RT-AC87U 5ghz NEED HELP!

[AlexC]

Hey guys,

First time poster here, nice to meet you all. I am relatively computer literate, building my own gaming rig etc, but this has got me a wits end, spending the entire day trying to fix it but to no avail.

My Problem: The 5ghz band on my RT-AC87U connecting to my PC (PCE-AC68U) and my laptop with inbuilt AC card speed varies massively causing, unstable connections, LAG while gaming, varying download speeds (I am on 100megabit Cable) and varying file transfer speeds to my Network Storage device. This all started last week.

Here is a link to a photo gallery showing you what I mean, note the wireless speeds changing constantly.

http://postimg.org/gallery/15sdwejve/

Things I have tried so far:
- Tested the same things on my Laptop to try and isolate the problem, but also having it on the Laptop so it proves it is my router.
- Upgraded router firmware
- Reverted back to older firmware
- Restored Factory Defaults on router
- Updated and reverted computers wireless drivers
- Reformatted Computer

Guys I am at a complete loss at solving this and it is so frustrating and I have spent alot of money on this hardware and would really really appreciate some help!

Kindest Regards,
Alex

 

[netwrks]

Ensure your WIFI Drivers on your network devices are up to current level.
WIFI cards: Ensure WMM is enabled.
For 802.11ac, ensure that VHT is enabled on device WIFI card.

Router: Ensure WMM is enabled.
WIFI Securty: WPA2-PSK (AES) - NOT TKIP.
Try QoS off.

I'm sure others will chime in..

 

[netwrks]

Keep in mind... Although 5ghz has better throughput, it does not have the range of 2.4ghz.

Keep 5ghz in the upper channel range. Try different channels to see what works best for your environment. (2.4 and 5ghz).

You can get an APP for your smart phone (android and iOS) that will provide wifi analytics of your environment. Maybe ASUS has one for your specific router on the APP Stores..

 

[ColinTaylor]

It is normal for the link speed of the wireless connection to change. That's the way it's designed. If the "flow" of the data isn't sufficiently high the wireless connection will step down to a slower rate that is still capable of maintaining the throughput.

Before spending time unnecessarily, have you tried the same tests using a wired connection to the router? It maybe that the problem is not with the wireless connection but the router or your ISP.

Check to see what services you are running of the router itself. Turn off the media server, bit torrents, Samba, etc. to see if one of those is causing the problem.

 

[AlexC]

Thanks guy for your help, I have gone back to the latest firmware and made sure i held the reset button after, so far this seems to have fixed everything (for now)...

Also is 15mb/s transfer speed over AC normal? I did a test on 2.4ghz N and still got 10mb/s...

Cheers

 

[bilboSNB]

Whats the distance? Doesn't sound great I get 15 ish MB/s on 5G 12 ish on 2.4G about 20 feet away through two block walls. with an N66U, transferring a file from a wired server to a wireless laptop.

 

[MasterBash]

Man.. I wanna buy this router but with all the 5ghz issues people seem to be having, I am afraid to. It appears that Asus are unable to fix those things.

 

[L&LD]

Man.. I wanna buy this router but with all the 5ghz issues people seem to be having, I am afraid to. It appears that Asus are unable to fix those things.

As RMerlin has stated in another thread, it is mostly apple devices with this issue.

ios 8.3 was released to fix exactly this. So, it is not just an Asus issue. The router and the client have to play nice with each other.

 

[AlexC]

15mb/s sounds slow to me, my router is less 10ft direct line of sight. I have a PCE-AC68 transferring to a WD my book live connected via cat 6 to the back of the router.. Pretty unhappy considering I get 10mb/s over wireless N 2.4ghz band.. What do you guys get?

 

[TurboFreak68]

Man.. I wanna buy this router but with all the 5ghz issues people seem to be having, I am afraid to. It appears that Asus are unable to fix those things.

I have a RT-AC87U and with the latest Merlin FW Im very happy with it now.. Quentenna have released new drivers for the 5Ghz and seems to be rock solid now. I have better speeds now than with previous FW.

I would say give it a try you wont be sorry.

This is from yesterday and did a simple test to check my dl/ul speed (usually 92Mb dl/92 Mb ul)



This from my wifi log, check the connection speeds on my apple/andriod stuff,

 

[sfx2000]

To the OP - thanks for posting images - I've suspected that the 87U has flow control issues across the interface from the Quantenna SOC to the Broadcom SOC - the image you posted suggests just this - I'm attaching it to this post for the benefit of others...

I'm assuming you're writing from the Wireless Device to the NAS on the LAN - what we're seeing is that the flow control buffers across the SOC bridge are perhaps too large - so once the bucket fills up, it takes time to empty.

Interesting...