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dd-wrt for RT-AC87R

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Its entirely possible dd-wrt is more stable because 1: it doesnt have the amp turned up so high for the radios and 2: no nat acceleration

I turn up the transmit to 81 from 71mw (not sure if that is what you mean)
I always turn off nat acceleration, due to all the problems it causes and still asus firmware is unstable.

I am now 5 days and 1 hour in and still all working perfect, no problems at all.

Edit 1: You all know me by now, I want maximum usability and easiness, so I tweaked the 2.4GHz band and changed the SSID on my 5 GHz to the same on the 2.4 I applied but did not reboot, well I should have rebooted, cause it did on its own, after it did I went into the wireless settings and saw other stuff changed to reflect the new settings, so I still think it was a good thing

Now onto the same SSID good info here
and he is correct my IOS devices do switch back and forth (tho there is a little hesitation from 5GHz to 2.4GHz) But it is funny that neither my samsung tv or samsung note 10.1 1 st gen will go to the 5GHz (tho I do not care anyway) but my sony tv actually showed 2 of the same SSID'd and I did have it join the 5GHz one.
I will keep you all updated
 
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Dfran1, what kind of speed/range are you using with your setup?

I tried ddwrt on this ac87u a couple of months back but it was unable to deal with my sync 500Mbps. Stock/Merlin was much better back then. Ddwrt also gave me trouble with range due to a lacking 5ghz beamform, and no dfs channels. Has this been resolved with the ddwrt firmware version you are using?

Thx
 
Dfran1, what kind of speed/range are you using with your setup?

I tried ddwrt on this ac87u a couple of months back but it was unable to deal with my sync 500Mbps. Stock/Merlin was much better back then. Ddwrt also gave me trouble with range due to a lacking 5ghz beamform, and no dfs channels. Has this been resolved with the ddwrt firmware version you are using?

Thx

In my tests (I have no professional equipment, just specific placement), I am able to get the same distance as Asus firmware and speed, I do notice 720 and 1080p movies stop playing at weak areas in 5GHz, I may do a flush and test again this weekend Asus firmware so I can refresh my memory more on that, my air 2 gets 780M at 10feet thru a wall and sometimes peak at 867M (transmit rate). I do not have any other wifi device to test on for file transfer speed that will achieve top speed.

I have ran a test on my macbook pro (a 2011) and from what I recall I achieved the same speed and distances running some test.

You will have to try the 1-20-2015 version I am running and let me know.;)

I do know we are not flushing these routers properly every time we flash (I added that to my first post now), this may be the reason why soo many errors on Asus firmware, but as you have read, Why does Asus firmware for the first up to 24 hours produce no ps4 lag then after show lag, I do not get that with dd-wrt, besides all my other problems I had with Asus firmware or any variation of it. Have you not experienced any 5GHz issues on Asus firmware or merlins?
 
Hi all,
just to keep you all updated, I made a change yesterday and just after got a reboot, 30 minutes ago got another, just stick to my 1st post and you should be fine. As for me I am just trying to know when this thing breaks and how / why, but why we may never know.

but anyway on the other forum someone followed my steps up step 11 and then loaded merlins .50, not ts (not tested yet), from dd-wrt web interface, power cycle, then configured and they claim to also not have any problems for ~37 hours, very interesting at least.
 
Dfran1, what kind of speed/range are you using with your setup?

I tried ddwrt on this ac87u a couple of months back but it was unable to deal with my sync 500Mbps.

You won't get beyond 350-400 Mbps with DD-WRT and this router. Not until they can fully debug their experimental ddtm module, which is an open-source version of Broadcom's proprietary NAT acceleration.
 
but anyway on the other forum someone followed my steps up step 11 and then loaded merlins .50, not ts (not tested yet), from dd-wrt web interface, power cycle, then configured and they claim to also not have any problems for ~37 hours, very interesting at least.

As I've often said, myself I have zero problem with my own RT-AC87U. That's despite flashing new test builds every 3-4 days, and having both a laptop, a Nexus 9 and a Nexus 4 phone connecting to its 5 GHz band. My Nexus 9 had a connection time of two days without disconnects when I had to reboot to flash a new build last night.

This router and its firmware aren't "broken for everyone" despite what some might think.
 
As I've often said, myself I have zero problem with my own RT-AC87U. That's despite flashing new test builds every 3-4 days, and having both a laptop, a Nexus 9 and a Nexus 4 phone connecting to its 5 GHz band. My Nexus 9 had a connection time of two days without disconnects when I had to reboot to flash a new build last night.

This router and its firmware aren't "broken for everyone" despite what some might think.

HI,
Then there has to be something you are forgetting to tell us you are doing that we are not
are you wiping with telnet?
are you resetting to factory defaults before and after?
are you power cycling and for how long to pull power?

Also what we do find is when we power cycle, the firmware gets screwed up somehow and we have to do it all over again (factory default and flash again), tested on 1st, 2nd and friends, This seems like it started with firmware from a month or 2 ago.

I can not believe you have not experienced any of our problems yet (please nothing personal at all), I am just trying to figure out what we are doing wrong?

Thank You
 
HI,
Then there has to be something you are forgetting to tell us you are doing that we are not
are you wiping with telnet?
are you resetting to factory defaults before and after?
are you power cycling and for how long to pull power?

Quite honestly, I can't even remember when was the last time I did a factory default reset. Must have been maybe 2 or 3 months ago. I usually only do so if I actually encounter any problem. When I do, I usually do so using the option on the Backup/Restore settings page. I might occasionally do it with the reset button as well. Never did it with the nvram or mtd-erase commands.

I very rarely power cycle my router. I usually do so if one of my own experiments had gone wrong. Doing so after a firmware upgrade for the RT-AC87U might be a good idea, just to ensure that the Quantenna CPU also gets reset (I don't know how this is working in the current firmware design), but in my case it never was necessary.

All my Wifi settings are kept to their default setting, except for the channels which I have manually set to 11 and 157.

Some users who experienced wifi stability issues resolved them by either disabling Beamforming, or by disabling the two ampdu-related settings on the Wifi Professional pages.

There's also some people who saw their problem disappear by improving the cooling on their router (my living room is rather cool, and the router sits on top of a bookcase, so my router might be 3-4 degrees cooler than others). Just lifting the router on four legs might help with the airflow.

And I have never tampered with my CFE - it's still the original version.

If DD-WRT is more stable, then it's quite likely to be a configuration issue. DD-WRT uses the exact same Quantenna driver as Asus.
 
I tried merlins again tonight and it lasted 2 hours for me before major issues, went back to dd-wrt
 
I've been using 378.50 (final) since last 2 weeks with AC87U up side down with normal room temperature. Two days ago, the wireless and wired connections went belly up so the router was totally unresponsive. I power reset the router but still no connectivity.. Removed power and reconnected after waiting for a few mins.. no connectivity.. Tried power recycle again and it worked but ended in the same unresponsive state in about 2 hours. Left the router un-plugged over night and it was working normal until 3 hours ago with lost connectivity. One attempt of power recycle helped and now it's working okay. I got only 11n devices and only 2 devices on 5GHz. There wasn't no heavy load whatsoever at the time.

There is no doubt in my mind that this router definitely has some problem. Maybe the main Broadcom CPU is being victimized in some ways. I hope there are no hardware design flaws.

I'll try DD-WRT now and see how it goes.
 
I've been using 378.50 (final) since last 2 weeks with AC87U up side down with normal room temperature. Two days ago, the wireless and wired connections went belly up so the router was totally unresponsive. I power reset the router but still no connectivity.. Removed power and reconnected after waiting for a few mins.. no connectivity.. Tried power recycle again and it worked but ended in the same unresponsive state in about 2 hours. Left the router unplugged over night and it was working normal until 3 hours ago with lost connectivity. One attempt of power recycle helped and now it's working okay. I got only 11n devices and only 2 devices on 5GHz. There wasn't no heavy load whatsoever at the time.

There is no doubt in my mind that this router definitely has some problem. Maybe the main Broadcom CPU is being victimized in some ways. I hope there are no hardware design flaws.

I'll try DD-WRT now and see how it goes.

I tried (now 2 different times) the latest of merlins and its just one horrifying experience for me (he claims its my ISP and it could very well be but Asus should be making firmware for all not just a few that have fiber or super high speeds, and they should put that on the box if so) (in the past his was the best but just wow on this one), the latest Asus was a much better experience BUT still wayyyyy too many problems, and like you said it always takes a week or 2 for them to really start to show, except for ps4 lag, that with asus firmware always shows whinin 24 hours (at best 2-3 days, if you're feeling lucky).

I really hope something comes out from asus on this router, but for the time being dd-wrt is the one for me, least amount of problems.

I can not believe I wasted $300 on this POS, I may try the dlink ac5300 linkcoming out later this year if this thing does not get better, I really want this to work perfectly though.

Anyway I just loaded the dd-wrt on my friends, he could not believe how lag free it was so far.
 
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HI,
Then there has to be something you are forgetting to tell us you are doing that we are not
are you wiping with telnet?
are you resetting to factory defaults before and after?
are you power cycling and for how long to pull power?

Also what we do find is when we power cycle, the firmware gets screwed up somehow and we have to do it all over again (factory default and flash again), tested on 1st, 2nd and friends, This seems like it started with firmware from a month or 2 ago.

I can not believe you have not experienced any of our problems yet (please nothing personal at all), I am just trying to figure out what we are doing wrong?

Thank You

I've been running Merlin's build 378.50 on my RT-87U for about two weeks and see no issues at all, in fact the wifi signal is much stronger than the factory builds, and i have no issue with dropped connections. Perhaps you might try using the factory reset via the GUI versus telnetting. Seems to work for me. I have about 20 devices connecting with zero issues. Keep in mind most Asus routers don't require the factory resets, pulling the plug etc.

Just my 2 cents.
 
I tried merlins again tonight and it lasted 2 hours for me before major issues, went back to dd-wrt

You must be doing something wrong or have a faulty router.
 
I've been running Merlin's build 378.50 on my RT-87U for about two weeks and see no issues at all, in fact the wifi signal is much stronger than the factory builds, and i have no issue with dropped connections. Perhaps you might try using the factory reset via the GUI versus telnetting. Seems to work for me. I have about 20 devices connecting with zero issues. Keep in mind most Asus routers don't require the factory resets, pulling the plug etc.

Just my 2 cents.

You must be doing something wrong or have a faulty router.

This is my second router, and yes I only did a reset via the GUI like you, I also WPS reset, I have not telnet or ssh in an asus / merlin firmware to reset or clear something, yes I have with dd-wrt. So my ISP must not be compatible and I read also others with wifi loss.

The only conclusion I can come to is you and merlin (and anyone else that never has wifi loss) with the ac87 MUST have special built routers or the rest of us got lemons and there is a lot of them out there.

I also have a friend that experiences the wifi issues as me, so that would be 3, I had my hands on and all 3 have wifi issues with 0 (none) working ok at all. NOW this is only pertaining to asus / merlin's firmware as I do not have these issues with dd-wrt AT ALL. I really do appreciate and THANK merlin for all his time BUT his latest does not work for me at all (well without a lot of tinkering), and still get wifi and ps4 lag problems.


On another note I loaded the latest dd-wrt is it does seem to perform great still, I think this one corrects any reboot issues that popped up on the last one.
 
New build uploaded. Try & Test

- Updated wireless drivers
- 2.4 & 5GHz working
- Beamforming is working
- Leds are working
 
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New build uploaded. Try & Test

- Updated wireless drivers
- 2.4 & 5GHz working
- Beamforming is working
- Leds are working

I can't get beamforming to turn on, you did how? EDIT: I rebooted and now it is working.

LED's 2.4 still does not work for me?? edit still not working??


how did you load it
I reset to factory default and erase in telnet.

new wireless driver
wl0: Feb 22 2015 06:27:09 version 7.14.89.21 (r524987):)
 
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I can't get beamforming to turn on, you did how?
LES's 2.4 still does not work for me??
how did you load it

I upgraded the firmware through webui. I was in dd-wrt. All are working for me. Try to flash through recovery and later if you are already in dd-wrt; you do not need to reset unless it is necessary.
 
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