Wifi connection issues since switching to AX88U

[Amofiav]

***Sorry for the book***

In the last few days i switched from a AC3200 to a AX88u. Both were running the current rev for the router. Since then I've been having issues with wifi staying connected. Luckily all of my stuff is wired. HOWEVER, wife and kids not so much. They have noticed any time they pick up their tablet they have to reconnect to wifi which was not an issue on the last router. My wife's desktop is wifi and we have both noticed that internet connection drops. Wifi says it's connected but not able to pull up the router log in. If i disconnect and reconnect right away there is no change. If i wait a bit it does reconnect and start working.

**Troubleshooting**
Tried with and without smart connect.
Started happening prior to any scripts. Have since added skynet and diversion
No VPN on any of my wireless
Disabled roaming assistant on both bands
Completed M&M config (not sure if wifi was having issues prior)
router is in the same location and nothing new added in the home to cause interference

Any help is appreciated.

 

[adampk17]

Try turning off Wi-Fi 6 (ax) mode. I have the same router and this change has seemingly helped with quite a few clients having a hard time on my AX88.

 

[F1reEng1neRed]

Try turning off Wi-Fi 6 (ax) mode. I have the same router and this change has seemingly helped with quite a few clients having a hard time on my AX88.

What's the point of having a wifi 6 router if you can't even use it as such?

 

[adampk17]

[mention]Amofiav [/mention] Did you have a chance to try my suggestion?

 

[Tekneek]

What's the point of having a wifi 6 router if you can't even use it as such?

Indeed, but another question is: What's the point in having a wifi router if nothing can stay connected to it?

I recently got an RT-AX3000 (decided not to get the AX88U and spent the cost difference getting two good MOCA adapters to put the RT-AC3200 in AP mode on the other side of the house). I had to put it into compatibility mode as well (which is not a huge deal without any current Wifi 6 devices), but hoping that hanging onto the old router as an AP will help mitigate that until I add another AiMesh capable router.

 

[indark]

you can try either disable Wi-fi 6 or turn off 160 MHz

the point is there might be compatibility issues from your device that causing the issue.

while there is backward compatibility, not all device created equal, and some might not have the ability to connect.

 

[RMerlin]

[mention]Amofiav [/mention] Did you have a chance to try my suggestion?

Mention tags don't work with Xenforo BTW - use an @ prefix instead.

 

[Toink]

• Have you manually assigned IP addresses for your clients?
• Have you tried to delete/'forget' the SSID from your clients (and reconnect again)?

 

[adampk17]

Mention tags don't work with Xenforo BTW - use an @ prefix instead.

That’s how I started the mention, with an ‘@‘.

 

[Tekneek]

Along with disabling 802.11ax / Wi-Fi 6 mode and 160 MHz bandwidth, I wonder if this might also have something to do with Target Wake Time. That is another setting to turn off / experiment with.

 

[Kingp1n]

My firestick was having issues connecting to my new RT-AX88U...manually setting the channel on the 2.4ghz radio to "36" fixed my issues. I have certain devices that I like to connect to 2.4 and some specifically to 5ghz. You're setup my be different of course. I also turned off mu-mimo and universal beamforming under 2.4 and 5ghz. I personally never found any benefits using these options. Dumb question, but did you setup your new router from scratch? Basically you didnt restore it using an older save settings, correct? Reason I ask because when i 1st got mine, i went the lazy route and restore mine from my RTAC86U saved setting. I know this is a bad idea but I've read of folks doing this without any issues. Some of my devices would not connect to the 2.4ghz. Lesson learned....

 

[Elmer]

Try setting group key rotation to a higher value (I use 7200) along with Kingp1n's advice. I still have 'ax' enabled and connections are doing fine.

 

[F1reEng1neRed]

My firestick was having issues connecting to my new RT-AX88U...manually setting the channel on the 2.4ghz radio to "36" fixed my issues. I have certain devices that I like to connect to 2.4 and some specifically to 5ghz. You're setup my be different of course. I also turned off mu-mimo and universal beamforming under 2.4 and 5ghz. I personally never found any benefits using these options. Dumb question, but did you setup your new router from scratch? Basically you didnt restore it using an older save settings, correct? Reason I ask because when i 1st got mine, i went the lazy route and restore mine from my RTAC86U saved setting. I know this is a bad idea but I've read of folks doing this without any issues. Some of my devices would not connect to the 2.4ghz. Lesson learned....

Agreed. I have manually assigned channels for both 2.4 and 5 ghz bands. Limited 2.4 to 20mhz and did not enable 160 on the 5 ghz. Also disabled airtime fairness (I'm on stock asus). Working great so far.

 

[RMerlin]

That’s how I started the mention, with an ‘@‘.

Could be an issue with the client you used to access the forums them, converting these into mention tags.

 

[LittleHulk]

I don't know if this will help but I want to mention it. I had my RT-AX88U 2.4 band set to WPA2/WPA3-Personal and my grand daughter's older iPod would not connect at all (I don't recall the model). I wasn't sure what to do but when I changed this setting to WPA2-Personal it was able to connect. That must just be the tech of that iPod. I know your issue is staying connected but I felt the need to share this experience. I hope you can get it figured out.

 

[Vexira]

What's the point of having a wifi 6 router if you can't even use it as such?

There is still certifications in the works so it's for early adopters, it's nothing a firmware update form Asus can't fix.

 

[Amofiav]

Thanks for all the ideas. I am going to do the ideas 1 at a time and hopefully we can figure out exactly which setting is the issue.

I have disabled the 160 band.

I am going to leave wifi 6 enabled for the time being since most of my devices that are wifi 5.

My firestick was having issues connecting to my new RT-AX88U...manually setting the channel on the 2.4ghz radio to "36" fixed my issues. I have certain devices that I like to connect to 2.4 and some specifically to 5ghz. You're setup my be different of course. I also turned off mu-mimo and universal beamforming under 2.4 and 5ghz. I personally never found any benefits using these options. Dumb question, but did you setup your new router from scratch? Basically you didnt restore it using an older save settings, correct? Reason I ask because when i 1st got mine, i went the lazy route and restore mine from my RTAC86U saved setting. I know this is a bad idea but I've read of folks doing this without any issues. Some of my devices would not connect to the 2.4ghz. Lesson learned....

Kingpin - Yes I set up my router from scratch. I also already had beamforming off for both 2.4 and 5ghz.

Will update

 

[Amofiav]

Having Band 160 disabled didn't resolve it. Leaving it off.

Try setting group key rotation to a higher value (I use 7200) along with Kingp1n's advice. I still have 'ax' enabled and connections are doing fine.

Ok Elmer. Changed my group key rotation to 7200.

Along with disabling 802.11ax / Wi-Fi 6 mode and 160 MHz bandwidth, I wonder if this might also have something to do with Target Wake Time. That is another setting to turn off / experiment with.

Where is the Target Wake Time setting? I'm not seeing it.

**side note** I don't think this at all related...... but..... my daughters Lenovo Tab will not connect to anything other than WPA2. No reason to troubleshoot here just tossing it out there in case it is relevant.

 

[Tekneek]

Where is the Target Wake Time setting? I'm not seeing it.

On the Wireless (Wireless - General) page. At least I have that on the RT-AX3000 (RT-AX58U). I assumed the 88U had the same settings.

 

[Amofiav]

I'm not seeing the setting