LG G5 on RT-AC87U - 2.4 GHz problems

[bidi]

hello everyone, long time/first time...

i recently bought a LG G5 phone running Android 6.0.1. it has a "misunderstanding" with my Asus RT-AC87U running Merlin 380.61, namely it does not see the 2.4 GHz band. it connects to 5.2 GHz just fine (they're on separate SSIDs), and it sees my neighbors' 2.4 GHz networks, so there doesn't seem to be a problem with the phone itself. I also connected to two other routers on the same 2.4 GHz network (same SSID and password), one at my inlaws and the other at work. these routers are an old SMC N300 and the other is an Archer C9 v1 AC1900. the phone worked just fine.

i disabled the wireless MAC filter on the 87U, changed the 2.4GHz channel from 13 to 1 and then 4 (after noticing what my neighbors were using), and disabled beamforming (implicit and explicit) and Turbo QAM. the phone only connected once, on channel 4, and after changing the bands again it did not connect anymore. i also did a nvram reset this morning, just in case, but that did not seem to help.

the only other device that has problems with this router is my wife's 2011 Thinkpad Edge, which also cannot maintain a stable wifi connection a lot of the times. this goes back many months ago, so it's not just an issue with the latest 2.4 GHz driver from Asus.

in case it matters, I have a USB 3.0 stick plugged into the front port, used as a network share/DLNA/AiCloud.

worst case scenario - i can just use the 5 GHz band, since it's faster and less congested anyway. i usually have it scheduled to be off during the day to reduce the EM pollution in my apartment. it's just that i'd like to get to the bottom of this issue and understand why it happens, not to mention that 2.4 has a better reach in some areas, so it still has its uses.

 

[Zirescu]

Could try setting enabling the "Reducing USB 3.0 interference" option under the Wireless->Professional tab on the router. I'd use a completely different SSID than any one that the phone has seen before. Also stick with one of the 3 main channels (1, 6, 11). Did some Googling on the LG G5 phones and a lot of reports of it having multiple radio issues (GPS, WiFi, Cell, Bluetooth).

 

[bidi]

thanks. after messing around with the router a bit more it looks like it may have been a bad reset/restore that messed up the MAC filter. the Wireless MAC filter tab shows repeating #38 strings between the actual MAC and the device name that multiply every time i make changes on the page. i used John's nvram save tool but since i did not perform resets for the past few firmware updates (the change logs did not recommend it, and the router kept working fine) there could have been something that got screwed up in the update process. i think the change logs mentioned some work being done so that the network map worked better, so I assume it's now properly linked with the DHCP and MAC filter pages. in any case, I'll have to reset the router again if i want to re-enable the filter. i wonder if having it disabled, saving the config (from the router, as an external file) and restoring it after the reset will dump the corrupted list. i don't really want to reconfigure everything manually all over again. but if i must, i'll do it. trying to delete the corrupted entries from the router's interface just makes things worse at the moment.

also, i suspect that since Wikipedia says that North America doesn't have the 2.4 GHz channels above 11 the phone radio may not be able to see them. however, other phones (iPhones, Samsung, Nokia) worked fine, so it could just be the router config that got messed up. it works now on channel 1.

being in a very crowded wifi environment i prefer to stick to the ends of the 2.4 spectrum so as to avoid interference as much as possible. 6 and 11 are already used by my neighbors. however, in the afternoon when people come home from work i just stick to 5.2 GHz, which i have all to myself.

 

[john9527]

the Wireless MAC filter tab shows repeating #38 strings between the actual MAC and the device name that multiply every time i make changes on the page. i used John's nvram save tool but since i did not perform resets for the past few firmware updates (the change logs did not recommend it, and the router kept working fine) there could have been something that got screwed up in the update process.

Unfortunately, the format of the mac filter variables have changed a couple of times over the life of the firmware. I do my best in the save/restore tool to detect and correct it, but there may be some cases that don't get handled. There's a separate script included in the download if this happens that will wipe out the mac filter list so you can start over. You should also take a fresh save after correcting it.

 

[bidi]

thanks, John. seeing how this router handles updates i'm surprised i was able to avoid resets for as many updates as i did. i wasn't at all surprised to see things go wrong.

 

[bidi]

to wrap this up: i did a reset and manual reconfiguration. the phone now connects to both 2.4 GHz (even on channel 13) and 5.2 GHz. i left the wireless MAC filter disabled for now, as I just didn't want to spend the extra time re-entering all of the MACs. it would have been cool if it could just pick them from the static IP assignment page.