For anyone whom it might benefit, I kept some notes while setting up and testing this unit. I benefited from everyone whom has posted info about this unit so thought I'd share.
Here are some notes I took while setting up the AC87U...
5g vs 2.4g, 5g is much faster, but drops off quickly at about 25-35ft line of sight or through walls, doesn't seem to matter. 5g doesn't slow down gradually, it just stops working flat out. 2.4g goes very far, 100-150ft+. I have a .5 acre lot and 2.4g covers all of it, whereas 5g barely covers the house interior. The construction of my house is 2x4 and no sheer walls (pray for no earthquakes), so there should be very little interference. However, I do have one addition which is 2x6 with sheer wall. Behind that part of the house the signal only goes about 50ft for 2.4g and is nill for 5g (too far away at that point for 5g anyhow) I do have one other wifi router on a different network in the same room and a 1.9g phone system, but I turned off all those devices and rebooted the AC87U and everything tested out the same. Neighbours are too far away for me to see their wifi in my house... although I'm sure they get mine now!
5g acts flakey when it gets to it's limits, it just fails to respond at all and devices just hang waiting. The odd thing is that the range bars really aren't accurate, you can have 2-3bars and it still flakes out and won't do anything even though showing connected. 2.4g on the other hand can be down to 0-1 bar and still function well. 2.4g is much better with it's behavior when it gets to it's limits. A lot of this probably depends on how your device behaves with weak network connections too.
I tried using the same network settings for 2.4g and 5g but my devices would not seamlessly switch between, it was just more difficult to tell which I was connected to. Maybe not the routers fault, I decided to make the names different so I could tell what I am connected to and can choose the one I want.
AC87U vs linksys 54GL, haha, I know, not really a fair comparison. The AC87U bests the 54GL by about 30-50% more range on 2.4g. The ac87u is much faster obviously, N vs A/B/G amongst other reasons. I had to put the AC87U up about 3ft higher and out of the way of some monitors and other equipment to get it to exceed the 54GL range... which was perfectly happy behind everything... strange. The range is decent, but I'm not blown away from the improvement. Bandwidth is night and day though. The 54GL was choking on all the connections, but the AC87U can handle a lot! I opened several connections to HD IP cams and downloaded GBs of data via SMB/FTP at the same time and nothing slowed down at all.
When changing settings on the router it takes 3min (measured) to reboot, seems like forever after being blessed with 15-20sec reboots on the 10yr+ old Linksys!
During router reboot some services seem to come online then they shut down again, and some turn off and back on a few minutes after the reboot is done too, in particular the 5g wifi at least, maybe even the 2.4g, more testing needed.
I found that anytime I change settings, even simple ones, in the router there is a chance services will flake out during the saving process. A lot of times it worked fine, but others no so much. No biggie, just need to wait a while for things to come up and stay up.
I did not find that I had to reboot the router after saving settings, just needed to wait a few minutes to take effect.
No unwanted reboots so far, but only one day of uptime.
Slick setup interface, works on my android while VPN'd in!!! Very cool!!
I did manage to hork the flash/etc interface once or twice in my browser (IE11) by clicking fast or having too many windows open, but just had to close and reopen.
Upnp auto configured ports don't work on the local network, only over the WAN... or I'm too dumb to find the setting to change that behavior! Not terrible, but annoying, the 54GL didn't behave this way.
**(update on Upnp, my IP cams rebooted the next day and all is working on the local LAN, doesn't appear to be an issue with the router)
DDNS setup with Asus works great so far, have to see once my WAN IP lease comes up and changes.
Managed to lock up the VPN server/service after connecting a few times to test. It took a reboot to fix. Lame, can't do that when I'm remote! VPN would not allow connections when it was broken, worked again after a router reboot.
VPN acts funny on my phone, if I don't connect to something over the connection within a few seconds of connecting it will disconnect. If I open a web browser page to an IP camera/etc it will hold in there, usually. Weird! Not sure if it's the phone or what, more testing needed.
USB 3.0 enable mode has noticeable impact on Wifi range/performance. I had to disable it to have one 2.4ghz IP camera about 35ft away and through several walls get any signal. Bummer!
USB 3.0 vs USB 2.0 performance = 64-72MB/s vs 24-32MB/s respectively via local SMB copy. Not super happy about this but I'm not doing any big steaming stuff... yet. I used a 80-90MB/s+ (as tested over USB 3.0 directly to a computer) capable SSD with a USB 3.0 adapter for this test. Not as big of a deal for slower single spinning disks but a bummer for SSD's.
SMB sharing works for the most part, just had some flakiness with it a couple times (hanging explorer.exe while opening files), hard to say if it was a Windows issue or the way the sharing works on the router.
FTP also works well, no complaints! Just as speedy as SMB both up and down.
The features like VPN, FTP, SMB, etc are really half the reason I wanted this unit and I'm happy with them so far, except the VPN flakiness.
overall the setup, configuration, performance for my 3 IP cams, 1 phone, 1 bluray palyer, and several wired and wireless PC's/Laptops went very smooth, I'm happy enough, but not blown away, to keep it if it keeps behaving with the basic stuff.
Here are some notes I took while setting up the AC87U...
5g vs 2.4g, 5g is much faster, but drops off quickly at about 25-35ft line of sight or through walls, doesn't seem to matter. 5g doesn't slow down gradually, it just stops working flat out. 2.4g goes very far, 100-150ft+. I have a .5 acre lot and 2.4g covers all of it, whereas 5g barely covers the house interior. The construction of my house is 2x4 and no sheer walls (pray for no earthquakes), so there should be very little interference. However, I do have one addition which is 2x6 with sheer wall. Behind that part of the house the signal only goes about 50ft for 2.4g and is nill for 5g (too far away at that point for 5g anyhow) I do have one other wifi router on a different network in the same room and a 1.9g phone system, but I turned off all those devices and rebooted the AC87U and everything tested out the same. Neighbours are too far away for me to see their wifi in my house... although I'm sure they get mine now!
5g acts flakey when it gets to it's limits, it just fails to respond at all and devices just hang waiting. The odd thing is that the range bars really aren't accurate, you can have 2-3bars and it still flakes out and won't do anything even though showing connected. 2.4g on the other hand can be down to 0-1 bar and still function well. 2.4g is much better with it's behavior when it gets to it's limits. A lot of this probably depends on how your device behaves with weak network connections too.
I tried using the same network settings for 2.4g and 5g but my devices would not seamlessly switch between, it was just more difficult to tell which I was connected to. Maybe not the routers fault, I decided to make the names different so I could tell what I am connected to and can choose the one I want.
AC87U vs linksys 54GL, haha, I know, not really a fair comparison. The AC87U bests the 54GL by about 30-50% more range on 2.4g. The ac87u is much faster obviously, N vs A/B/G amongst other reasons. I had to put the AC87U up about 3ft higher and out of the way of some monitors and other equipment to get it to exceed the 54GL range... which was perfectly happy behind everything... strange. The range is decent, but I'm not blown away from the improvement. Bandwidth is night and day though. The 54GL was choking on all the connections, but the AC87U can handle a lot! I opened several connections to HD IP cams and downloaded GBs of data via SMB/FTP at the same time and nothing slowed down at all.
When changing settings on the router it takes 3min (measured) to reboot, seems like forever after being blessed with 15-20sec reboots on the 10yr+ old Linksys!
During router reboot some services seem to come online then they shut down again, and some turn off and back on a few minutes after the reboot is done too, in particular the 5g wifi at least, maybe even the 2.4g, more testing needed.
I found that anytime I change settings, even simple ones, in the router there is a chance services will flake out during the saving process. A lot of times it worked fine, but others no so much. No biggie, just need to wait a while for things to come up and stay up.
I did not find that I had to reboot the router after saving settings, just needed to wait a few minutes to take effect.
No unwanted reboots so far, but only one day of uptime.
Slick setup interface, works on my android while VPN'd in!!! Very cool!!
I did manage to hork the flash/etc interface once or twice in my browser (IE11) by clicking fast or having too many windows open, but just had to close and reopen.
Upnp auto configured ports don't work on the local network, only over the WAN... or I'm too dumb to find the setting to change that behavior! Not terrible, but annoying, the 54GL didn't behave this way.
**(update on Upnp, my IP cams rebooted the next day and all is working on the local LAN, doesn't appear to be an issue with the router)
DDNS setup with Asus works great so far, have to see once my WAN IP lease comes up and changes.
Managed to lock up the VPN server/service after connecting a few times to test. It took a reboot to fix. Lame, can't do that when I'm remote! VPN would not allow connections when it was broken, worked again after a router reboot.
VPN acts funny on my phone, if I don't connect to something over the connection within a few seconds of connecting it will disconnect. If I open a web browser page to an IP camera/etc it will hold in there, usually. Weird! Not sure if it's the phone or what, more testing needed.
USB 3.0 enable mode has noticeable impact on Wifi range/performance. I had to disable it to have one 2.4ghz IP camera about 35ft away and through several walls get any signal. Bummer!
USB 3.0 vs USB 2.0 performance = 64-72MB/s vs 24-32MB/s respectively via local SMB copy. Not super happy about this but I'm not doing any big steaming stuff... yet. I used a 80-90MB/s+ (as tested over USB 3.0 directly to a computer) capable SSD with a USB 3.0 adapter for this test. Not as big of a deal for slower single spinning disks but a bummer for SSD's.
SMB sharing works for the most part, just had some flakiness with it a couple times (hanging explorer.exe while opening files), hard to say if it was a Windows issue or the way the sharing works on the router.
FTP also works well, no complaints! Just as speedy as SMB both up and down.
The features like VPN, FTP, SMB, etc are really half the reason I wanted this unit and I'm happy with them so far, except the VPN flakiness.
overall the setup, configuration, performance for my 3 IP cams, 1 phone, 1 bluray palyer, and several wired and wireless PC's/Laptops went very smooth, I'm happy enough, but not blown away, to keep it if it keeps behaving with the basic stuff.
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