RT-AC88U Wi-Fi 2.4GHz Issues and Ethernet Issues 384.13_2

[Ichiban]

Hey everyone, recently decided to try AsusWRT.

Other devices in my AImesh updated perfectly fine, but the main router which is hooked up to the modem is my Ac88u.

After flashing, the router would not give my PC an IP and the wifi 2.4GHz was terribly slow.
I tried the NVRAM reset, by holding the WPS button. The Ethernet started to work again and wi-fi was stable with 5GHz. But the 2.4GHz ping is all over the place, jumping from 4 ms to 305 ms.

Anyone else having the same kind of issue as me? Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Yeah it's called interference. The 2.4 GHz band is useless in 2020.

 

[Ichiban]

Yeah it's called interference. The 2.4 GHz band is useless in 2020.

Doubt it, the interference wasn't there when I was running the stock firmware.
The stock firmware had 2.4GHz perfectly stable. Right now it is so bad it is unusable.

Might have found the fix, the 2.4Ghz channel was virtually not working when set in Channel: AUTO.

Needed to manually specify Channel 10. Before the speeds were back up to 80mbps.

 

[Deleted member 22229]

Good luck i hope it stays stable for you.

 

[Ichiban]

Good luck i hope it stays stable for you.

I have several home automated devices that only run on 2.4Ghz band, security home camera and automated switches.

I want to say 2.4Ghz is useless in 2020 but not every device can run 5GHz...

If it was me, I would love to have Wifi6.

 

[PDinDetroit]

I have several home automated devices that only run on 2.4Ghz band, security home camera and automated switches.

I want to say 2.4Ghz is useless in 2020 but not every device can run 5GHz...

If it was me, I would love to have Wifi6.

I have quite a few devices that are 2.4 GHz, still very much alive. I have found that auto channel selection to be the main culprit of many issues I have experienced. Also, there are a number of items on the Wireless->Professional tab to be disabled which will increase stability.

 

[Ichiban]

I have quite a few devices that are 2.4 GHz, still very much alive. I have found that auto channel selection to be the main culprit of many issues I have experienced. Also, there are a number of items on the Wireless->Professional tab to be disabled which will increase stability.

If you could share these settings that would be great. Let me know, since I switched to Asus from Netgear my experience with home-wifi has sucked.

 

[PDinDetroit]

2.4 GHz: Everything disabled other than "Enable IGMP Snooping" and "Enable WMM"

5 GHz: Everything disabled other than "Enable IGMP Snooping", "Enable WMM", "Multi-User MIMO", and "802.11ac Beamforming".

in my environment, 2.4 GHz works best at 40 MHz and 5 GHz at 20/40/80 MHz.

 

[PDinDetroit]

@Ichiban Please let us know things are working out.

FYI: 384.15 Alpha 2 is working fine for me and others. Link: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/384-15_alpha-builds-testing-all-variants.60731/

384.15 Beta is likely not far behind. The beauty of Asus-Merlin firmware builds are the extra components that can be run, such as AMTM, Diversion (ad blocking), Skynet, etc. Some links to consider:

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/amtm-the-asuswrt-merlin-terminal-menu.42415/

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/diversion-the-router-ad-blocker.48538/

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/release-skynet-router-firewall-security-enhancements.16798/

 

[Ichiban]

Thank you so much, since the changes I have made (Manually setting Channel 10 and 20Hz) 2.4Ghz has been perfectly stable.

 

[Ichiban]

I've also followed this guide and the results have been stable, good for homekit connection.

https://jlian.co/post/reliable-homekit/

88u has been a very problematic router for me, RMA'd 3 times this final hardware revision is good.

 

[Ichiban]

@Ichiban Please let us know things are working out.

FYI: 384.15 Alpha 2 is working fine for me and others. Link: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/384-15_alpha-builds-testing-all-variants.60731/

384.15 Beta is likely not far behind. The beauty of Asus-Merlin firmware builds are the extra components that can be run, such as AMTM, Diversion (ad blocking), Skynet, etc. Some links to consider:

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/amtm-the-asuswrt-merlin-terminal-menu.42415/

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/diversion-the-router-ad-blocker.48538/

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/release-skynet-router-firewall-security-enhancements.16798/

How do you install the terminal and adblocker? I would love that. The firewall is not necessary for me.

 

[zoggy]

I have a RT-AC88U which had stable wifi on stock and later on 380.70. then when 384.x came out it was bad with wifi crapping out every few days or weeks. having to turn off wifi radio and back on to get it to work until the next event. 384.7__2 was fine, I would run for 100+ days with stable wifi. then the issue would re-occur on other builds.. I'd heard it was just buggy drivers in the gpl stuff and kept waiting. Eventually I tried 384.11 and 384.12 but still had issues. Went back to 384.8__2 and just lived there for awhile, 100+ days again no issues. Finally got around to trying newer code again, upgraded to 384.14_2 - sadly I've ran into the wireless issue for the second time in 21 days. Thinking about going back to older code.. but will probably try 384.15 first. Wish I could find the culprit or at least a decent work around to just have it restart the wireless nightly.

 

[Lionel Seaw]

I had issues with the wireless also after upgrading to 384.14_2 on my AC88U. Watching videos resulted in the videos buffering every 15 to 20 seconds. Logged into the router and saw that CPU Core 02 was consistently at 100%

Downgraded the firmware back to 384.13.0 and now everything is back to normal

 

[zoggy]

384.14__2 was awful for me. the 2.4Ghz wireless radio would crash very often (sometimes daily and multiple times, longest I got wifi to stay stable was 4 days). just upgraded to 384.15 to see if this is any better.

 

[Ichiban]

Trying .15 now also. Seems to be okay, speeds are fast. Hopefully it is more stable.

 

[psychosb]

Trying .15 now also. Seems to be okay, speeds are fast. Hopefully it is more stable.

Any update on .15? For me it was terrible. Could barely use 2.4Ghz and my Guest network stops working after 2 or 3 hours (Wrong Password problem). Downgraded to 384.13.0 and it's all working again.

 

[Ichiban]

Any update on .15? For me it was terrible. Could barely use 2.4Ghz and my Guest network stops working after 2 or 3 hours (Wrong Password problem). Downgraded to 384.13.0 and it's all working again.

I downgraded to 13.0 as what you guys said, my mesh node is unstable as hell... I didn't have much issues with .15 aside from unstable speeds at certain times.

.14.2 was okay once I set the Channels manually. Strange...

Don't know what to do now. Might go back to 14.2 for me as it was the most stable.

 

[Ichiban]

.15 is no good. Damn. My ethernet cabled connection is super unsteady. Whats a good version you guys think?

 

[Ultimatescar]

I have no issues with ethernet and 5ghz but good God 2.4ghz is killing me. like Ichiban said some of my devices uses 2.4ghz like my gps and dishwasher(yes you 'eard me right) and I am this close to switching to linksys EA9500 from my AC88u. Lemme hit that channel 10 and 20hz too and see if it helps.