RT-AC56U 2.4GHZ Issues fixable?

[91ludesit]

I recently purchased an RT-AC56U to upgrade my faithful RT-N16. However the 2.4GHZ band is completely useless. This makes my wife very angry with me as the chromecast is not usable. For the time being I switched back to my RT-N16.

I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to fix this? I waded through several threads here of similar issues and found nothing worked.

I live in a house with a decent space between my neighbors so interference is not an issue.
The list of things I've tried:

• I've tried many different channels to no avail, including ones that have no other networks visible.
• I've tried 20mhz, 20/40mhz, and 40mhz channel width with no luck.
• I've tried disabling nat acceleration, no luck.
• I tried disabling 802.11N beamforming with no luck.

Most clients report excellent signal strength with little no throughput.

I'm stumped. Is this hardware or software? Is it fixable?

I've noticed this problem is pretty widespread.

My concern is that I'm running out of time to return this router. I'm half tempted to return it and get the Netgear R6250, which has much higher ratings.

I'd prefer the Asus, but 2.4ghz is a must in my house.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[RMerlin]

Make sure you use a different SSID from your old router, to ensure that your client devices will not try to reuse the older profile parameters with the new router.

20 MHz is strongly recommended on the 2.4 GHz band.

Leave all the advanced wireless settings to their default values.

 

[91ludesit]

Thanks, I tried factory resetting and then doing that. Same deal, the 2.4ghz is extremely slow, and in some cases doesn't work unless you are sitting right next to the unit.

I then updated to the latest firmware from your builds, reset and then tried everything you said again. No go. Walk more than 15 feet from the router and the device will tell you the connection strength is good, but no data throughput. If you are sitting next to the router you might get 3-4meg/s.

Maybe the hardware on the unit I got is defective? I have until the 24th to return this one. I'm leery of the netgear because how crappy their firmware is, however it does have much higher ratings.

 

[RMerlin]

Test throughput between 2 PCs to rule out WAN specific issues.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[91ludesit]

Ok tried that, still getting about 1/4 what my rt-n16 gets at about 1-2meg/s between PC's. This was wired to wireless, the steam streaming client also reports about 1Mbit available bandwidth on 2.4ghz. I even tried streaming a 1080P MKV to my chromecast with no luck. This works fine on my rt-N16.

I think I'm going to return the router and get an RT-N66U. It seems like AC routers are not ready for prime time. I really just wanted 5GHZ and beamforming support.

 

[Pierino]

Whatever you do, don't get the r6250. The 2.4ghz band on that was awful.
I tried dd-wrt and it was worse.

 

[91ludesit]

Yea I tried DD-WRT just for kicks, and it was just as bad as the Asus firmware. That leads me to believe there is a problem with the Broadcom SoC that many of the AC routers are based on.

 

[RMerlin]

Yea I tried DD-WRT just for kicks, and it was just as bad as the Asus firmware. That leads me to believe there is a problem with the Broadcom SoC that many of the AC routers are based on.

Could also be a defective router, especially with the numbers you are reporting (or a problem with one of the two test clients). I never had any problem with the 2.4 GHz band of my RT-AC56U.

 

[radeon7750]

Have you tried all the channels? That's what I had to do, one by one, untill I found one that works well.
see this thread... http://goo.gl/lwUzd8

 

[91ludesit]

I did try every channel with no luck. I have decent distance between my neighbors and myself so I'm not swamped with 2.4ghz signals except those from wireless mice and keyboards.

I traded the ac56u in this morning for the n66u dark knight. Flashed the latest merlin on it and it seems to work very well.

2.4ghz is up and running at the same or better speeds than my old faithful rt-n16.

I'll watch and see how it turns out. At this point I'll probably wait until a good percentage of my devices support AC before trying an AC router again. Right now I don't have a single one.

 

[L&LD]

You might want to try the alternate firmware.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=18914


The RT-AC56U I had bought for a customer exceeded his and my expectations - especially in the 5GHz band range, but with no regression in the 2.4GHz range either (using then current RMerlin firmware).

 

[91ludesit]

You might want to try the alternate firmware.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=18914


The RT-AC56U I had bought for a customer exceeded his and my expectations - especially in the 5GHz band range, but with no regression in the 2.4GHz range either (using then current RMerlin firmware).

What would this accomplish? I tried just about every firmware there was except this one for the AC56U and could not make the 2.4ghz band work.

I ended up returning the rt-n66u due to issues with the 5GHZ band being stable , and it finally quit working completely.

I bought a netgear r6250 yesterday and I'm returning it today as my 2 year old DRAFT N rt-n16 has about 3x the throughput at 45mpbs wlan-wan vs 15mpbs on the 6250. This is with the client sitting right next to it.

The big deal is my chromecast is 2.4ghz only and from 1 room away with the ac56u and the r6250 it becomes unusable for netflix.

I've yet to find a router that seems to work for my situation other than the rt-n16 with the latest merlin. I was thinking about trying out the nighthawk, but I'm afraid I'll be disappointed with the 2.4ghz bandwidth.

I think for the time being I'm going to dig out my old e2000 and load DD-WRT on it and use it as a 5ghz access point connected to my rt-n16 as I have yet to find a router that can successfully blend 2.4 and 5 support simultaneously in my environment.

Does anybody build a decent router these days?

 

[Injuis]

I guess if you don't mind being in a 'walled garden' the Apple Airport Extreme seems to be highly regarded. Although I don't know how much you can trust Apple users and their usual bias.

I'm with you though, this generation of routers has been a real stinker.

 

[91ludesit]

I guess if you don't mind being in a 'walled garden' the Apple Airport Extreme seems to be highly regarded. Although I don't know how much you can trust Apple users and their usual bias.

I'm with you though, this generation of routers has been a real stinker.

Yep, I finally gave up. Ordered a Ruckus Wireless Zoneflex 7372 and I'm going to probably buy an alix setup and build a pfsense box. I'm giving up on consumer level equipment.

I scored a commercial dual band AP with adaptive antenna tech for not much more than I had spent originally....

 

[NGRhodes]

Shame you did'nt try replacement AC56u as sounds like a faulity unit to me.
I run an AC56u alongside my old Cisco E4200 and 2.4ghz on the A56u is only marginally worse transfer speeds (5ghz is better).

 

[91ludesit]

Shame you did'nt try replacement AC56u as sounds like a faulity unit to me.
I run an AC56u alongside my old Cisco E4200 and 2.4ghz on the A56u is only marginally worse transfer speeds (5ghz is better).

I honestly gave it some thought, but from the reviews I read you have about a 1 in 5 chance of getting a defective unit.

I'm done with consumer grade solutions for now. The ZF7372 is nothing short of incredible. The signal level clear across the other side of my house is now as good as it was when I would sit right next to my RT-N16.

The only thing I can knock the ruckus on is the management interface works in IE only.

 

[Injuis]

If you don't mind me asking, how much did your enterprise setup cost you?

 

[Nunyer]

The only workaround I have found for my AC56U and the 2.4Ghz issue is to force 'legacy' as the wireless mode option. The problem as far as I can tell is the N spec implementation within the 2.4Ghz band. Disabled N and the disconnects / throttling have stopped.

Obviously, YMMV... but in my environment I don't have any real requirement for N speeds over the 2.4 Ghz band. Most of my clients are 5Ghz. Under the legacy setting, I can get away with Hulu/Netflix streaming on a bedroom blu-ray player. That's the only real traffic I push across the 2.4Ghz band apart from occasional web browsing on an older laptop. So if you can live without the higher N spec top end, it might be a viable option.

 

[Alex76]

First time poster and long time reader.. I would like to share my best settings for Rt-ac56u 2.4 Ghz setup as I think I've tried all possible combinations that you can think off.. I hope the rest can benefit from this

Cheers,
Alex76