[RT-AX88U] Wifi is acting up on certain devices

[Jellybean]

After taking a hiatus from Asus, I'm back with Asus and Merlin!

I have the AX88U, but the wifi connection has been somewhat spotty. In the adjacent room to the router (maybe 15 feet away (2 walls in-between)), my sister's MacBook Pro (2010) is extremely slow on wifi. It takes forever to load wifi pages (ex: YouTube takes a good 6 or so seconds (and occasionally may lag intensely, I can't pull up dslreports' speed test), whereas her iPhone 11 XS will load it instantly. I would have conceded that to network card (2010 MBP being able to connected to a/b/n) but my 2019 gaming laptop has a similar, though slightly better experience.

Enabling QoS seemed to force everyone on 2.4 Ghz, so I disabled that. I had Smart Connect turned on, but have since turned that off. I'm tempted to separate the networks like I did previously and have all the important stuff on 5GHz.

Hardwired is great. I've got a gigabit subscription and I'm seeing 800+ on hardwire. I used a Wifi analyzer app to check channels and range, and changed my channels.

I don't know what stock firmware would be like, tbh. I opened the box, connected the router, set up the router, and flashed Merlin. I don't think I need to factory reset because it's a new set up, but it doesn't sound like the issue.

I have another AX88U coming in tomorrow that I plan on setting up in AI Mesh. So I'll report back if that changes anything. But any advice would be appreciated.

Wireless Gen; 5Ghz, 2.4 Ghz


Wireless Professional; 5 Ghz, 2.4 Ghz


Connected Devices

 

[FTC]

Hi, I would begin by :
- Disable airtime fairness in both bands. This has proven to cause slowlyness with some devices.
- Disable all kinds of beanforming in 2.4 and just leave explicit beanforming in 5 ghz. Also proven some compatibility problems.
- I personally also found problems with 160mhz channel widths w/some devices so my suggestion is to set 80Mhz max to begin with.. once you stabilize the enviroment, try the 160 again..

.. and go from there.

 

[coxhaus]

I can't believe you guys are spending so much money on routers that are going to be outdated in a year. You should wait for Wi-Fi 6e.

 

[tekrich]

When you flashed Merlin, you need to reset the settings to Factory Default settings, its a tick box nest to the restore. Then set the router up again.

Don't use 160Mhz and manually set your 2,4Ghz and 5Ghz bands.

Don't use smart connect.

 

[charlie2alpha]

I had major Wi-Fi 5GHz problems with my AC86U until I disabled Multi-User MiMo. Another thing to try.

 

[L&LD]

I can't believe you guys are spending so much money on routers that are going to be outdated in a year. You should wait for Wi-Fi 6e.

Nothing gets outdated by a new model becoming available. Enjoy what you have as long as possible and upgrade if there is a good reason too at any time that a better option becomes available (rinse, repeat).