Weird problems with rt-ac68r (with Merlin or stock FW)

[santonov]

Hello everyone,

I hope anyone could help me to understand very weird problem I am experiencing with ASUS routers in last several weeks. I am sorry for a long post, but this issue drives me crazy for almost a month and I don't know what info could be important.

Currently I have rt-ac68r with Merlin build 374.42.2, before it was the latest ASUS build, behavior didn't change with Merlin.

1. After factory reset (or reloading FW) and manual setup from scratch my router keeps working fine for some period of time (from 4 hours to 1.5 days) then starts dropping all wifi connections and clients cannot connect to it anymore. MacBook lasts the longest (it connects to 801.11ac), other clients are on 801.11n and all fail to connect on both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz. I have PCs with Windows, Roku, smartphones, etc. Signal strength is excellent and some clients are in the same room as router.
2. Rebooting router doesn't help. Changing mode from Router to AP has same effect as factory reset -- it works for a while after that, then fails. In AP mode behind wired only router ASUS showed the same pattern.
3. Sometimes client shows that it is connected, but it cannot get any data from Internet. In these cases ping to router from wireless client could be up to 1500+ msec, and tracert shows very long times for the very first hop.
4. I have one PC connected to the router by wire and it works fine, no issues with Internet access or router access. No weird ping timing. Speed is around 55 Mbs.
5. Router is connected to modem SB6121, provider is Comcast and I have 50Mbs plan (when it works). All this actually started when Comcast switched me to this 50Mbs plan and I updated modem. My old router wasn't fast enough, I got my first ASUS and this saga started...

I tried two RT-N66U before getting rt-ac68, all they showed the same pattern, so it is not a specific unit problem. I saw that some people complained about similar problems on other forums. Does anyone here experienced something like this? Was it solved somehow? I don't see any red flags in the system log, m.b. it is not detailed enough.

Thanks for your help in advance.

--Sergei

 

[kenrok1]

when you are performing your manual setup what kind of changes are you making?

also when you say it drops wifi but the signal is strong - are you getting a bogus IP address by chance? i.e. on the device that cant connect, like an IP address that is not in your specific DHCP range on the router?

 

[SeCrEt_BoY]

I have the same problems too...
>>> 3. Sometimes client shows that it is connected, but it cannot get any data from Internet. In these cases ping to router from wireless client could be up to 1500+ msec, and tracert shows very long times for the very first hop.

 

[santonov]

@kenrok1: I do minimal setup, nothing special: admin password, wireless security where two SSID are different, disable everything that is not used, and I am not using anything with this "top-of-the-line" sucker.
When device (PC) cannot connect it shows that adapter is disconnected. No self-assigned IP.

I don't expect any tech support from this forum, but could anyone (RMerlin) guess, why WIFI part of this thing works after factory reset or mode change? Why it stops working?

Thanks,
Sergei

 

[Igb]

May some weird but... In your place i would try a third party firmware like DD-WRT. You will lose hardware acceleration, but is not a great concern for most users.

 

[santonov]

Well, I found better solution -- I got wtr1900ac last afternoon and sent Asus back to manufacturer for a replacement. After that it will go to ebay, I can't get money back because it was refurbished at the beginning.
DD-WRT seems to be even less stable on this device than stock FW or merlin build, and my idea of good router doesn't include fiddling with DD-WRT settings.
Linksys has less bells and whistles in FW, but works fine so far. At any rate it seems more reasonable to start with device that deliver less features, but doesn't fail rather than deal with flaky thing that cannot keep wifi connection.

Good luck,
Sergei