Wifi issues with RT-AC86U

[geolykos]

Hi, new here. I have an Asus RT-AC86U for over a year now and I've had all sorts of issues related to its wifi.

Firstly, I believe it's a great router with great speeds and wifi range.

Aside from that, I've had several issues with the wifi:

1) It drops most clients when over 20 devices are connected over wifi. The only way to fix it is to hard reset the router (not via GUI). The number is a ballpark figure but it seems to happen a lot when we have guests or family over and more devices connect. Normal amount of wifi devices is around 15.
I added a switch where I connect all the wired devices to get some routing pressure of the router. This seemed to help a bit but issue still happens occasionally. Any ideas if 20+ devices over wifi would normally cause an issue? Using dual band smart connect feature.
2) Recently it started dropping all devices from the Guest 2.4ghz network. The only to fix this one is to disable and re-enable the Guest network. I have all my cameras and peripherals on the Guest 2.4ghz network for security reasons. Using 2.4ghz as some of them don't support 5ghz.
I only have 5 devices on the Guest network and I'm up to date with the Asus firmware version (3.0.0.4.386_40451). Router currently has 21 clients connects 7 of which are wired. I'm not sure what the issue could be. Is this a router resource thing or a problematic router?
3) I also had a major issue recently (only happened once) where it lost of all configuration settings (except for wifi networks) and I had to configure all port forwarding etc. Restoring the config backup I had broke the firmware and I had to factory reset. Raised it with Asus support and they told me to factory reset...

Would upgrading to AX86U help resolve any of the above issues? Is this just a problematic router or are these issues common with Asus routers?

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hi, new here. I have an Asus RT-AC86U for over a year now and I've had all sorts of issues related to its wifi.

Firstly, I believe it's a great router with great speeds and wifi range.

Aside from that, I've had several issues with the wifi:

1) It drops most clients when over 20 devices are connected over wifi. The only way to fix it is to hard reset the router (not via GUI). The number is a ballpark figure but it seems to happen a lot when we have guests or family over and more devices connect. Normal amount of wifi devices is around 15.
I added a switch where I connect all the wired devices to get some routing pressure of the router. This seemed to help a bit but issue still happens occasionally. Any ideas if 20+ devices over wifi would normally cause an issue? Using dual band smart connect feature.
2) Recently it started dropping all devices from the Guest 2.4ghz network. The only to fix this one is to disable and re-enable the Guest network. I have all my cameras and peripherals on the Guest 2.4ghz network for security reasons. Using 2.4ghz as some of them don't support 5ghz.
I only have 5 devices on the Guest network and I'm up to date with the Asus firmware version (3.0.0.4.386_40451). Router currently has 21 clients connects 7 of which are wired. I'm not sure what the issue could be. Is this a router resource thing or a problematic router?
3) I also had a major issue recently (only happened once) where it lost of all configuration settings (except for wifi networks) and I had to configure all port forwarding etc. Restoring the config backup I had broke the firmware and I had to factory reset. Raised it with Asus support and they told me to factory reset...

Would upgrading to AX86U help resolve any of the above issues? Is this just a problematic router or are these issues common with Asus routers?

Could be sick hardware, especially if weird stuff happens.

When you reset the firmware, you should configure it from scratch, not restore a backup, to be sure you have a clean install.

OE

 

[Jason66]

Mine isn't perfect but I regularly have over 20 devices connected and I have see your symptoms, yet.

 

[L&LD]

What is a 'hard reset' to you?

If you mean the 'reset button' method, that is known (acknowledged by Asus too) to not work and is different from both the WPS button reset method and the GUI reset method too.

See if either of these suggestions help. If the second one doesn't, it may be hardware that is failing slowly on you. If you're able to test with a new (or known/good) power supply, that would rule out the power supply too.

Would appreciate Wireless Professional Setting recommendations of AIMesh with AX88U as the root router

Hi, I am a new user. Great community here, very useful, so much knowledge, at times overwhelming but all around a great place! I have been an ASUS router user for as long as I remember, but only recently I went down the Merlin route. My current set-up is as follows: Root/Main Router: A new...

www.snbforums.com

ax88 packet loss

Hi, I recently upgraded to the ax88 router and have been having connectivity issues (laggy, jittery connections). i checked, and see anywhere from 20% to 50% packet loss, when measured with ping 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 from multiple clients. this happens if client is connected to router via wifi...

www.snbforums.com

 

[bbunge]

Ozark Edge has some pretty good settings suggestions. See the link in his signature. Most important is to use fixed WIFI channels and bandwidth. I set my 2.4 GHZ to channel 1, 6, or 11 at 20 MHZ and the 5 GHZ to channel 36 at 80 MHZ. I do use Dual Band Smart Connect and disable the settings in WIFI professional he recommends.

 

[geolykos]

What is a 'hard reset' to you?

If you mean the 'reset button' method, that is known (acknowledged by Asus too) to not work and is different from both the WPS button reset method and the GUI reset method too.

See if either of these suggestions help. If the second one doesn't, it may be hardware that is failing slowly on you. If you're able to test with a new (or known/good) power supply, that would rule out the power supply too.

Would appreciate Wireless Professional Setting recommendations of AIMesh with AX88U as the root router

Hi, I am a new user. Great community here, very useful, so much knowledge, at times overwhelming but all around a great place! I have been an ASUS router user for as long as I remember, but only recently I went down the Merlin route. My current set-up is as follows: Root/Main Router: A new...

www.snbforums.com

ax88 packet loss

Hi, I recently upgraded to the ax88 router and have been having connectivity issues (laggy, jittery connections). i checked, and see anywhere from 20% to 50% packet loss, when measured with ping 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 from multiple clients. this happens if client is connected to router via wifi...

www.snbforums.com

By hard reset I mean using the router's power button and/or removing the power cable rather than rebooting it via the GUI which doesn't seem to reset the Wifi adapter (wifi issues aren't fixed when rebooting via GUI).

Ozark Edge has some pretty good settings suggestions. See the link in his signature. Most important is to use fixed WIFI channels and bandwidth. I set my 2.4 GHZ to channel 1, 6, or 11 at 20 MHZ and the 5 GHZ to channel 36 at 80 MHZ. I do use Dual Band Smart Connect and disable the settings in WIFI professional he recommends.

Thanks bbunge and OzarkEdge. I changed the Wifi channels to the ones you recommended and also changed a few settings in Wireless->Professional per OzarkEdge's recommendations.
The rest of the settings seem to be more or less the same except for a couple static IPs I had within the DHCP pool range.
Let's see if these make any difference.

 

[OzarkEdge]

By hard reset I mean using the router's power button and/or removing the power cable rather than rebooting it via the GUI which doesn't seem to reset the Wifi adapter (wifi issues aren't fixed when rebooting via GUI).

Cycling power reboots/restarts. It does not reset the firmware to its factory default settings:

Reset Button/webUI Restore

WPS Button Hard Reset

OE

 

[geolykos]

Cycling power reboots/restarts. It does not reset the firmware to its factory default settings:

Reset Button/webUI Restore

WPS Button Hard Reset

OE

Didn't know about the WPS hard reset to factory. Good to know.

Using the power button or removing power cable fixes both my wifi issues (might have been better to say "hard reboot"). I only used factory reset once (by pressing the Reset button in the back for 10secs) when uploading the router config broke my access to the WebGUI.

 

[L&LD]

So, the router has never been reset to factory defaults properly then.

I would suggest the following steps be followed.

Fully Reset Router and Network


Then set up with these suggestions.

New M&M 2020


And FYI, resets using the 'reset button method' and a reset using the 'WPS button method' or via the 'GUI menu' are not identical. Even Asus admits as much.

When you're trying to get rid of gremlins in your router; do them all as suggested in the links above and you'll have a router that should now hopefully be in a good/known state.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Didn't know about the WPS hard reset to factory. Good to know.

Using the power button or removing power cable fixes both my wifi issues (might have been better to say "hard reboot"). I only used factory reset once (by pressing the Reset button in the back for 10secs) when uploading the router config broke my access to the WebGUI.

I reset the firmware to factory defaults via webUI Restore w/Initialize after every firmware upgrade, and then configure the firmware from scratch. One less thing to debug during this multi-year Asus AiMesh rolling development.

OE

 

[bbunge]

So, the router has never been reset to factory defaults properly then.

I would suggest the following steps be followed.

Fully Reset Router and Network


Then set up with these suggestions.

New M&M 2020


And FYI, resets using the 'reset button method' and a reset using the 'WPS button method' or via the 'GUI menu' are not identical. Even Asus admits as much.

When you're trying to get rid of gremlins in your router; do them all as suggested in the links above and you'll have a router that should now hopefully be in a good/known state.

Don't use the L&LD reset procedure for an AC86U. Use the Asus method 2 cited by Ozark Edge.

[Wireless Router] When Standard Reset Isn’t Working: Hard Factory Reset - Models list | Official Support | ASUS USA

 

[E3000]

Could be sick hardware, especially if weird stuff happens.

When you reset the firmware, you should configure it from scratch, not restore a backup, to be sure you have a clean install.

OE

I have heard this a lot. Does that mean backups are pointless?

 

[OzarkEdge]

I have heard this a lot. Does that mean backups are pointless?

I backup is good for recovery... getting you back to where you were.

OE