[RT-N66U] Wi-fi and general slowdowns

[sweetsuicide]

Hi,
I have the RT-N66U since many years and I really love it. I switched over to asusmerlin fw (380.68_2) and I'm using it with an ADSL modem leaving the RT-N66U to do the ADSL authentication.
I have always had issues with 5Ghz Wi-fi (but this seems to be a common issue) as soon as a 5Ghz device appeared in my home. The router is close eonugh to exclude any issues with shielding, etc. I have several devices, most of them are 2.4Ghz, therefore I would like to use 5Ghz when available. I also set up 2.4 and 5 on separate SSIDs following a guide somewhere.
Lately my gf needed to sync her photos from her phone (only over Wi-fi, too many of them). I know: ridiculous: 768 kbit/s for such an upload. I tried all possible confgurations, checked channel interference, channel width, etc. Result: 5ghz times out and ethernet connection severly affected. I connected with my mobile on 5Ghz, no such issues.
I went in the network monitor and observed the situation: HER: 5Ghz connection: spikes, silence, spikes, silence, spikes, silence. NB: the spikes were ALL of a mangnitue higher than the ADSL uplink bandwidth. HER: 2.4Ghz flat upload, no silence. ME: 5Ghz connection: steady, steady, steady, steady, silece, steady, etc.
Even though it's clearly a problem with HER antenna and/or driver, one thing remained clear: trying to stream from Netflix (bandwidth is 13Mbit/s, streaming FullHD should'nt require more than 5) showed either bandwith reduction (FullHD to SD) or complete stops while using Wi-fi extensively (using 5Ghz on HER phone affected it the most, HER phone on 2.4Ghz only every half or every hour, MY phone on 5Ghz randomly ).
What can I do? What's your judgment?

 

[sweetsuicide]

Ok, I updated asusmerlin and I turn off tx burst (as I read in previous posts) and (NOT testing my wife's phone) got very good results. Anyway, I noticed something strange: while I was uploading a file with my work laptop (Centrino chipset) I tried to download a file with my phone, and the phone's dl rate was capped at the max upload rate the laptop was running steadily. What happened? The Centrino got all the 300 mps bandwidth, relegating the phone to the outstkirts of the 5Ghz bandwidth?

 

[wouterv]

I can't make much out of everything you write.
The RT-N66U is an excellent router within its specifications, the router does not perform best with multiple "high load" data streams (at first due to the limitations of 802.11n and secondly by its CPU and memory).
I suggest to few things:

1. Check the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channel usage in the neighborhood and select the least used channels (for 2.4 GHz preferably one out of 1, 6 or 11 and for 5 GHz preferably one out of 36, 40, 44 or 48).
2. Be sure the router is located such that all wireless clients have a reasonable strong signal.
3. Check the throughput of individual wireless clients at various locations in your house, while the other wired and wireless clients are switched off (not using any wireless data).
4. Look at the router memory- and CPU usage while using individual clients.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with two clients at the same time.

 

[MichaelCG]

I am assuming the issue with speeds while doing an upload and a download will be related to the fact that wireless is a shared medium. So if two clients are doing high bandwidth things, the bandwidth will end up split roughly 50/50. Doesn't really matter if it is upload or download...only one thing can be transmitting at a time in a given airspace.

 

[Trikein]

What model phone does your GF have? Also, does anyone in the house use bluetooth? Does her phone problem happen even if all other wireless devices are disconnected from the network? If so, I would suspect interference of some kind. Can you post a screenshot of the other wireless networks in your area? See link here for instructions.