Asus RT-AC3200 keeps dropping WAN under torrent load?

[RamGuy]

I keep having issues with my Asus RT-AC3200 and torrent traffic.. After I configured uTorrent on my server and keeps downloading and seeding some larger files (5 active downloads) it keeps freezing on me forcing me to manually reboot the router in order to get my Internet connection back on. Having been using Merlin 378.55, I even tried with the latest official BETA one from Asus bit it's the same issue with both.. I can't remember the last time I had a router that kept locking up under some heavy torrent loads. Is this due to faulty hardware, some fishy software/firmware or what?

 

[NetworkError]

Most I get is 72 hours then I need a reboot. Services start to fail and devices get extremely latent. I like to download 100gb of torrents a day and this is the first router that has not been able to keep up with me. I didnt have this problem with earlier FW versions, im at 4950 but before the infoserv update the router was bulletproof ...

 

[JMaldonado]

Same problem here: Router works for a random period between 8 to 72 hours and then it freezes for no reason. The LAN and WAN port lights do blink, but the router disconnects all devices, wired AND wireless, and is non-responsive otherwise. LED and Wi-Fi buttons don't respond. Right now I'm using Asus 378_9459 firmware, but I have tried Merlin firmware to no avail. I paid $300.00 for this brick and I am very very sad I did.

 

[sfx2000]

Limit the number of peers in transmission - it's not bandwidth that's killing you, it's the number of concurrent connections, and there, every connection consumes memory, and eventually it runs off the end of the pier and crashes...

 

[JMaldonado]

I only have 5 or 6 devices browsing the Internet, with none of them using torrents. My ISP's bandwidth is 10 Mbps when I'm lucky. And this router is unable to handle it and gets frozen after just a few hours. It looks like an internal issue that no firmware will be able to solve, unfortunately. Thanks for the tip though, I appreciate it.

 

[doczenith1]

I only have 5 or 6 devices browsing the Internet, with none of them using torrents. My ISP's bandwidth is 10 Mbps when I'm lucky. And this router is unable to handle it and gets frozen after just a few hours. It looks like an internal issue that no firmware will be able to solve, unfortunately. Thanks for the tip though, I appreciate it.

So am I understanding you correctly in that your issue does not involve torrents? Perhaps you should search for a thread that is more on topic for your issue. Also, have you tried a reset to factory defaults and then a minimal setup?

 

[jerry6]

I've yet to have my 3200 freeze , handles over 20 clients has over 200 gb a day of transfers , downloads and streaming , in fact I just torrent 6 linux distros , router was as solid as could be . What are your settings ?

 

[sfx2000]

If OP is running Transmission on the router, that's likely the problem... the defaults are fairly wide-open... again, it's not the bandwidth, but the number of connections...

With Transmission - check the number of "Global Connections" and the "Max Connections for new transfers" - a desktop PC can easily handle 200 peers Max, and 60 per new transfers, but on the Router, might consider dropping those numbers down...

 

[jerry6]

If OP is running Transmission on the router, that's likely the problem... the defaults are fairly wide-open... again, it's not the bandwidth, but the number of connections...

With Transmission - check the number of "Global Connections" and the "Max Connections for new transfers" - a desktop PC can easily handle 200 peers Max, and 60 per new transfers, but on the Router, might consider dropping those numbers down...

Really ? I have global connections at 800 , have not had a problem

 

[NetworkError]

I limited max conn in client to 100, I think I am sitting on 9383 and the problem was solved. I have never needed to configure a torrent client in the past.

 

[joegreat]

Limit the number of peers in transmission - it's not bandwidth that's killing you, it's the number of concurrent connections, and there, every connection consumes memory, and eventually it runs off the end of the pier and crashes...

On top you can check for this kind of messages in the syslog... It's all about memory and concurrency in processing to many Torrent connections on our tiny, tiny router (remember: only 256 MB memory and slow 2 core ARM CPU).

Plus you can have an evil ISP (as I do) which do not like so many connections in short time frame and therefore I needed to reboot the Modem as well every week - no fun if girl is alone at home and internet is now.

Only by limiting the no. of connection as suggested by @sfx2000 you can survive the routers limits and the ISP ones (in my case 200 connection overall with max. 5 per torrent)!

 

[pete y testing]

i would question also what the 3200 is connected to to as it may also be something in front of the 3200ac thats failing and dropping the wan

 

[jerry6]

On top you can check for this kind of messages in the syslog... It's all about memory and concurrency in processing to many Torrent connections on our tiny, tiny router (remember: only 256 MB memory and slow 2 core ARM CPU).



Only by limiting the no. of connection as suggested by @sfx2000 you can survive the routers limits and the ISP ones (in my case 200 connection overall with max. 5 per torrent)!

How did my n-16 survive with much less memory ? It never crashed downloading torrents and the connections allowed were much higher

 

[joegreat]

How did my n-16 survive with much less memory ? It never crashed downloading torrents and the connections allowed were much higher

Yep, the MIPS based routers did not have this kind of problems (my N66U was working like a charm) - so I concluded with the question about a kernel bug in my evaluation - but nobody picked up on it...

 

[kvic]

RMerlin mentioned before ASUS tested in lab their routers can handle 30,000 concurrent connections. From my own hobby test, 10,000 concurrent connections for RT-AC56U is like eating a piece of cake. Your RT-AC32000 is more capable..

OP is not running Torrent client on router. The evil ISP is an interesting point. To rule out that, remove your router, connect PC directly to the modem. Repeat the same Torrent workload. See if the WAN connection survives..

Hopefully OP is still reading the thread and will give us an update.

A bad build of 378.55 can indeed reveal its problems e.g. crash when there are many connections. I've seen this first hand. RMerlin's builds of 378.55 shall not fall into this category (at least for RT-AC56U).

Sometimes however you never know..mix & match closed source drivers/components on the good side is bringing us the latest features (not available on stock firmware for a given model, particularly older models). The down side is compromised system stability occasionally.

From my long time observation though, every few releases there will be a very solid build for me. People perhaps shall also learn how to pick their own. It's fun like treasure hunting?

 

[jerry6]

KVIC , I think you might have something there with it' might be the isp , I ran a few tests running torrents 20 linux distros old and new just to test out the router and never had a problem , ran for 4 days and no crashing router , in fact nothing unusual . Still had 20 other clients connected with streaming , backups and web browsing , nothing router is not breaking a sweat . Been 2 weeks since I rebooted router and don't see having to reboot unless I load a new FW . My 2nd 3200 has been running over 3 months with no crashes or reboots needed

 

[kvic]

Jerry6, your experience is what asuswrt-merlin offers its users. It's rock solid for 99% of the releases. I got similar experience. My recent longest run was 23 days non stop with terabytes of traffic in and out. I rebooted because I only wanted to tinker..

My previous post applies to the business under the hood of baking asuswrt-merlin. If you have tried to compile the firmware yourself and tried to squeeze a bit further performance by mix & match binary blobs. Perhaps you would share my sentiment..

 

[JMaldonado]

Jerry6, your experience is what asuswrt-merlin offers its users. It's rock solid for 99% of the releases. I got similar experience. My recent longest run was 23 days non stop with terabytes of traffic in and out. I rebooted because I only wanted to tinker..

My previous post applies to the business under the hood of baking asuswrt-merlin. If you have tried to compile the firmware yourself and tried to squeeze a bit further performance by mix & match binary blobs. Perhaps you would share my sentiment..

That's exactly what I was expecting when I bought my AC3200: Stable performance for 1 month at least, with 5 or 6 devices Web-browsing and Youtubing and Spotifying mainly, and sometimes watching a Netflix series or AppleTV movie (that's pretty normal these days). I don't do torrents.

I always reset to factory defaults before and after loading a new firmware. I have tried both Asus and Merlin latest releases with 3 days max before excessive latency occurs and finally the router freezes, dropping all connections wired and wireless and forcing me to power cycle it. Log files don't show anything but the last manual reboot, simply because when the router crashes, it stops registering more events. Interestingly, when this happens the LAN ports lights keep blinking, indicating the switch part of the router (L2) is still alive and only the routing/DHCP functions (L3) have crashed! There are no heat sources nearby and the router temperature looks normal. Finally I purchased a brand new APC BackUPS Pro just to make sure the router is getting nice and clean power. Nothing changed.

Right now I am using *dd-wrt.com* firmware and getting up to 5 days before crash. Of course this is a basic firmware with none of the luxuries of Asus or Merlin releases, but at least it allows me to use my advanced router as a humble gateway. Go figure

 

[NetworkError]

Same problem here: Router works for a random period between 8 to 72 hours and then it freezes for no reason. The LAN and WAN port lights do blink, but the router disconnects all devices, wired AND wireless, and is non-responsive otherwise. LED and Wi-Fi buttons don't respond. Right now I'm using Asus 378_9459 firmware, but I have tried Merlin firmware to no avail. I paid $300.00 for this brick and I am very very sad I did.

I have had no issues at all with 9313, wifi stable and AIprotect working good. However I see on the Asus website 2 additional updates have been released but I am not getting GUI notification of them and manual GUI search for updates says its upto date. Very pleased with the performance again. Was a rocky road there for a bit...

 

[joegreat]

However I see on the Asus website 2 additional updates have been released but I am not getting GUI notification of them and manual GUI search for updates says its upto date.

The online search from within of the firmware does not work for long time anymore - you just need to download from time to time the new firmware version (following the update history to decide when is the right time) and install it!