RT-AC88U slow admin access and slower with Merlin firmware

[mfrazzz]

I picked up a like new ASUS RT-AC88U router off of Amazon Warehouse that had Merlin firmware installed on it. Idea was to replace a T-Mobile Cellspot router I updated to be a RT-AC68U running Merlin. First thing I noticed out of the box was how slow the Admin access was. Just logging in takes close to 1 minute to refresh and paint the first screen, then switching to each new screen takes at least 30 seconds. I then did a full reset on it, but still the same.

Next I grabbed the latest ASUS official firmware and flashed that. There was a considerable improvement in how fast the admin screens worked, but screen repainting is still slower than my RT-68U ever was. But since I really need some of the Merlin firmware items, I then reflashed the latest version. It seemed faster than what it was out of the box, but it was now slower than the official firmware was behaving. I'm having a hard time believing that this router should behave this way. Is there anything else I can check or do? Or do I chalk this up to a dud and do a return to Amazon? Or should I contact ASUS to see if they can do anything?

 

[RMerlin]

It should be the opposite. My firmware is more aggressive at caching CSS content, and I have also integrated various optimizations to OpenSSL.

Are you accessing it over https? If yes, try a different browser. Firefox has issues with the certificate generated by the router (it's an old bug that has been on their issue tracker for years). 384.11 should improve things a bit by providing an Email field in the certificate, but it's still not ideal. The issue is with these browsers trying to establish a complete chain of trust, and failing to do so because the router is a single-threaded web server. There are a number of workarounds posted on the forums (deleting Firefox's stored certificate database, generating your own CA + certificate, using a different browser, etc...).

I must say I find is suspicious tho that your router came with my firmware pre-installed. This would potentially indicate a used router, or you paid extra for some resellers that sells preflashed routers.

 

[mfrazzz]

Not accessing via https, and using Chrome (and Safari on my iPhone). Yes, its used, this was a deal from Amazon Warehouse, so thats why your firmware was already on it. I'm just amazed at how much slower the admin web screens are, and makes me suspicious there may be other issues with the router for some reason. All ports seem to work. May flash it back to original firmware and do hard resets / nvram clears again. Anything else to look at from telnet/ssh? I did look to see if someone had tried to overclock it (as I know these don't allow that) but the numbers all look fine (and that would get wiped with new firmware installs anyway as I understand it).

 

[dave14305]

Any browser extensions that might be trying to mangle the page (e.g. adblockers)? Whitelist router.asus.com and/or your router IP address if so.

If you're familiar with Chrome Dev tools (F12) try analyzing the network time of a page load. It might give a hint of where it is slowing down.

 

[RMerlin]

Anything else to look at from telnet/ssh?

Not really, except maybe CPU usage to ensure there isn't something pegging it at 100% all the time.

The RT-AC88U webui over https should be slightly faster than on the RT-AC68U, provided you use https in both cases. Here with Chrome while I do see some slowdowns on the AC88U (compared to the AX88U), it's nothing really major. Page could take 2 seconds to load instead of 200 ms perhaps.