Struggling with Asus ZenWiFi BE30000 aka 3 node BQ16 Pro bundle

[wrink]

Update:

Those with the DNS issues = hardware issue. Get them replaced ASAP. I have a new set that I swapped out; 100% solid, no failures with DNS or MLO. Exact same config.

The pioneers with BQ16: Would you say even the hardware in these are potentially buggy as shipped, and Asus is actually revving up the hardware while in production ? In other words, doing new ASIC spins and stuff with Broadcom in the hardware too, apart from the expected firmware immaturity ?

I was strongly leaning towards getting a 1 pack BQ16 Pro (with the hope that Merlin might release his version of the fw, since its a Pro router, eventually) - but from folks who have tried it, seems to have universally experienced issues with the 6 GHz band for the most part...

While I'm fully wiling to wait to MLO and such to be figured out and stabilized in FW (can keep those switched off) - I can't afford to have an unreliable/immature hardware, and I was wondering about using the 6 GHz band for the higher SNR - given my neighbors crowding the 5 GHz band.

Those who are actually pioneering the BQ16's use: Thoughts on the hardware maturity - and the stability/reliability of the 6 GHz band when used with separate SSIDs for each of the bands, and when used as a 1 pack or single router for now ? Thanks in advance.

 

[Vustadumas]

I received my BQ 16 Pro (2 pack) over the weekend. Replaced an aging Orbi RBR50 mesh system. After initial setup, had decent speeds, but not what I was expecting. As the day went on, I was getting a ton of drops on the wifi connection. All my Google devices (especially my Nest cams) would connect for a bit, then fail. If I viewed the stream through one cam, the other ones would instantly disconnect. Digging through this post, I tried a few of the changes suggested, and so far it's seemed to help. I've also disabled wifi 7 for now. Only have a couple compatible devices atm anyway.

I set my 2.4ghz band to only run at 20mhz, as my prior setup was the same. Something about mixing 20/40mhz just never played nice with my devices. I'm planning to run ethernet backhaul, once I get all my drops upgraded to CAT6a (smurf tubes FTW!) Anyone have strong feelings about what cabling to go with, or have experience with a brand they'd recommend?

 

[Plak]

Probably at this point it's better to wait for firmware to mature before dropping so much money for a 2 or 3 pack bq16 pro.

I was eager to try out the two pack bq16 pro but this made me reconsider for now. The tp link be95 is on huge discount on amazon but i am not sure about tp link in general. Never tried it and their 5 port 10 gig switches i had were terrible garbage, dying after a power outage. Ive read on here also that people had better range and stability with the tp link be95 so i dunno.

 

[wrink]

Probably at this point it's better to wait for firmware to mature before dropping so much money for a 2 or 3 pack bq16 pro.

I was eager to try out the two pack bq16 pro but this made me reconsider for now. The tp link be95 is on huge discount on amazon but i am not sure about tp link in general. Never tried it and their 5 port 10 gig switches i had were terrible garbage, dying after a power outage. Ive read on here also that people had better range and stability with the tp link be95 so i dunno.

Yes, so I'm thinking of getting a 1 pack BQ16 Pro for now, and try to use that as a mesh with Ax58U.

Primarily to take advantage of the 6 GHz band of the BQ16 Pro - and hopefully the firmware will mature soon enough.

I just hope that the BQ16 Pro doesn't have a hardware bug or problem that can't get fixed...

 

[Bandito]

I’ve had some fun experiences with my BQ16 Pro (set of two) recently.

In general, they have been working relatively well but occasionally my Apple devices seem to lose Internet access. It seems like a DNS issue with the lookups not going through and just hanging. A quick disabling of WiFi on the devices and then re-enabling it will fix the issue until it occurs again. They seem to do this fairly randomly, sometimes requiring reconnection after a couple of hours and sometimes after a couple of days. I have the router set up as the DNS server with it configured to pull from the Cloudflare DNS servers. If I continue to see this issue, I’m going to set the devices to go directly to the Cloudflare DNS servers to see if that fixes things.

On another note, I have a little Internet-enabled clock that quit connecting to the WiFi network when I upgraded to the BQ16s. So, I got the idea to setup the Guest IoT network to see what would happen. Little did I know that I would be heading down a rabbit hole. I first set up the Guest IoT network with the defaults, using the same subnet as the main router and selected just the 2.4 GHz network. I pressed Apply and voila, the Guest IoT network was brought online. I tried connecting my iPhone to the Guest IoT network and it refused to multiple times but with much persistence I eventually got on the network. However, once I was on the 2.4 GHz network, I had no Internet access. I couldn’t even ping the router and get a response. After thinking about this for a while, I thought that perhaps it’s something to do with my subnet as I use a 172.16.x.x subnet for a bit of extra security (most would assume the network would be on 192.168.x.x), so I deleted the IoT network and recreated it allowing it to set up another subnet for the network which wound up being a 192.168.x.x subnet. Once I set it up this way, things began to improve. I could ping other devices on the IoT network reliably but pinging the router or Internet addresses was hit or miss with about 60% of the packets getting lost.

So, back to the drawing board I went. I deleted the IoT network again and added it back using its own subnet and this time I set it up to be on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. That seemed to do the trick. Now I could reliably connect to the network, could reliably ping other devices on the IoT network and suddenly the Internet access and pinging the router started working as they should. I contacted ASUS support and opened a ticket with them and provided logs of what was going on and gave them a full description of my experiences. It’ll be interesting to see if they come back with anything. It would be nice if they could resolve the subnet issue so that I could have one cohesive IoT and regular network, but I’m not holding my breath. At least the clock is connecting and working again.

There was a new firmware update out in the last day or two that I just installed. It’ll be interesting to see if it stabilizes things further.

 

[skypx]

I have the router set up as the DNS server with it configured to pull from the Cloudflare DNS servers.

I'm experiencing the exact same issue with IOS and MacOS devices. The issue is the same no matter how the DNS server is configured (ISP, Cloudflare, Google). The only fix I could find was to setup the nodes as access points.

 

[garysteel]

I’ve had some fun experiences with my BQ16 Pro (set of two) recently.

In general, they have been working relatively well but occasionally my Apple devices seem to lose Internet access. It seems like a DNS issue with the lookups not going through and just hanging. A quick disabling of WiFi on the devices and then re-enabling it will fix the issue until it occurs again. They seem to do this fairly randomly, sometimes requiring reconnection after a couple of hours and sometimes after a couple of days. I have the router set up as the DNS server with it configured to pull from the Cloudflare DNS servers. If I continue to see this issue, I’m going to set the devices to go directly to the Cloudflare DNS servers to see if that fixes things.

On another note, I have a little Internet-enabled clock that quit connecting to the WiFi network when I upgraded to the BQ16s. So, I got the idea to setup the Guest IoT network to see what would happen. Little did I know that I would be heading down a rabbit hole. I first set up the Guest IoT network with the defaults, using the same subnet as the main router and selected just the 2.4 GHz network. I pressed Apply and voila, the Guest IoT network was brought online. I tried connecting my iPhone to the Guest IoT network and it refused to multiple times but with much persistence I eventually got on the network. However, once I was on the 2.4 GHz network, I had no Internet access. I couldn’t even ping the router and get a response. After thinking about this for a while, I thought that perhaps it’s something to do with my subnet as I use a 172.16.x.x subnet for a bit of extra security (most would assume the network would be on 192.168.x.x), so I deleted the IoT network and recreated it allowing it to set up another subnet for the network which wound up being a 192.168.x.x subnet. Once I set it up this way, things began to improve. I could ping other devices on the IoT network reliably but pinging the router or Internet addresses was hit or miss with about 60% of the packets getting lost.

So, back to the drawing board I went. I deleted the IoT network again and added it back using its own subnet and this time I set it up to be on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. That seemed to do the trick. Now I could reliably connect to the network, could reliably ping other devices on the IoT network and suddenly the Internet access and pinging the router started working as they should. I contacted ASUS support and opened a ticket with them and provided logs of what was going on and gave them a full description of my experiences. It’ll be interesting to see if they come back with anything. It would be nice if they could resolve the subnet issue so that I could have one cohesive IoT and regular network, but I’m not holding my breath. At least the clock is connecting and working again.

There was a new firmware update out in the last day or two that I just installed. It’ll be interesting to see if it stabilizes things further.

Same IOS and MBP issues - connected but internet access dead - intermittent but I'm on 2x BQ16 (UK) waiting for a firmware update to see if they fix it before the wife demands I return the XT12 system which allowed for reliable connectivity, keen to hear if this firmware fixes your issue.

 

[Plak]

I kinda wonder how the tp link be95 compares to the bq16 pro. Never had a tp link router so I am kinda hesitant. Online reviews are all just mixed bag of the bq16 pro and be95. But seems like tp link has been releasing quiet a good number of firmware updates and improving things. Asus is not really known to be good with firmware updates. Like maybe once a year. I have no mac devices so not worried about them. Still no one truly knows if the BQ16 pro has afc. Would be nice for the 6ghz band. I know dongknows says be16 pro has AFC but no one can confirm. From what I've read on here people seem to give general feedback that tp link is giving them better coverage/range/performance than what asus does. But of course results can vary.

I know initially from dongknows be95 review he did say the 2nd 6ghz band was not available which became available after firmware updates. I think my only gripe against the be95 is that it has an internal fan which I am not a fan of. More components to break and have to hear running. I might give the bq16 pro a try not sure yet.

 

[Solar Trekker]

The DNS reports here are weird - but seem to align with what I experience intermittently. I've started grabbing wireshark captures when things get weird. It looks like I get high packet loss and repeated DNS lookups and can't connect. Not sure what the root cause is.

My pcap (after I anonymized it) is here: https://file.io/5WVZNmDA2gPT - still trying to figure out what is going on.

I don't think it's wifi-exclusive because it'll happen to my work MBP which I connect via ethernet. It may be something in the Apple networking stack, or it could be a weird firmware issue.

 

[jzchen]

I have a BE95 as router. There was a firmware that finally opened both 6 GHz channels to devices/clients. Prior to this 6 GHz-2 was set as dedicated backhaul.

This firmware was eventually pulled from their pages, I believe due to bugginess. Updates seem to have stalled...

But with a 240 MHz capable 5 GHz channel it trumps ASUS' offerings as throughput king, so I have it centralized in my house connected to AT&T service. It doesn't seem like any manufacturer is planning on making a BE33000 or higher model, at least not in the near future, otherwise I'd be back to saving my pennies. (I have considered an Orbi 970/971 router only single, as that is the next highest at BE27000. But it uses 5 GHz-2 240 MHz as dedicated backhaul)...

 

[Plak]

Yeah I think i noticed that too. I could swear I saw the notes on the firmware update before about opening up 2nd 6ghz band. Now it's gone. They probably found some issues with the firmware. Well at least it's being worked on so that's good. The netgear stuff doesn't interest me either so most likely will lean to the bq16 pro.

Do you notice the be95 running hot and having a loud fan noise? Thats what I don't like. The fan primarily.

Just wondering if there will be any sales going on soon for black friday. I know i saw the be95 on sale for $800 for 2 pack which i almost grabbed but price went back up.

 

[wrink]

Just wondering if there will be any sales going on soon for black friday. I know i saw the be95 on sale for $800 for 2 pack which i almost grabbed but price went back up.

Where did you find the sale ?

I'm looking around too. If we have no option but to get buggy products, we might as well get them on sale

 

[Plak]

It was on sale on amazon. Man i was so close to buying it. Really good deal.

 

[jzchen]

It was on sale on amazon. Man i was so close to buying it. Really good deal.

I saw that sale. I was tempted but restrained myself. I split a two pack with a friend so that is how I got mine at a discount. I downloaded that firmware 1.0.21 but as you can probably see it's back officially to 1.0.20. I can't say it is a great firmware but I've been running it.

The settings are really not "configurable". You get choice to turn on 2.4 and 5 GHz as SmartConnect, 6GHz with a SSID, and 5 and 6 GHz combined as MLO. So that is the only router with MLO enabled. It's either ON or OFF, you choose the SSID of course.
EDIT: For 5 GHz it recommends 180 MHz, but allows you to choose 240 MHz, with a little warning- non-DFS 5 GHz clients may have issue, and if you add a DECO node that doesn't have 240 MHz it will automatically change to match...

I believe my iPerf test was a tiny bit faster with it. Someone had PMd me and I got off my butt and tried MLO....

 

[jzchen]

@Vustadumas When ASUS first released firmware with MLO enabled they suggest MLO_SSID for WiFi 7 Clients, and a Legacy/IoT SSID for all the rest. I see that devices try to connect to WiFi 7 channel, but eventually hop off probably because the encryption is higher than they are capable...

 

[Plak]

You guys think they gonna put the bq16 pro on sale for black friday? Meh i think not lol.

 

[jzchen]

Probably yes...

 

[Plak]

Yeah i am gonna wait for next weekend. Got my cable managment stuff ready for some fun times.

 

[wrink]

I have swung and settled on the BQ10, after finding they have stabilized the firmware to a working state...

However, I'm sticking to a 1 pack, and will use my AX58 as the mesh satellite. Will have to see how it goes :O

 

[jzchen]

@Plak I'm afraid I missed responding about your fan concern with respect to the BE95. It's in our Den which isn't populated much.. I asked my friend, the one who I split with, and he said it didn't bother him at all. (I believe his home is smaller than mine so it would be more of a concern). I do use the SFP+ port. I have it connected with a Netgear 10 Gig switch. For some reason they get very hot to the touch, so much so that I use an oven mitt if I need to touch them hot. If it helps you gauge the potential heat output, the AC adapter is rated 15 V at 5 A, so 75 Watts.

But definitely an open, connect, click the minimalist settings, and use. There is probably one called Fast Roaming, which OFF by default. Already mentioned the 240 MHz option for the 5 GHz channel somewhere here. If there's any that I have forgotten as I'm aging, (48 yo), I can almost guarantee at max there are 5, (excluding the 3 SSIDs that you select, maybe including the 3)...

The BQ16 Pro, aka Best Buy (exclusive 3-pack) BE30000 has received a substantial number of firmware updates, which has slowed to monthly lately. So on the one hand you have 10% more throughput, but on the other a decent amount of configuration settings. The BE98 Pro of course adding more, that it may be even overwhelming to some...