Best replacement for Asus AC3100

[Grievous Angel]

Been using Asus/Merlin for some years now, first with the AC66U and now over 3 years the 3100. I'm happy with the 3100 range (I have a 3,000 sq/ft house on one level) and functionality but the stability seems to be suffering. I'm on the latest stable Merlin version.

I've had it on a laptop cooler for its entire life but moving it the other day the laptop fan started making noise, so I removed it. Since then, I seem to have to reboot it every few days to get to the admin page. Tonight, I just set it it up to reboot every night at 5:00 AM. This thing has been rock solid before I took away the laptop cooler.

Perhaps this is self inflicted. Perhaps I did this to myself by using a usb powered laptop cooler all this time. Perhaps I have too much dust in there.

Where to go from here? Take it apart and blow it out, or replace? I'm of the belief these things degrade over time and I've had this one over 3 years. Is there a spiritual successor to the Asus AC3100? The array of choices from Asus and especially Netgear are overwhelming. I'd hate to lose the Merlin flexibility at this point.

 

[royarcher]

Been using Asus/Merlin for some years now, first with the AC66U and now over 3 years the 3100. I'm happy with the 3100 range (I have a 3,000 sq/ft house on one level) and functionality but the stability seems to be suffering. I'm on the latest stable Merlin version.

I've had it on a laptop cooler for its entire life but moving it the other day the laptop fan started making noise, so I removed it. Since then, I seem to have to reboot it every few days to get to the admin page. Tonight, I just set it it up to reboot every night at 5:00 AM. This thing has been rock solid before I took away the laptop cooler.

Perhaps this is self inflicted. Perhaps I did this to myself by using a usb powered laptop cooler all this time. Perhaps I have too much dust in there.

Where to go from here? Take it apart and blow it out, or replace? I'm of the belief these things degrade over time and I've had this one over 3 years. Is there a spiritual successor to the Asus AC3100? The array of choices from Asus and especially Netgear are overwhelming. I'd hate to lose the Merlin flexibility at this point.

I'd go for the rt ax 88 u perfect upgrade

 

[L&LD]

Been using Asus/Merlin for some years now, first with the AC66U and now over 3 years the 3100. I'm happy with the 3100 range (I have a 3,000 sq/ft house on one level) and functionality but the stability seems to be suffering. I'm on the latest stable Merlin version.

I've had it on a laptop cooler for its entire life but moving it the other day the laptop fan started making noise, so I removed it. Since then, I seem to have to reboot it every few days to get to the admin page. Tonight, I just set it it up to reboot every night at 5:00 AM. This thing has been rock solid before I took away the laptop cooler.

Perhaps this is self inflicted. Perhaps I did this to myself by using a usb powered laptop cooler all this time. Perhaps I have too much dust in there.

Where to go from here? Take it apart and blow it out, or replace? I'm of the belief these things degrade over time and I've had this one over 3 years. Is there a spiritual successor to the Asus AC3100? The array of choices from Asus and especially Netgear are overwhelming. I'd hate to lose the Merlin flexibility at this point.

Yes, it might be self-inflicted.

I would perform a Nuclear Reset on your network (at the minimum an M&M Config) after you have flashed to 384.12 from the 384.5 version you're on now (from your signature).

Please follow the link in my signature below for links to both of the guides I recommend above (and yes, the M&M Config is a subset of the Nuclear Reset).

I would do this before spending any money. You may be pleasantly surprised.

3 years is much too short a time for the excellent RT-AC3100 to be of service. I have seen much longer, even without a fan keeping them (unnecessarily) cool.

 

[royarcher]

Yes, it might be self-inflicted.

I would perform a Nuclear Reset on your network (at the minimum an M&M Config) after you have flashed to 384.12 from the 384.5 version you're on now (from your signature).

Please follow the link in my signature below for links to both of the guides I recommend above (and yes, the M&M Config is a subset of the Nuclear Reset).

I would do this before spending any money. You may be pleasantly surprised.

3 years is much too short a time for the excellent RT-AC3100 to be of service. I have seen much longer, even without a fan keeping them (unnecessarily) cool.

I was ready to get another router for similar reasons firstly it was about the same age (3 years) and I kept getting dropouts,especially when using a VPN.Instead I tried l&lds nuclear reset and problem solved.It is time consuming but well worth the effort.I can't recommended trying it enough it's just brilliant and I had tried everything else before that

 

[Grievous Angel]

Yes, it might be self-inflicted.

I would perform a Nuclear Reset on your network (at the minimum an M&M Config) after you have flashed to 384.12 from the 384.5 version you're on now (from your signature).

Please follow the link in my signature below for links to both of the guides I recommend above (and yes, the M&M Config is a subset of the Nuclear Reset).

I would do this before spending any money. You may be pleasantly surprised.

3 years is much too short a time for the excellent RT-AC3100 to be of service. I have seen much longer, even without a fan keeping them (unnecessarily) cool.

Hey there. I'm definitely on the latest version. Just haven't kept my sig up. I'll do the hard reset. The new behavior just started right after I lost the fan, so I thought it might be connected. You could definitely see the cooler temps on the dash. Guess I didn't care enough to replace the fan after the thing was three years old. I've set it to reboot every night at 5:00 am at this point as a workaround and so far so good. But this thing would go for weeks and weeks and weeks before with perfect stability (probably longer, if not for power outages and what not). And when I say it wasn't stable--I simply mean that I couldn't get to the admin page. Otherwise I wouldn't have noticed.

It's been a great one which is why I'm bummed that there are no obvious upgrades from here! Not super keen to go the mesh route. But the Mesh investments seemed to have sucked the life out of the standalone router development.

Thank you for your feedback.

 

[Grievous Angel]

I'd go for the rt ax 88 u perfect upgrade

Certainly looks familiar!

This setup has (till now) provided a very stable, fast, and broad coverage solution for me. Even still, it's just the admin page. But it did fail more than once. Gonna ride the "boot every morning" hack for a bit and try out the hard reset. I don't really run a super custom config so NBD.