firmware, but with the latest firmware, its been fine. There are always people who are going to have issues though depending on whether their needs expose bugs. I'm a pretty simple user - All I use is port forwarding and OpenVPN.

I worry about having to depend on a third party firmware for performance - never know when that person is going to stop providing updates or porting their changes to the latest factory firmware. But I'll still give the R7800 a try.

 

[janthony6]

Well - Voxels firmware is the stock Netgear firmware with updated packages and compiled for the correct processor. It’s really much faster and I didn’t notice any GUI changes.

He provides more updates than Netgear because anytime a new package like OpenSSL are updated, he includes it.

I have 2 RT2600ac being delivered today so I’ll give those a chance to replace my Netgear setup.

 

[RMerlin]

The RT-AC86U is not a budget model, it's a high-end model.

disabled firewall on ipv4 and 6.

Don't. It's a really bad idea.

it looks exactly like DDWRT but less functional.

The two are very, very different beasts. DD-WRT is a completely different architecture, and is aimed at providing a lot of advanced features, while Asuswrt focuses on features for home users.

Asuswrt's OpenVPN implementation will run in circles around DD-WRT's own in terms of features. (but then, I might be biased, being the one who originally implemented it).

 

[RMerlin]

My experience with Asus has been with a few Broadcom based chips and 1 Quentana. Both very buggy. Both with bad firmware.

The firmware part of Broadcom is actually fairly decent. Where things get more hairy is with the large amount of features Asus adds on top of it - the same issues will also be present on Asus's Qualcomm and Mediatek products. Asus is dealing with a legacy code base that goes back to 2006-2010 (when they originally forked Tomato back in 2010), and they are adding a LOT of features on top of that old code base, with mixed results.

Some portions of Asuswrt are in need of a complete redesign/rewrite IMHO.

Quantenna however - I've pretty much said anything I had to say already about their failed experiment there.

 

[RMerlin]

BTW, the R7800 firmware is actually closer to OpenWRT than Asuswrt would be to DD-WRT. R7800 is originally based on an OpenWRT code base (I suspect the R9000 also is). Except they kept the features to a bare minimum.

 

[janthony6]

BTW, the R7800 firmware is actually closer to OpenWRT than Asuswrt would be to DD-WRT. R7800 is originally based on an OpenWRT code base (I suspect the R9000 also is). Except they kept the features to a bare minimum.

RMerlin - I was inspired to try Asus again after a few years off based on your work. With the 86U, I tried a factory reset, etc - nothing worked to get it to come close to the 950/950 and it couldn't pull ipv6 native. Something I also find interesting is that on my R9000, before using Voxel, I tried DDWRT for a bit. ipv6 native would randomly turn on and then be lost upon a reboot. It was very hit or miss. DDWRT struggled to properly handle ipv6. I find that interesting because the Asus firmware reminds me of it quite a bit and it simple can't do ipv6 unless I input the settings as static.

Anyhow, they're already being shipped back. Waiting on the Synology to be delivered.

 

[hotsauce2007]

Clean the NVRAM and use the restoration Tool to restore the FW, use the last one.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/user-nvram-save-restore-utility-r26-2.19521/

 

[janthony6]

Got the Synology - this is a damn nice router. Wifi speeds and Lan speeds are = to my R9000. Not surprised there. Again, ipv6 issues. Can't grab an ipv6 address via DHCP. Shows up as limited connection when I put the details in manually. Very disappointing. Seems Netgear is the only one that can do it.

 

[y2jdmbfan]

Got the Synology - this is a damn nice router. Wifi speeds and Lan speeds are = to my R9000. Not surprised there. Again, ipv6 issues. Can't grab an ipv6 address via DHCP. Shows up as limited connection when I put the details in manually. Very disappointing. Seems Netgear is the only one that can do it.

Why do you need an IPv6 address if you dont' mind me asking?

 

[janthony6]

For one, my Nest Protects require ipv6. I have 6 of them.

Also, I prefer not to use NAT.

My entire house is setup with my devices preferring IPV6- at least the devices that use it like Nest and Sony Android TVs etc.

Interesting bit about Synology - this router is otherwise amazing - you have to turn on IPv6 and select auto or dhcp-pd. Separately you have to go to local lan and enable it there too. But you can’t enable it locally without an IPv6 prefix from the ISP on the previous page. It doesn’t let you use it locally at all. Pretty weird.

 

[janthony6]

I love the firewall features in this router, the UI looks like a Mac desktop, it’s very pretty. I also like the network backup - all my macbooks have time machine connected through 1 usb ssd on the router.

Also being able to log in to the UI from anywhere, the failover to 4g lte, the dns server, the parental controls - it’s all so great.

Really looking forward to them updating this platform, fixing IPv6, and maybe a more powerful version cpu wise.