ASUS RT-AC87 Firmware - Official Releases

[NightOwl326]

I also think "7449 beta" is the best firmware to install on the AC87U.
- DLNA server doesn´t disappear occasionally (like in former firmwares)
- nice GUI features (wireless speed rate, host name of connected devices, detailed time settings for wireless on/off...)
- 2.4 Ghz and at least for me 5 Ghz stable

On the other hands there are still some annoying bugs i don´t understand why they won´t get fixed
- restart router via WEB GUI mostly ends up in severe problems. With "7449 beta" 5 Ghz Wlan doesn´t start up afterwards, i had to reflash firmware (even a power off cycle didn´t help)
- WPS doesn´t stay disabled after a restart
- most of the professional wlan settings (e.g. beanforming) for 2.4 Ghz (Quantenna cannot be blamed at this point) band are recommended not to enable (by asus itself) because of known problems
- many GUI features are still buggy (e.g. bandwith monitor)

Last but not least the asus is advertised as a MU-MIMO (wave 2) router for more than a year now. Time for asus to deliver.

.7449 & Merlin .55 both have conmectivy issues on 2.4 Ghz on the rt-87u. Most likely prior firmware that .55 is based on since 54.2 resolves these issues. It's a given...

 

[fax]

Very good experience with AC87U, constant and solid connections, no issue with 5Ghz with beamforming off. Apart from few non critical bugs (for my use), I can't see how this device can be defined as crap. Been using other brands in the recent past (D-Link, Belkin, Netgear, etc.) and the experience with ASUS is by far the best.

 

[Veldkornet]

Very good experience with AC87U, constant and solid connections, no issue with 5Ghz with beamforming off. Apart from few non critical bugs (for my use), I can't see how this device can be defined as crap. Been using other brands in the recent past (D-Link, Belkin, Netgear, etc.) and the experience with ASUS is by far the best.

My 5Ghz does work, mostly... The main place where I notice it first is when using the FaceBook app on my iPhone or iPad. If you scroll down the news feed, it shows all the posts but none of the images. And if there is a post with comments, and you click on the comments to open it, it takes like a minute to open.
So in that situation, I need to disable the wifi on my device, re-enable, then it loads all the data again instantly (probably because it first connects to 2.4). But eventually, it slows down again to a crawl, and then I need to repeat the process...

 

[LoneWolf]

With no disrespect intended...

Not all, but a very large portion of the time I hear about complaints with 5GHz wireless, I hear "My iPad/iPhone/Mac does this..."

It's really rare that I see anybody mention (I'm not sure if it's lack of knowledge, or what) the issues Apple has had with wireless over the recent iterations of iOS/MacOS.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/04/09/apple-ios-8-3-wifried/

https://medium.com/@mariociabarra/wifried-ios-8-wifi-performance-issues-3029a164ce94

I'm not saying there isn't a Quantenna issue, or an improvement that could be made --however, I think that adequate testing at this point over 5GHz requires not using Apple hardware to do the testing. This at least eliminates one possible point of failure that people attribute to the RT-AC87 that might be the fault of other hardware.

For people using Intel 7260AC wireless cards (very common), I'd likely recommend they're on the newest drivers, too. Intel had driver issues with the cards that took awhile to fix. I know Cisco had to update the firmware of some of their access points because it would cause systems with 7260AC cards and Windows 8 to BSOD and reboot, and believe some of it was related to the Intel driver as well.

 

[Adam Kingsley]

With no disrespect intended...

There's more to it than just blaming Apple, I've been doing some extensive testing with a Netgear R7000 and an RT-AC87U. I set them both up in the exact same spot, with the exact same wireless setting, both on their respective stock firmware. I first test the R7000, the swap that out with the AC87U. I test each one for at least a whole day without turning off or moving.

Currently my R7000 is much more stable on the 5Ghz network with no slow-downs or disconnections on all my devices, my AC87U struggles so badly I almost feel bad for it. Constant disconnects, extreme slow downs, and I currently just threw it in the closet until we can get a firmware that has stable wifi. I bought this with the idea that I'd sell my R7000, but I'm glad I held onto it.

I test this with my iPhone 6 Plus, One Plus One, iPad Air, Macbook Pro, and my Lenovo W530. Across the board I have issues on the 5ghz network.

The worst is when I'm connected to my work VPN on my Lenovo and I get constant reconnects to my VPN network, on my R7000 I get none at all and have a stable connection all day. When it starts to affect my work is where I draw the line.

So there's more to it than client devices, it's something really wrong with AC87U. I'm hoping ASUS/Quantenna comes up with something soon, I really want to like this router.

 

[Allograft]

Yes, Apple has had some issues, but with OS X10.10.4 and iOS 8.4, they're a lot better. I have four routers with which I regularly connect...and a whole bunch of others to which I periodically connect. Apple issues requiring an Apple product restart are like once a month or less at this point.

However with the 87u, there is a reason we won't be seeing any new betas, nor subsequent releases until September or October...because yet another SDK from Quantenna is en route. Not much Asus can do if the subcontractor's code is yet to be perfected. I still hold out hope, but would jump ship to an updated Apple router if one became available.

 

[mucci]

anyone knows about new firmware release?

Thanks

 

[Veldkornet]

Should be a new one within the next few days apparently, with a new 5Ghz SDK.

 

[sentinelvdx]

anyone knows about new firmware release?

Thanks

Like it was said, I got confirmation from ASUS they are working on it, but this time next one will come with new Quantenna SDK.
Also QoS and other issues are been checked to resolve major issues.
This time I'll test it and share it once I'm sure it works, because _7944 beta had a lot of issues.
They want to release a gold firm and not just a Beta.

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[cc666]

There's more to it than just blaming Apple, I've been doing some extensive testing with a Netgear R7000 and an RT-AC87U. I set them both up in the exact same spot, with the exact same wireless setting, both on their respective stock firmware. I first test the R7000, the swap that out with the AC87U. I test each one for at least a whole day without turning off or moving.

Currently my R7000 is much more stable on the 5Ghz network with no slow-downs or disconnections on all my devices, my AC87U struggles so badly I almost feel bad for it. Constant disconnects, extreme slow downs, and I currently just threw it in the closet until we can get a firmware that has stable wifi. I bought this with the idea that I'd sell my R7000, but I'm glad I held onto it.

I test this with my iPhone 6 Plus, One Plus One, iPad Air, Macbook Pro, and my Lenovo W530. Across the board I have issues on the 5ghz network.

The worst is when I'm connected to my work VPN on my Lenovo and I get constant reconnects to my VPN network, on my R7000 I get none at all and have a stable connection all day. When it starts to affect my work is where I draw the line.

So there's more to it than client devices, it's something really wrong with AC87U. I'm hoping ASUS/Quantenna comes up with something soon, I really want to like this router.

Agree 100%, in fact I just repurchased a new R7000 because of the problems. Lets not forget the Android battery
drain. Its terrible. Switched to the R7000 battery drain gone. Hate to say this but the R7000 is a much better router period.
The only decent time the R87 was running usable was with the DDWRT firmware.

CC

 

[PaperFriend]

Agree 100%, in fact I just repurchased a new R7000 because of the problems. Lets not forget the Android battery
drain. Its terrible. Switched to the R7000 battery drain gone. Hate to say this but the R7000 is a much better router period.
The only decent time the R87 was running usable was with the DDWRT firmware.

CC

R7000's lack of true parental controls made it a non-option for me. I need the ability to have time schedules for particular devices.

 

[cc666]

R7000's lack of true parental controls made it a non-option for me. I need the ability to have time schedules for particular devices.

What are you talking about the R7000 DOES have parental controls.

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/25687/~/how-to-configure-live-parental-control-on-my-netgear-router?

(Note: You can also set a schedule on when the LPC should filter the content and filtering level. Just click on Add a time block. Select the time and type of filtering level. Then click on Add Time Block.)

All the features also work on the R7000 unlike the R87. Beamforming on 5 Ghz band for starters.

CC

 

[PaperFriend]

What are you talking about the R7000 DOES have parental controls.

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/25687/~/how-to-configure-live-parental-control-on-my-netgear-router?

(Note: You can also set a schedule on when the LPC should filter the content and filtering level. Just click on Add a time block. Select the time and type of filtering level. Then click on Add Time Block.)

All the features also work on the R7000 unlike the R87. Beamforming on 5 Ghz band for starters.

CC

I had this router and the parental controls gave me no way of picking one or two mac addresses and put custom time blocks on each device. It wanted to apply all of my devices to a time block. My daughters are at different ages and their allowed times are different. It was definetly not easy to set up and I did not want all of my devices effected by parental controls.

 

[Embattle]

Different horse for different courses, personally I won't touch another netgear again after having 2 which were total disasters. The first suffered a massive collapse of speed on the lan ports after a minute of transfer which was a common issue with this model at the time and unfixable, the second was the R6300 which for me had massive timeout like issues on assorted phones in our house which after many days dealing with netgear and trying various fixes got no where so I returned it and replaced it with a rt-ac66u which eventually got replaced with a 87u.

Basic issues to me are to be expected once you realise how many variables are involved with wireless networking and just how complicated it can get.

 

[sentinelvdx]

Different horse for different courses, personally I won't touch another netgear again after having 2 which were total disasters. The first suffered a massive collapse of speed on the lan ports after a minute of transfer which was a common issue with this model at the time and unfixable, the second was the R6300 which for me had massive timeout like issues on assorted phones in our house which after many days dealing with netgear and trying various fixes got no where so I returned it and replaced it with a rt-ac66u which eventually got replaced with a 87u.

Basic issues to me are to be expected once you realise how many variables are involved with wireless networking and just how complicated it can get.

I agree. I had so much trouble with 2 I had before that I wont choose them again. I put them in the same category Linksys are... ( you know what I mean... [emoji6] )

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[Zeus73]

Like it was said, I got confirmation from ASUS they are working on it, but this time next one will come with new Quantenna SDK.
Also QoS and other issues are been checked to resolve major issues.
This time I'll test it and share it once I'm sure it works, because _7944 beta had a lot of issues.
They want to release a gold firm and not just a Beta.

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From HardwareZone...

Dear all,
I will be releasing a new build tomorrow.
Best regard,
JK

 

[Speedluvver]

I had this router and the parental controls gave me no way of picking one or two mac addresses and put custom time blocks on each device. It wanted to apply all of my devices to a time block. My daughters are at different ages and their allowed times are different. It was definetly not easy to set up and I did not want all of my devices effected by parental controls.

Exactly - major omission by Netgear..


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[Veldkornet]

From HardwareZone...

Dear all,
I will be releasing a new build tomorrow.
Best regard,
JK

No more...

Dear all,

We will post newer build another day as we found some GUI bug.

Best regard,
JK

Some other time guys

 

[sentinelvdx]

I told you... let's be patient.

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[mucci]

I told you... let's be patient.

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Well. i have patient, but trouble is still present.