Stock and Merlin on N66U = terrible performance

[BestSanchez]

Hey guys,

So I just purchased the N66U as I've heard so many great things about it, and I felt like I wasn't getting the best WiFi experience possible with my old router.

So I booted it up, did the quick setup, ran some tests, and I was getting like 1mbps of my advertised 50mbps and pings of 800+ms. 12 inches from my router. Terrible. I realized "doh" I need to update the FW, so I did the FW check and it did an incremental upgrade to 376.2524. Tested it again, same thing. Pings timing out everywhere and abysmal speeds.

I knew about Merlin FW so I flashed that and got the same results I tried the latest "stable" 376.47 and 376.45 and 376.43. Same thing.

I know my way around networking fairly well, so I spent a few hours diagnosing and troubleshooting with every option on each FW version, and factory reset after each flash. Pings to the router were still 800+ when they didn't timeout.

Luckily, I finally found a version that worked very well. 3.0.0.4.276. How come I have to use FW from over a year ago just to get my router to work properly? Are there any other builds I can use where I won't want to pull my hair out? As a developer, using very old software with bugs is painful.....

 

[ColinTaylor]

There's no way any of the firmware versions would cause the problem you are describing. If that were the case these forums would have been full of angry customers for the last year and a half.

Therefore you either have a hardware fault or there is some problem with your other equipment.

 

[john9527]

Did you reset your modem connection information by unplugging (powering down) your modem for at least 10 min (30 minutes preferred)? Some ISPs/modems need to be reset if they see a different MAC address attached to the modem.

 

[ChikkSpot]

Some ISPs/modems need to be reset if they see a different MAC address attached to the modem.

that's a very ancient thing. haven't seen recent installations that requires that anymore. besides, it would have been a completely cut off if the mac not matching, not turtle speed.

 

[john9527]

You are certainly free not to try/do the modem reset. However, it's my sense that as the ISPs are rolling out IPv6 there are some strange behaviors being introduced where doing the reset has at least anecdotally helped. There's certainly no downside except for 30 min of your time.

 

[BestSanchez]

There's no way any of the firmware versions would cause the problem you are describing. If that were the case these forums would have been full of angry customers for the last year and a half.

Therefore you either have a hardware fault or there is some problem with your other equipment.

If you google "rt-n66u slow" or "rt-n66u poor wifi", you'll see stories similar to mine. With a few specifically referring to the newer FWs being significantly worse than the older .276 FW. So it's definitely not just me...

And does it still sound like a hardware problem if the older .276 FW is working like a champ? That would be odd.

BTW: For clarification, now that I think about it, I don't think the speeds were actually slow, I think it was just the pings. Pretty much 9 out of 10 requests/pings (to anything) just plain timed out, so it was hard to gauge the speed, but now that I think about it, on those lucky pings that returned after a while, the download speed seemed quick.

So any thoughts on what could cause pinging problems like that?

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 27741]

First of all, I second (or third?) John's reset advice. Has worked for me many times before with an N66U and cable internet.

I would also look to dns for your ping problems. You could try different dns servers. Google's are popular, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

 

[jlake]

You've isolated it to a wireless problem?

Use the basic troubleshooting steps in link below. It's very important that you remove your old wireless profiles and also updating the wireless adapter driver on your computer(s).

If you're having problems with both wired and wireless, it's usually an MTU issue, or IPv6 issue, or ISP issue, or modem/ISP issue.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12453

 

[Nullity]

If you google "rt-n66u slow" or "rt-n66u poor wifi", you'll see stories similar to mine. With a few specifically referring to the newer FWs being significantly worse than the older .276 FW. So it's definitely not just me...

And does it still sound like a hardware problem if the older .276 FW is working like a champ? That would be odd.

BTW: For clarification, now that I think about it, I don't think the speeds were actually slow, I think it was just the pings. Pretty much 9 out of 10 requests/pings (to anything) just plain timed out, so it was hard to gauge the speed, but now that I think about it, on those lucky pings that returned after a while, the download speed seemed quick.

So any thoughts on what could cause pinging problems like that?

Thanks

Being that you are new to the device, I think it would be in your best interest to listen to those with more experience.

Make sure you are defaulting the settings/nvram properly along with a manual power-cycle.

I had a ping problem similar to yours at one point and if I remember correctly it was solved by disabling the client's power saving feature or simply power-cycling all devices involved. Regardless, I am having no glaring problems with my RT-N66U using the default settings supplied by merlin's firmware with a dozen different wireless devices.

Good luck.

 

[RMerlin]

that's a very ancient thing. haven't seen recent installations that requires that anymore. besides, it would have been a completely cut off if the mac not matching, not turtle speed.

There's been more than a few reports of people who did resolve their issue by doing this procedure.

Some ISPs have very weird notions on how networks should be designed... I gave up long ago trying to understand why they were doing some of the weird things they do.

 

[coldwizard]

As a network expert, you should be aware that ping is just a connection test. The time it returns is the total path time and is almost useless to judge where performance problems may be.

Try using the trace route command instead. It is basically multiple pings but shows the time to each hop. You only need to look at the first four lines (hops) to be outside your network.
For a part trace route on windows the command is "tracert -d -h 6 8.8.8.8"
The first line is the time to the N66U (your wifi ping time).
The next two may be the time to your ISP box in your house, and then to their router supporting the houses in your area.
Once you get to the second IP address that is not a private one, you have definitely left your house.

Long ping times can be caused by a busy router which is giving real traffic priority over diagnostic traffic like pings, or a long distant connection like over a satellite,or bad cable, or a mismatch in speeds between the two ends of the cable. With plug and play(pray) (PnP) you can sometimes get one end thinking the connection is 1000fd and the other end using 1000hd. This results is a lot of packet errors for the transmission, but it eventually will get there.
Powering off both ends for a minute, resets the PnP and then turning on the ISP's box, waiting for it to get its PnP totally up, then turning on the N66U will fix the problem. Finally turning on your notebook, asks for a new DHCP address for it, so that the N66U does not get confused with who has what IP address.

I am running on N66U, with merlin's firmware 374.42_0 which is a few months old. The only changes to default that would affect the speed that I have made are:
WAN connection DHCP query frequency is Normal Mode
Wireless 2.4Ghz channel bandwidth is 20MHz
Wireless 5GHz mode is N-only
Wireless 5GHz Control Channel is 48

The DHCP normal mode means that I have to wait up to 10 minutes for the N66U to get an IP address from the ISP, but that only happens on power up. The N66U runs nicely for months so that initial wait time is not a problem for me. The 20MHz gives a more stable wireless for me.

Using the speed test site from SHAW, I get anywhere from 95% to 100% of my advertised 15Mbps speed most of the time. A speed test to the UK a few minutes ago, gets only 50% of my speed (but that is over 7500km+ distance). My notebook is about 30 feet from the N66U and there are no walls is the way.

If the tests for you show a long ping time in first four hops, try connecting your notebook directly to the ISP, and test from there. If still problems, call your ISP to get them to help diagnose the problem.

Hope this helps you.

Edit: My use of PnP was wrong, should be Autonegotiation

 

[BestSanchez]

^^^ Thanks for the insight. I forgot about trace route.

And i'll have to try that modem reset thing.

Also, does anyone think editing the settings on the router page from a linux box would be causing the problems? In the past I've purchased things where they only played nicely if I connected to them with a Windows box first...

I would also look to dns for your ping problems. You could try different dns servers. Google's are popular, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

I'm already using the best DNS servers determined by namebench

You've isolated it to a wireless problem?
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12453

Already did all of that. For each FW version too.

Make sure you are defaulting the settings/nvram properly along with a manual power-cycle.

Ok now this I am curious about...

 

[ColinTaylor]

I would also look to dns for your ping problems. You could try different dns servers.

A problem with the DNS server might make name resolution (and therefore web browsing) slow but would have no effect on ping times.

With plug and play(pray) (PnP) you can sometimes get one end thinking the connection is 1000fd and the other end using 1000hd. This results is a lot of packet errors for the transmission, but it eventually will get there.
Powering off both ends for a minute, resets the PnP and then turning on the ISP's box, waiting for it to get its PnP totally up, then turning on the N66U will fix the problem.

Whilst the gist of what you are saying is correct, you are describing Autonegotiation not Plug and Play (or uPnP). Plug and Play is something completely different.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

A speed test to the UK a few minutes ago, gets only 50% of my speed (but that is over 7500km+ distance).

What has distance to do with the speed of data?

 

[ColinTaylor]

What has distance to do with the speed of data?

Quite a lot. The greater the distance usually means the greater the number of hops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hop_(networking) ). Each hop introduces a delay and increases the effects of latency and contention.

 

[coldwizard]

Whilst the gist of what you are saying is correct, you are describing Autonegotiation not Plug and Play (or uPnP). Plug and Play is something completely different.

You are correct, thanks for the correction.

 

[coldwizard]

What has distance to do with the speed of data?

Think of each network hop as a road bridge, and you have a fast car driving a long distance therefore crossing more bridges.
If you encounter a bridge with a traffic jam, you will have to wait your turn to get over that bridge. That time loss affects your total time for the trip and your average speed for the trip.

 

[BestSanchez]

Well, I flashed the newest Merlin FW again, factory reset, and left my modem unplugged overnight. In the morning I plugged everything back in and setup the router again.

Averaging 55mbps down and 10 ms pings now.

One thing I immediately noticed was the lights on my modem were blue instead of green when I plugged it in, blue meaning multiple bonded upstreams and downstreams, and green is just regular up and down.

So I guess unplugging the modem for a while really does make a difference...