Two RT-AX68Us, different channel options

[dscline]

I have two RT-AX68Us, both set up as access points. In the 5ghz band, One of them has the lower channels (UNI 1) available to select, plus DFS channels, but not the upper (UNI 3) range. The other one has the lower and upper ranges available, but no DFS options. I've checked all the 5ghz settings under both the regular wireless tab and the professional tab, and all settings are the same except for the channel they are set to. It's not the end of the world, they are both set to the channels I want for them. I wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't just happened to be checking settings. But it still seems odd. They are both running the latest Merlin 386.2 firmware, but I'm posting here instead of the Merlin forum, since they're both on the same firmware it shouldn't be a firmware issue. Probably just a setting I have off somewhere else, but I haven't found it. Any clues?

 

[Tucu]

Are they set to the same region? Router 2 seems to be showing the usual channels for Europe (including DFS channels), but excluding channels subject to weather radar and SRD restrictions. Router 3 is showing the US non-DFS channels.

 

[dscline]

Are they set to the same region?

This is probably a dumb question, but where is the region set? They are both set to the same time zone (US Eastern). But I don't see a specific region setting. Is it not also odd that #3 doesn't have DFS channels? It's strange to me that they both seem to be missing some channels, but different ones. My AX86 has all of them.

EDIT: also, for kicks, I switched the bandwidth on #2 to 20/40/80 just to see if it changed the available range. It didn't, but it does cause a check-box to appear with the option to "auto-select channels included DFS channels". When I do the same thing on #3, that option does not appear.

 

[Tucu]

This is probably a dumb question, but where is the region set? They are both set to the same time zone (US Eastern). But I don't see a specific region setting. Is it not also odd that #3 doesn't have DFS channels? It's strange to me that they both seem to be missing some channels, but different ones. My AX86 has all of them.

EDIT: also, for kicks, I switched the bandwidth on #2 to 20/40/80 just to see if it changed the available range. It didn't, but it does cause a check-box to appear with the option to "auto-select channels included DFS channels". When I do the same thing on #3, that option does not appear.

If available it should be in the Wireless Professional tab. Newer routers might be locked to specific regions.
Did you buy the routers from the same shop and at the same time? Scarcity caused the arrival of grey imports that might be set to the wrong region.

 

[dscline]

If available it should be in the Wireless Professional tab. Newer routers might be locked to specific regions.
Did you buy the routers from the same shop and at the same time? Scarcity caused the arrival of grey imports that might be set to the wrong region.

Yeah, no region setting in the professional tab on either of them. I'm in the US, and both were purchased at Amazon (US), however #3 was pre-ordered, I got it when they first became available here (end of January). #2 was purchased as an open box from Amazon Warehouse a couple months later. I initially had some issues with that one... I couldn't connect to it, and had to run the Asus restoration tool (more details here). So I somewhat expect that someone previously purchased that one and maybe failed installing firmware on it. Maybe they tried to load firmware from a different region? But that still doesn't explain why #3 doesn't have DFS channels. And again, it's not a huge deal, they are both on the channels I want them on and running perfectly fine, I'm just trying to understand it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Router #2 definitely looks like an EU model. The channel selection is the same as mine. You can easily check by switching to 2.4GHz and seeing if you have channels 12 and 13 available.

For a more accurate region check SSH into each router and issue the following two commands and compare.

nvram show | grep wl._country
nvram get territory_code

 

[Tucu]

You can check the region using ssh and one of these commands (I think they should still work):

### To CHECK your current region, each line entered will result in the answer.
nvram get pci/1/1/ccode
nvram get pci/2/1/ccode
nvram get wl0_country_code
nvram get wl1_country_code
nvram get regulation_domain
nvram get regulation_domain_5G

In the future if you need to enable DFS channels in #3, someone in the Merlin forum might be able to help

 

[dscline]

Thanks. I don't get any responses from @Tucu commands, but I do from @ColinTaylor's commands:

wl0_country_code=E0
wl0_country_rev=704
wl1_country_code=E0
wl1_country_rev=704
EU/01

So it does look like it's a European unit. Not sure how that would have ended up for sale through Amazon Warehouse US. And yes, I do also have WiFi channels 12 & 13. Any ramifications of an EU unit beyond not having the upper 5ghz range available?

And #3 is a US unit.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Any ramifications of an EU unit beyond not having the upper 5ghz range available?

Possibly less power output on the EU model. And of course make sure you don't use channels 12 and 13 on 2.4GHz.

Personally I'd send it back and get a replacement as theoretically it shouldn't have been sold into the US market.

 

[dscline]

Possibly less power output on the EU model. And of course make sure you don't use channels 12 and 13 on 2.4GHz.

Personally I'd send it back and get a replacement as theoretically it shouldn't have been sold into the US market.

I do still have the box it came in. I've been searching the numbers, and they APPEAR to be US (they match what I see on US sites, but not on UK sites). UPC is 192876737576 & EAN is 471807737579 The MAC on the box matches the MAC on my unit. So I'm thinking someone must have tried to flash this with EU firmware, then got to the point where they couldn't connect, then returned it. Though it would be strange that they could figure out how to change the country (which I thought you weren't supposed to be able to easily do), but couldn't figure out how to use the Asus firmware recovery to get it going again.

Based on what I'm seeing here, it looks like the 5ghz power on these channels is pretty much the same everywhere (except maybe Kenya?), but it does look like the US allows higher power on 2.4ghz.

I saved $60 on it, and it's working fine, so I'm not anxious to return it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

There are no regional differences in firmware. The download from the US site is the same as the firmware downloaded from the UK. The region is set in the CFE at manufacturing time. As the CFE is encrypted it is very difficult to change. So it's unlikely this was changed accidentally by the previous owner. More likely it was packed incorrectly at the factory.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Based on what I'm seeing here, it looks like the 5ghz power on these channels is pretty much the same everywhere (except maybe Kenya?), but it does look like the US allows higher power on 2.4ghz.

What is legally allowed and what a router actually outputs are two different things. Generally the EU models output about 100mW on 2.4GHz and 200mW on 5GHz. At the end of the day what matters is whether it works well enough in your environment and not what the numbers are.

 

[Ronald Schwerer]

Older RT-AC68U don't have encrypted CFE (at least mine don't). So you could try running

strings /dev/mtd0 | grep ccode

If you see something like

0:ccode={some char string}
1:ccode={likely same string}

then yours isn't encrypted and it might of been patched by a previous owner.

 

[iluvblackbmw]

Older RT-AC68U don't have encrypted CFE (at least mine don't). So you could try running

strings /dev/mtd0 | grep ccode

If you see something like

0:ccode={some char string}
1:ccode={likely same string}

then yours isn't encrypted and it might of been patched by a previous owner.

He is talking about ax68u, not ac68u.

 

[Ronald Schwerer]

He is talking about ax68u, not ac68u.

I hate when I do that!

 

[Smokindog]

Have you tried a chat session with ASUS support? I tried but you need a valid serial number to do so.

 

[dscline]

Have you tried a chat session with ASUS support? I tried but you need a valid serial number to do so.

No, I don't really need to. It's not necessarily an issue for ME, because both of my AX68s are operating on the channel I want them on. I just wanted to understand why, and now I know that one of them, for whatever reason, is either a euro product, or had somehow been flashed to be one, and the US one is like all the other US AX68s. As luck would have it, I ended up with one that can do DFS, and one that can do the upper channels, so I'm covered even if I need to revise my channel plan.

 

[Smokindog]

No, I don't really need to. It's not necessarily an issue for ME, because both of my AX68s are operating on the channel I want them on. I just wanted to understand why, and now I know that one of them, for whatever reason, is either a euro product, or had somehow been flashed to be one, and the US one is like all the other US AX68s. As luck would have it, I ended up with one that can do DFS, and one that can do the upper channels, so I'm covered even if I need to revise my channel plan.

I'm sorry, your response confuses me. Based on what you said I don't understand why you even posted. Good luck!

 

[dscline]

I'm sorry, your response confuses me. Based on what you said I don't understand why you even posted. Good luck!

Because it was odd for me to have two seemingly identical routers with different channel options. I assumed I had a setting wrong somewhere I was overlooking, and was trying to understand what the cause was. I understand now that one of them, for an unknown reason, appears to be an EU unit, and the other is behaving just like other US AX68S. My goal of understanding was achieved.