Share your experiences running OpenVPN client on RT-N66U with Merlin FW

[Sky1111]

Seems like I found how to recover:
- power down the router
- press and hold the reset button
- power up
- wait until front power LED starts slowly blinking

Now the router is in recovery mode.

On hardwired PC change NIC Settings to static IP address 193.168.1.10, default subnet 255.255.255.0

Now in your browser go again to 192.168.1.1

You should see recovery console. I cleared NVRaM and reflashed the firmware...

The world peace is saved

 

[Sky1111]

... and few restores later I am sticking to 1200 Mhz... the router crashes at
1250 and 1300...

However, I can conclusively say that 1200 Mhz and external cooling the router is very stable. CPU is at 58 degrees.

Is there any way to raise the voltage on CPU? Somewhere I heard that that CPU can go (perhaps unstable) to 1600...

 

[primitivo]

Glad to hear you have managed to recover your AC56U. If you don't mind, kindly share step by step way to overlock it.

 

[Sky1111]

Glad to hear you have managed to recover your AC56U. If you don't mind, kindly share step by step way to overlock it.

Will do. But I think it would be better for everyone if I start a dedicated thread focused on OC-ing.

 

[primitivo]

Will do. But I think it would be better for everyone if I start a dedicated thread focused on OC-ing.

Looking forward to it.

 

[Sky1111]

as promised:

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?p=79824&posted=1#post79824

 

[Shonk]

I have just tested out PPTP MPPE 128 encryption on my RT-AC66U 662mhz

It gets CPU Bound at 40mbit

Without VPN

With VPN

 

[jefftj86]

Hey guys i'm new here but I had run into this issue as well.

I am running the RT-N66U

Connection: 100mb down / 25mb upload
I hit those marks (usually surpass them at around 110mb / 35mb) but after I enabled OpenVPN Client to connect to Vyprvpn i could not get more than 15mb download / 15mb upload scores on speedtest.

I am able to achieve close to native speeds when running the VPN "Application" on my mac or Pc so it seems to me that the router is a bottleneck if you are sporting over 25mb connection.

I have no issue jobbing out the VPN server since I already have a rack with a few dell rack mount servers i use for ESXi, but have plenty of spare cpu power. This may bum some folks out since it does fall short on what i thought was a pricy router. Other than VPN and just being greedy this thing is one of the best out of the box home routers I have owned.

Cheers,

Jeff

 

[RMerlin]

Hey guys i'm new here but I had run into this issue as well.

I am running the RT-N66U

Connection: 100mb down / 25mb upload
I hit those marks (usually surpass them at around 110mb / 35mb) but after I enabled OpenVPN Client to connect to Vyprvpn i could not get more than 15mb download / 15mb upload scores on speedtest.

I am able to achieve close to native speeds when running the VPN "Application" on my mac or Pc so it seems to me that the router is a bottleneck if you are sporting over 25mb connection.

I have no issue jobbing out the VPN server since I already have a rack with a few dell rack mount servers i use for ESXi, but have plenty of spare cpu power. This may bum some folks out since it does fall short on what i thought was a pricy router. Other than VPN and just being greedy this thing is one of the best out of the box home routers I have owned.

Cheers,

Jeff

You're trying to do realtime encryption of data on a 600 MHz MIPS CPU. Those speed are perfectly normal for this class of CPU - it will never compete with a full-blown desktop CPU.

I've always said that the N66/AC66 can hit about 15-20 Mbps max, while the AC68U can hit about 50 Mbps max. Beyond that, you need a specialized device that has hardware-based AES encryption.

 

[dougruns]

I know this is an old thread, but I'm using exactly this setup and looking for some performance tips. I have an Asus RT-N66U. I'm running Asuswrt Merlin 380.59_0 and using OpenVPN to connect to PIA.

I only seem to be getting 7 Mbps download. At that rate, my cat videos keep stuttering and stopping. I have my streaming devices going straight out. I only have a problem w/ downloads and videos on the computers and mobile devices behind the VPN. I see several reports on this thread saying I should be able to get 15-20 Mbps on the RT-N66U. Are there any specific settings required to hit this?

I had to work with PIA support to get running. I am using the following:

cipher: AES-128-CBC
extra HMAC auth: off
auth digest: SHA1
compression: adaptive​

I'm not sure which settings are relevant. Please let me know if there are others I should be looking at.

Thanks

 

[yorgi]

66U is not capable of higher speeds.
A dual core cpu will never get past 50-60 mb/s
The encryption really works these routers hard.
If anyone wants to get better speeds with a router either you go with that expensive router that captain X talks about or go with a computer like the Intel NUC and use pfsence
good luck with that one. I just say live with what you got and maybe someday routers will get proper cpu's like an Intel dual core
then watch out.

 

[hw1380]

I have a AC68U and the bandwidth without VPN is 50Mbit.
With OpenVPN:

• AES-128-CBC: 25Mbit | CPU util (GUI): 45%
• AES-256-CBC: 12Mbit | CPU util (GUI): 60%

Compression: none

This is far away from 50Mbit.

 

[L&LD]

I have a AC68U and the bandwidth without VPN is 50Mbit.
With OpenVPN:

• AES-128-CBC: 25Mbit | CPU util (GUI): 45%
• AES-256-CBC: 12Mbit | CPU util (GUI): 60%

Compression: none

This is far away from 50Mbit.

What is the other end of the VPN? Is that throttling the connection?

I would also suggest you try Compression: Adaptive. The overall speeds are significantly better, depending on what you're doing with the VPN connection, of course.

 

[dougruns]

Even with the N66U, I should be getting better than 6-7Mbps, right? When I bypass the VPN, I get 60 Mbps.

Since my wifi coverage seems adequate, can I just get an upgraded wired router that can get me closer to the theoretical max of router-based VPNing? What would you recommend? Is there a consumer-grade, consumer-sized wired router w/ a dual core chip?

66U is not capable of higher speeds.
A dual core cpu will never get past 50-60 mb/s
The encryption really works these routers hard.
If anyone wants to get better speeds with a router either you go with that expensive router that captain X talks about or go with a computer like the Intel NUC and use pfsence
good luck with that one. I just say live with what you got and maybe someday routers will get proper cpu's like an Intel dual core
then watch out.

 

[hw1380]

What is the other end of the VPN? Is that throttling the connection?

No, my VPN provider is not throttling the connection.

I would also suggest you try Compression: Adaptive. The overall speeds are significantly better, depending on what you're doing with the VPN connection, of course.

I have just tested the VPN connection with adaptive compression but the speed is the same.

 

[yorgi]

Even with the N66U, I should be getting better than 6-7Mbps, right? When I bypass the VPN, I get 60 Mbps.

Since my wifi coverage seems adequate, can I just get an upgraded wired router that can get me closer to the theoretical max of router-based VPNing? What would you recommend? Is there a consumer-grade, consumer-sized wired router w/ a dual core chip?

You will never get better then 10-12 mb/s even if you get 60 mb/s on isp
No compression or anything will help it.
the cpu just cant handle it. if you want a better speed get a dual cpu like the 68U that will give you closer t0 40-50 mb/s

 

[dougruns]

I see the AC68U uses the BCM4708A which is dual-core and 800MHz. The Netgear R7000 uses the BCM4709A which has a higher clock speed at 1000MHz. Should I go w/ the R7000?

Also, those models came out 3 years ago. Is there any better VPN performance out of the newer generation models like the AC87U or AC88U (w/ a 1.4GHz dual-core CPU and twice the RAM)? Price looks to be about double from the 2013 models to the 2015s.

I'm guessing that since the forums regularly reference the AC68U that is about the limit on VPN performance and there is no extra value in the more expensive router for the extra cost. Is that right?

 

[dougruns]

Just read the OpenVPN setup guide at http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/othe...-setting-up-and-using-openvpn-on-asus-routers

I think it answered my question. In the simple test, the big jump was between the N66U and the AC68U (BCM 4708A dual-core 800MHz) with only an incremental but not drastic improvement for the AC87U (BCM4709 dual-core 1GHz). So it looks like the AC68U is where the value is for now.

 

[L&LD]

Just read the OpenVPN setup guide at http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/othe...-setting-up-and-using-openvpn-on-asus-routers

I think it answered my question. In the simple test, the big jump was between the N66U and the AC68U (BCM 4708A dual-core 800MHz) with only an incremental but not drastic improvement for the AC87U (BCM4709 dual-core 1GHz). So it looks like the AC68U is where the value is for now.

No, the value right now is the Asus RT-AC1900P (a Best Buy exclusive right now). It is the latest and more powerful version of the 4 year old RT-AC68U with a 75% faster 1.4GHz processor and other upgrades too. Still has the same ram and NVRAM as the original 'AC68U, but for VPN, those faster processors are worth any premiums the RT-AC1900P may have.

In actuality though, the price is the same or lower than the original RT-AC68U. And, it still can use RMerlin's firmware too (just use the RT-AC68U firmware on it).

The RT-AC87U should not be on your shortlist if you want a stress free time with your new router (do a search, many are still having insurmountable issues with them).

 

[hw1380]

if you want a better speed get a dual cpu like the 68U that will give you closer t0 40-50 mb/s

I have a 68U and the speed is 10-12mb/s (OpenVPN AES-256-CBC) as I wrote yesterday.

Is there anything I can tune to get more speed ?