Wifi Speeds Not Consistent

[timro]

I just bought an N66R the other day and I have been struggling to get it running well. Tried the stock firmware that came with the router, then upgraded to the newest Asus firmware and now I have upgraded to Merlin's latest firmware which I like the best and fixed the wifi problem briefly but speeds have greatly slowed once again.

I am running this router in AP mode behind my 2wire, I bought the Asus to run 5ghz wifi because I have a baby monitor that interferes with the 2.4ghz signal in the apartment. I have set the n66r set to dmz plus mode in my 2wire and it works well for a bit but then wifi speeds drop to under 1Mb down. I have a 22Mb connection and last night I was able to get that speed when testing on my phone but I have yet to see anything that fast on my laptop.

Any suggestions to try to get the wifi to work consistently with all my devices? Could this just be a bad refurb unit? I have always had good luck in the past with manufacturer refurbs but I am not sure why the router works well for a few hours and then slows down, makes me think I missed some setting and there is a conflict in the network somewhere.

 

[jim769]

Do you have the 2wire in bridge mode? If not that could be part of the problem cascading two routers is never a good idea and will cause a unstable network.

 

[timro]

I do not have it in bridge mode and I am struggling to figure that out. I see there are options to add a cascaded router but I am getting an error when I put the n66r in that field.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Did you check with your ISP? If you can't have bridge mode there is other way using DMZ.

 

[timro]

Just found a uverse forum post on how to manually configure firewall settings to route like a bridge and I am getting full speeds on laptop and phone. You guys are the best! Hope it sticks or I will be back begging for more help. Thanks for the very fast responses and thanks to merlin for making better firmware than asus provides!

 

[jim769]

Good Luck !!

 

[timro]

So that didn't fix things for very long. Still having speed issues with the wifi.

Anyone have any idea why my 2wire won't let me add the n66r as a cascaded router? Do I have to take it off of DMZ plus mode?

 

[r00t4rd3d]

For the N66U/R you should be using Merlins 39_0 EM firmware. Its the version Merlin currently recommends for our model. Ive used it for about a month now, 11 devices plus streaming, torrents, etc, etc with no issues.

 

[timro]

That is the version I am running.

 

[r00t4rd3d]

Did you do a factory reset after you last flashed or at all?

Also just to be sure, you got the 39_0 EM from the Experimental folder on Merlins site?

 

[timro]

I did not because after I flashed everything was working the way I wanted for little while.

 

[r00t4rd3d]

If you ever have weird problems the first thing to do is a factory reset and manually redo all your settings, fun fun!

 

[timro]

No I did not, thanks for making sure. Didn't know it was an experimental build.

 

[r00t4rd3d]

Put the router into Recovery Mode(power off, hold in reset, power on) then goto into the WEBUI and from there you can clear the nvram, upload firmware and reboot. Learning how use Recovery Mode is always a good thing before something bad happens.

 

[timro]

Still having speed issues :/

Really not sure what the issue is but I know it's some conflict, losing my mind over this.

 

[r00t4rd3d]

Are the speed issues only with the laptop? Other devices and PC's work okay? What is this 2Wire device you mentioned, is it for TV? Have you tried the router without hooking that up and seeing what happens?

*edit

I think Ive found the thread you need to read if this is the same type of 2Wire thing you got:

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=9186

I am 100% certain that its the 2Wire causing your problems, is the WiFi disabled on it?

 

[timro]

Yes wifi is turned off on the 2wire. I just tried switching back to router mode and disabling dhcp and still no go. I tried those things in that thread and some of them resulted in normal speeds for an hour or 2 but it always goes back to less than 5Mb.

 

[r00t4rd3d]

You should post in that thread your issue, those AC guys might not be reading this section.

 

[KGB7]

How is the speed when you hardwire your laptop in to your Asus router? If the speeds are good, then the issue is with your wifi nic in your laptop.