RT-ac86u kicking devices off after working perfectly for weeks.

[Spawn2031]

Hello gents, I have an RT-ac86u Asus router that I have been loving straight out of the box for the last few weeks. No changes to the default settings except doing the firmware upgrade. As of yesterday 3 devices (ps4, printer, roku tv) just randomly got disconnected from the 2.4 band. Tried reconnecting them and it said signal strength was low and it failed. Tried getting them on the 5g band and they connected until this morning. They were disconnected again and would not log into either band stating low signal strength. Why would this be happening after weeks of solid performance? Nothing has been changed to my knowledge.

Thanks.

 

[Wallace_n_Gromit]

Hello gents, I have an RT-ac86u Asus router that I have been loving straight out of the box for the last few weeks. No changes to the default settings except doing the firmware upgrade. As of yesterday 3 devices (ps4, printer, roku tv) just randomly got disconnected from the 2.4 band. Tried reconnecting them and it said signal strength was low and it failed. Tried getting them on the 5g band and they connected until this morning. They were disconnected again and would not log into either band stating low signal strength. Why would this be happening after weeks of solid performance? Nothing has been changed to my knowledge.

Thanks.

On the back of my RT-AC86U router it shows: Production Year: 2020 Made in Vietnam. Maybe a Quality Control issue from that batch?

Your issue EXACTLY mirrors my own. It's nice to realize that this is not a unique issue. Looks like you are using ASUS stock firmware and I am using Merlin.

I have noticed this behavior also with my new RT-AC86U recently after solid performance for better than a month. The 2.4Ghz band drops more often than the 5Ghz.

My 2.4Ghz devices include a ring doorbell, echo device, and smartphones (so I can control/monitor the ring doorbell).

If I go into the GUI >> Guest Network >> 2.4Ghz Network Name (SSID) >> re[Apply] It will most times restore the connection, but does not explain why it periodically drops connectivity.

UPDATE: The next time my 2.4Ghz drops connection and I restart it, maybe will upload the General/wireless System Log file to this site and see if someone could troubleshoot the problem. @Spawn2031 is your logging enabled?

 

[Tech9]

I have a wireless printer with issues when connected to AC86U. It works properly with any other router, but AC86U. Tested with different AC86Us, different firmware 384 and 386, even 2y old firmware - no luck. Something is off with this router's 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. I don't know what it is.

 

[Ironic77]

Check the temps. I've had this issue when the heat sink is no longer attached properly. Shoddy quality control. If you turn the unit off, let it cool, and start it up - and it's fine for a few minutes - that's the issue. Last time I had the issue, I was able to fix it for a couple years by getting some new goo and reseating it (unit was long out of warranty). Seems like it might be happening again, though I'm still making sure it isn't the firmware I threw on a few weeks back. That said, I have an 88, not an 86.

 

[Spawn2031]

So I was able to identify that the problem here was only affecting wireless connection.. but on both bandwidths. Just for shirts and giggles, I decided to power it down for 30 seconds and fire it back up. Low and behold all connections worked properly again. Any device that had issues just needed to be rebooted and it grabbed the connection on the proper band that it had previously been set to. I did this on Friday and let it run through the weekend. Havent had any additional issues, so far. I dont know why this would have happened, but it does seem to be fixed by the reboot, at least for now.