RT-AC86U wireless noise floor variation

[supe]

I have 2 ac86u routers and I notice that 1 unit has noise floor of -77dB for 2.4GHz band and -92dB for 5GHz band. The second unit on the other hand has -81 dB for 2.4Ghz and -87dB for 5GHz. This is with swapping the units in the same location set to the same channels. seeing that 3dB is equal to 2X(double), that seems like a very wide variation and was wondering what other owners of this router is getting.

-Supe

 

[ApexRon]

I have 2 ac86u routers and I notice that 1 unit has noise floor of -77dB for 2.4GHz band and -92dB for 5GHz band. The second unit on the other hand has -81 dB for 2.4Ghz and -87dB for 5GHz. This is with swapping the units in the same location set to the same channels. seeing that 3dB is equal to 2X(double), that seems like a very wide variation and was wondering what other owners of this router is getting.

-Supe

Not certain what you are referring to when you say "noise floor". Here are some graphs/table from my Mac's WiFi Explorer app. On the graph, my router are the two lines at the top.

 

[supe]

Not certain what you are referring to when you say "noise floor". Here are some graphs/table from my Mac's WiFi Explorer app. On the graph, my router are the two lines at the top.
View attachment 14574
View attachment 14575
View attachment 14576

The readings I'm referring to is from the routers wireless log tab from the routers web interface (system logs). It measures/reports the level of the noise floor of the current channel on the router hardware

 

[supe]

Also just an FYI based on your caption
For ch 2 you have -40 dBm signal with a 56dB SNR, so your noise floor of your Mac's wireless card is (-40 - 56 )= -96 dBm

 

[CriticJay]

I have 2 ac86u routers and I notice that 1 unit has noise floor of -77dB for 2.4GHz band and -92dB for 5GHz band. The second unit on the other hand has -81 dB for 2.4Ghz and -87dB for 5GHz. This is with swapping the units in the same location set to the same channels. seeing that 3dB is equal to 2X(double), that seems like a very wide variation and was wondering what other owners of this router is getting.

-Supe

I'm actually interested in what performance differential you noticed between the 2 86U's which have different noise floors?

 

[ApexRon]

Also just an FYI based on your caption
For ch 2 you have -40 dBm signal with a 56dB SNR, so your noise floor of your Mac's wireless card is (-40 - 56 )= -96 dBm

Okay, here is my data:

Considering that the levels for either channel are dynamic and ever changing as well as influenced by other signals and more, what are you trying to prove?

 

[supe]

Okay, here is my data:
View attachment 14579
Considering that the levels for either channel are dynamic and ever changing as well as influenced by other signals and more, what are you trying to prove?

I agree this is expected to vary, what stood out was that the 2 units I had, was positioned the same place with the same channels. As I mentioned before a 3dB difference is essentially 2x the noise floor.

I'm actually interested in what performance differential you noticed between the 2 86U's which have different noise floors?

I guess I should have ran some speed test, but I had already packaged the unit with the higher 5GHz noise floor for return. I had only bought the second one because I thought the wireless drops I was having was hardware related, but turns out it was due to firmware which got fixed in the latest official 32799 release