[Beta] RT-AC87U_3.0.0.4_378_8248 Unofficial Beta

Veldkornet said:

So... from what I've been reading, there's been a few GUI changes, but overall nothing has changed from the wireless stability side of things? Still the same old problems. Is that everyone's experience so far as well?

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No issues with 5Ghz band, tested with apple divices (iphone, ipad), Windows Mobile, Android and MS Win10. This is with beamforming at default (OFF).

fax said:

No issues with 5Ghz band, tested with apple divices (iphone, ipad), Windows Mobile, Android and MS Win10. This is with beamforming at default (OFF).

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...same here... no disconnections since the day 1. Beamforming both off. Tested with 2 MS Win10, 1 MS Win 8.1, iPad 3, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, Galaxy tab p6800, Galaxy S5, Samsung Smart TV, eGreat TV Box etc. Hope to stay like this...

Sounds very good @above. I assume you performed a clean wipe and either entered the config manually again or used john's nvram restore tool? I'm just wondering since our friends with problems haven't stated whether this had been done in their cases (or I just missed something).

Since this Android mobile battery drain thing seems to be a big thing for some people: Is it really that bad? If you are forced to stay on a beta firmware I have the following tip: Go to the wifi settings on your device, then open the "Advanced" menu and then set "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" to "off". That should solve your problems related to draining your batteries when you're actually not using your device. I would assume that this battery drain (which I didn't get to observe myself as I'm currently not installing any beta firmwares) is a side effect of the increased wifi reliability for mobile devices that some people are reporting - I guess the Quantenna wifi now keeps the mobile's wifi from sleeping - therefore using up more battery but due to this it's also keeping the device from disconnecting. But that's just an assumption.

Looking forward to the next beta and/or final release!

I used "WPS long press" method in order to wipe the NVRAM and introduced manually all settings...

PS Active cooling on...

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Haggster said:

Sounds very good @above. I assume you performed a clean wipe and either entered the config manually again or used john's nvram restore tool? I'm just wondering since our friends with problems haven't stated whether this had been done in their cases (or I just missed something).

Since this Android mobile battery drain thing seems to be a big thing for some people: Is it really that bad? If you are forced to stay on a beta firmware I have the following tip: Go to the wifi settings on your device, then open the "Advanced" menu and then set "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" to "off". That should solve your problems related to draining your batteries when you're actually not using your device. I would assume that this battery drain (which I didn't get to observe myself as I'm currently not installing any beta firmwares) is a side effect of the increased wifi reliability for mobile devices that some people are reporting - I guess the Quantenna wifi now keeps the mobile's wifi from sleeping - therefore using up more battery but due to this it's also keeping the device from disconnecting. But that's just an assumption.

Looking forward to the next beta and/or final release!

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I also did a hardware reset before and after flashing the beta firmware. Then reset everything up manually. I've done that so many times that I've documented all the information I need and it takes about 15-20 minutes to start from fresh to completely set-up.

Haggster said:

Sounds very good @above. I assume you performed a clean wipe and either entered the config manually again or used john's nvram restore tool? I'm just wondering since our friends with problems haven't stated whether this had been done in their cases (or I just missed something).

Click to expand...

I also always do the WPS reset and then enter settings manually and would still get wifi issues over time (eventually not being able to connect to 5GHz, and sometimes 2.4GHz slowing down to a crawl if working).

It's good to hear that this firmware has fixed this issue for others, however for now I've installed RMerlin's latest firmware to verify that I've not got a hardware issue and will run it for over a week to confirm. If it's fine, I'll then install this firmware (or whatever is the latest at that point) to double check.

Rajveer said:

I also always do the WPS reset and then enter settings manually and would still get wifi issues over time (eventually not being able to connect to 5GHz, and sometimes 2.4GHz slowing down to a crawl if working).

It's good to hear that this firmware has fixed this issue for others, however for now I've installed RMerlin's latest firmware to verify that I've not got a hardware issue and will run it for over a week to confirm. If it's fine, I'll then install this firmware (or whatever is the latest at that point) to double check.

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That's good to know. Have you checked if the slow speeds that you're getting after a while are also affecting Ethernet connections? Have you monitored the CPU (and memory) usage of the router? These things sound like a memory leak or some kind of process loop which is appearing after a while and then causing these problems more than anything else.

I'm also a Merlin-user which is why I am curious about this beta even though I cannot install it since I'd have to wait for a Merlin beta first. But the current stable one is working OK (have moved some devices to 2.4GHz now and only use the 5GHz for laptops which are stable and support DFS frequencies).

BTW: Have you carried out a site survey? It'd be interesting to know whether those issues might be due to interference that wasn't there before. E.g. I've had new neighbors moving in and suddenly I saw that the first four non-DFS 5GHz channels are polluted, which used to be free of any APs for over a year. Don't know about your situation or location but it's always important to check these factors as well.

Indeed, there is a battery drain on Galaxy S5 and Galaxy S4 as far as i observed...

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Haggster said:

That's good to know. Have you checked if the slow speeds that you're getting after a while are also affecting Ethernet connections? Have you monitored the CPU (and memory) usage of the router? These things sound like a memory leak or some kind of process loop which is appearing after a while and then causing these problems more than anything else.

I'm also a Merlin-user which is why I am curious about this beta even though I cannot install it since I'd have to wait for a Merlin beta first. But the current stable one is working OK (have moved some devices to 2.4GHz now and only use the 5GHz for laptops which are stable and support DFS frequencies).

BTW: Have you carried out a site survey? It'd be interesting to know whether those issues might be due to interference that wasn't there before. E.g. I've had new neighbors moving in and suddenly I saw that the first four non-DFS 5GHz channels are polluted, which used to be free of any APs for over a year. Don't know about your situation or location but it's always important to check these factors as well.

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The ethernet speeds aren't affected at all (I'm mainly using an ethernet connection, everyone else uses wifi so I get the headache of fixing problems with little gain ). I've not monitored the CPU and memory usage, however I too thought it must be something like a memory leak in the current firmwares as it happens after some time.

I'm the only person using 5GHz around here (checked with inSSIDer and WiGLE) however one thing I noticed is that the beta firmwares would normally choose one of the lower non-DFS channels (e.g. 48) by default, whereas as soon as I installed the latest RMerlin firmware it went straight to channel 108 and stayed there (not sure if that means anything). I thought it might be interference with my Wii U (as it appears to be communicating on channel 38-40) but the issue is still there after unplugging, and when it's not unplugged the router still works properly after a reboot.

I've also shoved the router on top of one of these just for precaution, my temps weren't that high anyways but it's still reduced them from 47, 60, 76 to 42, 51, 61.

I decided to test it out right now. I have no disconnection problems with my AC87U as media bridge on 5ghz (like usual), however I did get some spikes of over 100ms, which I find very weird, as I totally do not remember having this issue previously.

Going to test out my AC87U in wireless router mode, that is where I got my disconnections on 5ghz before.

EDIT : Didnt take long, in wireless router mode, it disconnects still. What I mean is that every device I own that can connect to 5ghz will in fact disconnect eventually.

I am clueless as to why my AC87U doesnt disconnect in bridge mode.

MasterBash said:

EDIT : Didnt take long, in wireless router mode, it disconnects still. What I mean is that every device I own that can connect to 5ghz will in fact disconnect eventually.

I am clueless as to why my AC87U doesnt disconnect in bridge mode.

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Hi, what exact devices are you using if I may ask? I'm quite interested in that detail as I've been observing that it specifically affects some devices for which a disconnect is guaranteed, sooner or later, while other devices aren't affected at all and have a consistently stable connection instead (that's been the case with all firmwares that I've used since I'd bought the AC87)

My N66U as bridge connected to AC87U disconnects. Netgear R7000 connected to AC87U as bridge also disconnects.

Laptop with Intel 5100 wireless adapter. An Intel 6200 adapter also disconnects.

The laptop with the 5100 takes the longest time to disconnect. Sometimes I have to wait from 10 to 20 mins. The N66U/R7000 disconnects between 30 secs to 2 mins.

However, in the last 15 mins, I tried a beacon of 50 instead of 100 and my N66U did not disconnect from it yet. I will keep testing things out to see if that can fix it. No idea why a beacon of 100 would cause disconnections, as my other routers using the same beacon interval cause no disconnections when used as wireless router mode. My first AC87U router (yes, I replaced it for the current one I have), had signal strength fluctuation, so this is the only reason that I can think of, as to why a beacon of 50 would help.

Then, why would it be fluctuating in the first place? No 5ghz AP in the area and I own only a few devices that can connect to 5ghz and I cant think of anything else that can use the 5ghz frequency.

Is there a program I can use to monitor (with history preferably, so if I decide to leave my computer I can still check what happened during that time when I come back) the signal strength for a computer? I would love to see if the disconnections have anything to do with the fluctuation of signal strength. Problem is that I can only test the adapters... Wish there would be an easy way to monitor the bridges. =\ Merlin firmware, maybe?

EDIT : 1 hour with N66U as bridge connected to AC87U with a beacon of 50ms - so far no disconnections.

Weird that the default beacon is causing disconnections. If I need a beacon of 50 to not disconnect there is obviously something else going on.

EDIT2 : It might not be a beacon thing... I forgot that I also turned AP Isolation on at the same time as lowering beacon, to test things out. I am now trying 100ms beacon with AP Isolation on. I just tested 2 seconds ago with it off and I got some disconnections right away. I will edit this in an hour if beacon 100ms and AP Isolation On works.

EDIT3 : It has nothing to do with beacon, I tried 50, 100 and 200. They are all working fine, as long as AP Isolation is on. As soon as I turn it off, I get disconnections shortly after.

I still have the 5ghz disconnect issue with this firmware. So far my android shield tv is the only one that can connect to 5ghz without any issue which is godsend because i use this shield for plex client connected to my hdtv.

Galaxy note 4 and iphone 6 disconnects, laptop and desktop with intel ac7260 once connected doesn't disconnect but if i restart or go to sleep the 5ghz band disappears entirely, i have to refresh and refresh searching for AP then it will eventually reappaers and reconnects,

For the people who have disconnection problems try AP isolation to see if it helps.

MasterBash said:

Is there a program I can use to monitor (with history preferably, so if I decide to leave my computer I can still check what happened during that time when I come back) the signal strength for a computer?

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If you use something like inSSIDer on PC or WiFi Explorer on Mac, there is a signal strength/history section. I've observed on the past that my 87u sometimes just disappears for 2-3 seconds (even the 2.4 on Merlins firmware) and you would then see a big gap in the history, while other signals in the area don't. You may just need to set the scan intervals a bit lower.

Is this what you are after?

Ya, I am aware of inssider, but isnt it pay to use now?

MasterBash said:

Ya, I am aware of inssider, but isnt it pay to use now?

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You can still download v3 of inSSIDer Home, which is still free to use.

Check here it should be the one with the blue/orange icon.

Right, so I also just updated to this version. So far so good... No complaints from the wife yet

Embattle said:

I would like to answer you but in reality the amount of devices in the house that actually use the 5Ghz band are Nexus 5, iPhone 5s, Panasonic CX700 TV, Samsung Note 3, Dell Laptop a few others like a Roku 3, LG TV and Kindle fire that support 5Ghz don't support DFS so they are on 2.4Ghz with various other devices. I've not really pushed any of the devices to notice any improvements in the 5Ghz band, I know the iPhone used to be rather fickle a while ago but since it is my dads business phone I've never really been that concerned since it'll just drop back on to a mobile network.

I've also always considered the performance of any wireless signal to worsen/improve due to the local noise and interference levels rather than the driver/hardware of the router.

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thanks for sharing your experience. i have also considered the local noise and interference, but i think it's not the reason. because i have AC68U, R8000, totolink A5004ns besides AC87U , their 5G band are very stable, even if i use the same channel. of course, in order to avoid interference, i did not turn on another 3 routers when i tested ac87u. only talking about the signal strength, ac87u is not bad. So I think the fundamental reason is Quantenna's hardware or sofrware(driver), this should be no relationship with asus, because my friend use netgear R7500(same Quantenna chip), he also has the same 5G issue.

poor_poor said:

Dear all,

RT-AC87U_3.0.0.4_378_8248

Fix French UI
Fix bugs
New: Enable Traffic Analyzer
Update: IPTV ISP profile setting of 'movistar' & 'meo'
Update: Quantenna SDK: v37.3.0.50 (acR3.2.1)
Update signature into 1.066
Update: dnsmasq: 2.75
Update: openssl 1.0.2d
Update: adjust the maximum number of Guest Network MAC filter. (16 client per Guest network)
Fix: 5Ghz AP isolate issue
Fix: Allow $, ",` and \ in SSID and WPA-PSK for Quantenna
Fix traffic monitor issues
Update Extend max VPN clients to 30 for high-end models
Fix: [Adaptive QoS] [Bandwidth Limiter] less than the actual speed setpoint
Fix:[AiProtection] turn cause the machine to reboot repeatedly endanger website
Fix: [USB Application] USB HDD can not mount
Fix: [AiProtection] Parental controls time scheduling blocking message can not be displayed

Download: http://goo.gl/zdcNK6

Require: Restore to factory default.

Please feedback to me if you encounter any issue.

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Hi,

Any chance you can repost this firmware, as the link doesn't seem to work anymore and I would like to try it, currently on 3.0.0.4.378_7449, which seems ok, with devices showing up as 5GHz connected (iPhone and iPad).

Pete.