Rt-ac68u

[whsbuss]

Well, I am a power user. I download around 600Gig a month, with 22Meg down/ 2.2 Up with a ping from 5 - 10ms from www.speedtest.net.

As an owner of the RTN-16, I changed the firmware to DDWRT, and get the same download speeds as my wired connection. However, the ping does increase to 35 - 40ms.

1) My home is small and simple structure, and wonder what would be gained with upgrading my system to either the Asus or Netgear R7000?

2) If I am already achieving the speeds of what my ISP is providing me with my laptop where is the gain, if the signal is fine?

3) Now, I did notice that Netflix does take a tad longer to load and when viewing a HD film, and displaying the properties while watching, you can see that it does fluctuate from 244SD, 480SD, 780HD and then to 1080HD. So, it is not perfect 1080HD all the time. It does vary once in awhile.

4) If you look at the score from INSSID, I noticed my link score is sometime only around 63 - 75, which I am wondering if this is a problem.

5) The trusty RT-N16 is a "reliable" unit.

So, the big question is "What would be gained for a user like me who is probably only 35 ft away from the router and achieves the same thruput as a wired connection when performing the speedtests?

Thanks for any feedback...

Sounds like you are happy with what you have so why would you even have to ask why you would want to upgrade? Each user has pros and cons with their network. But unless there are specifics needs that can be addressed by these or any router, there is no need to get one.

 

[PCTools]

In my situation, if I am already achieving my download speed provided by my ISP, their is NO reason to upgrade?

I wonder if my QOS would increase with the dual band?

 

[geops]

In my situation, if I am already achieving my download speed provided by my ISP, their is NO reason to upgrade?

I wonder if my QOS would increase with the dual band?

It all depends on your gear. If you truly only need your wifi for internet browsing, then your router is good enough. On the other hand if you have file servers on the network, playbakc full-hd video over the network (network stored files) or any other high-throughput task, then you need a fast router and the laptops to match (triple stream 802.11n or 802.11ac). The ac on the AC68U can giveyou up to around 65MB/s transfer speeds which is a great improvement over the 450Mbps 802.11n which in reality gives up to 25MB/s. It's all a matter of what you do with your network and how much speed do you really need over your wifi.

Some examples: palyback of 3D bluray over the network can jump up to 90Mbps, which is ~11MB/s. Considering wireless jitter and packet loss, you need to have at least 2-3 times that speed for reliable playback. A triple stream 450Mbps 802.11n cannot achieve the needed speed and reliability for this task most of the time. Only 802.11ac does the trick.
Another case is using your wifi to transfer large files, like BD images. By the time you transfer a 50GB file over a slow wifi, it might be not relevant anymore. Hence, max speed should be your goal in this case.

 

[PCTools]

Those are great points. Would upgrading help Netflix, and will it then be dependent on the device used for Netflix?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4

 

[geops]

Those are great points. Would upgrading help Netflix, and will it then be dependent on the device used for Netflix?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4

The netflix SuperHD goes up to 7-8Mbps which is up to 1MB/s. An old-school 54g router should be enough for that. You should not see any difference with netflix if you upgrade your router. The bottleneck for netflix will most likely be with your ISP and not your router.

 

[PCTools]

I appreciate your feedback and will remain with my loyal Asus RT-N16 with after market firmware.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4

 

[MaX PL]

Is 2.4 ghz stable at 40mhz for people? Not necessarily on this router, but any you may have had.

I used to run it at 40mhz on my e3000 and had a consistent 300Mbps connection to my intel 5300 card, but it would ultimately crash after a few weeks so i stayed at 20mhz as that was very stable.

Now with the AC68U still on the intel 5300, i'm hovering around 217- 243 on 5ghz and am sticking to 20mhz on the 2.4ghz band as that too wasnt hitting 300Mbps at 40mhz.

also...

is there a place in the router settings where it lists all the clients and their RSSI, noise, etc?
i'm trying to perhaps configure my antennas and would need that info to do so.

tomato's interface is so much simpler than this mess. really dont like this asus page.

 

[PCTools]

Purchased Asus N66U

Ok, I just picked up the N66U, and the immediate notice was the Link Score increased on my laptop in inSSIDer. Now, it is at a score of 100, (A-band) where before it was always around 65 - 70. Then again, my router is only 10 feet away from my sofa.

In all honesty, there is no big difference in this router between my old RTN-16. Netflix performs the same. In fact, the gentleman noted above was 100% correct, the streaming of Netflix and the variance of the signal from 780HD to 1080HD is Netflix and not dependent on my equipment, as I have the bandwidth.

I will continue to report my findings, as I complete my testing.

 

[PrivateJoker]

In all honesty, there is no big difference in this router between my old RTN-16. Netflix performs the same. In fact, the gentleman noted above was 100% correct, the streaming of Netflix and the variance of the signal from 780HD to 1080HD is Netflix and not dependent on my equipment, as I have the bandwidth.

Try different Netflix clients (if you have more than one). A weird thing I learned is that different clients get different servers allocated to serving them. I will post the link later when I dig it up (post on another forum) but same content, different "SuperHD" enabled clients on same evening, my AppleTV repeatedly is allocated higher bandwidth than my Vizio "smart TV" which itself was higher than my Tivo Premieres. I tried this on several different nights and used the 10 min trailing traffic monitor info in the router for my #s, and confirmed by looking at my open connections that they repeatedly connected to similar pools (per device) from different server resources.

I'm not at all trying to say AppleTV is the best client, Netflix does crazy "elastic bandwidth" adjustments on the fly, every day a specific spot on the globe might pull from different servers and potentially their TiVos stream fastest and their AppleTVs the slowest.

Who knows, in a month or a week my results might be totally different. Just saying that if you're curious, it's interesting to compare your own devices periodically.

 

[PCTools]

Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 $148.50 - True or Not True

^ Good points, eager to see the links.

BTW, I found this...

http://mclego.com/products.php?product=Netgear-Nighthawk-AC1900-Dual-Band-WiFi-Gigabit-Router-%28R7000%252d100PAS%29

 

[geops]

Is 2.4 ghz stable at 40mhz for people? Not necessarily on this router, but any you may have had.

I used to run it at 40mhz on my e3000 and had a consistent 300Mbps connection to my intel 5300 card, but it would ultimately crash after a few weeks so i stayed at 20mhz as that was very stable.

Now with the AC68U still on the intel 5300, i'm hovering around 217- 243 on 5ghz and am sticking to 20mhz on the 2.4ghz band as that too wasnt hitting 300Mbps at 40mhz.

also...

is there a place in the router settings where it lists all the clients and their RSSI, noise, etc?
i'm trying to perhaps configure my antennas and would need that info to do so.

tomato's interface is so much simpler than this mess. really dont like this asus page.

My 2.4 and 5ghz are pretty stable. No disconnects ever. I run everything on 40Mhz except for AC at 80Mhz. The only difference between 20 and 40Mhz is the channel width which in return gives you the speed. At 20Mhz you get 75Mbps per stream and at 40Mhz you get 150Mbps per stream. This router runs perfectly fine at 40Mhz for 2.4 and 20/40/80 for 5 where the ac runs at 80 and the n at 40. I have an intel 6300 card in my laptop and I get 450Mbps connection on both 2.4 and 5 with these settings. That is of course with direct line of sight. I tested transfer speed and I get ~20-22MB/s on 2.4 and ~25-27MB/s on 5n. This router actually does better than my former N66U on the 802.11n connections. The 2.4 on the N66U was slower for some reason. About your other question, this firware does not include the network scanning tool. What I do is install the free inssider on my laptop and scan the bands with it. Then I set up the router on top of the weakest base stations if there are no free channels.

 

[MaX PL]

My 2.4 and 5ghz are pretty stable. No disconnects ever. I run everything on 40Mhz except for AC at 80Mhz. The only difference between 20 and 40Mhz is the channel width which in return gives you the speed. At 20Mhz you get 75Mbps per stream and at 40Mhz you get 150Mbps per stream. This router runs perfectly fine at 40Mhz for 2.4 and 20/40/80 for 5 where the ac runs at 80 and the n at 40. I have an intel 6300 card in my laptop and I get 450Mbps connection on both 2.4 and 5 with these settings. That is of course with direct line of sight. I tested transfer speed and I get ~20-22MB/s on 2.4 and ~25-27MB/s on 5n. This router actually does better than my former N66U on the 802.11n connections. The 2.4 on the N66U was slower for some reason. About your other question, this firware does not include the network scanning tool. What I do is install the free inssider on my laptop and scan the bands with it. Then I set up the router on top of the weakest base stations if there are no free channels.

ok thanks for the info.

are spacial streams the antenna receiver/transmitter on the card? not sure why i'm hitting 217Mbps on 2.4 @20Mhz right now. i'm pretty sure this intel 5300 only has two streams.

 

[geops]

ok thanks for the info.

are spacial streams the antenna receiver/transmitter on the card? not sure why i'm hitting 217Mbps on 2.4 @20Mhz right now. i'm pretty sure this intel 5300 only has two streams.

It is a triple stream adapter. At 40Mhz you sould be hitting or getting close to 450. For intel adapters you need to go into adapter properties and make sure that chanel width for both frequencies is on Auto and Fat Channel Intolerant is Disabled. These settings will allow the adapter to operate at max speed.

 

[PrivateJoker]

It is a triple stream adapter. At 40Mhz you sould be hitting or getting close to 450. For intel adapters you need to go into adapter properties and make sure that channel width for both frequencies is on Auto and Fat Channel Intolerant is Disabled. These settings will allow the adapter to operate at max speed.

If there is even one or two other 20mhz AP on 2.4ghz in your area, disabling fat channel intolerance and forcing 40mhz channels on your 2.4ghz band all day long and you are still unlikely to achieve 300Mb/s-450Mb/s speeds. There's no way the math will work that one AP can use 40mhz and not touch at all the 22mhz of at least one other AP is using (if there are more than 2-3 APs), they will at least interfere a little on the periphery which will make your AP either back down to 20mhz or just degrade the performance.

On your Intel NIC, download the Proset utility and (IIRC) it will show you your MCS Index in real time which you can use to see how many streams on what width channels are giving you what link rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009#Data_rates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

and short, recent, previous thread on here w/ exact same question: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=10522

There is a reason why APs are getting increasingly harder to try to do 2.4ghz wide channels, even if by force, because very few people have the free RF to make use of it and instead of trampling over a space where unoccupied space is a rarity, it behooves people to switch to 5ghz for their high bandwidth/speed needs, and just use 2.4ghz for legacy stuff or things that can use the extra distance at a lower speed.

 

[geops]

If there is even one or two other 20mhz AP on 2.4ghz in your area, disabling fat channel intolerance and forcing 40mhz channels on your 2.4ghz band all day long and you are still unlikely to achieve 300Mb/s-450Mb/s speeds. There's no way the math will work that one AP can use 40mhz and not touch at all the 22mhz of at least one other AP is using (if there are more than 2-3 APs), they will at least interfere a little on the periphery which will make your AP either back down to 20mhz or just degrade the performance.

On your Intel NIC, download the Proset utility and (IIRC) it will show you your MCS Index in real time which you can use to see how many streams on what width channels are giving you what link rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009#Data_rates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

and short, recent, previous thread on here w/ exact same question: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=10522

There is a reason why APs are getting increasingly harder to try to do 2.4ghz wide channels, even if by force, because very few people have the free RF to make use of it and instead of trampling over a space where unoccupied space is a rarity, it behooves people to switch to 5ghz for their high bandwidth/speed needs, and just use 2.4ghz for legacy stuff or things that can use the extra distance at a lower speed.

The asus routers don't back down when they are firmly set to 40Mhz. The intel adapters don't back down when fat channel intolerant is disabled. I have 6 networks around me (2.4GHz) that cover all channels a few times and still use 40Mhz triple stream and push 20-22MB/s over it. It's about selecting your channels to be on top of the weakest base stations (the ones that are most far away) so you interfere with each other the least. This is my spectrum in the picture below:

 

[Andy24]

My First Asus Router

Just picked up my first Asus router RT-AC68R at best buy today. I am replacing a LinkSys EA6500. The wireless range on that router was horrible. I have not been able to try any testing to this point. Can I use the 68U firmware on this R version? I heard the only difference is the R version is for retail.

Andy

 

[RMerlin]

Is 2.4 ghz stable at 40mhz for people? Not necessarily on this router, but any you may have had.

40 MHz overlaps no less than 5 channels out of 11. It's VERY difficult to maintain a stable connection with this setting, especially with the constantly increasing number of wireless routers being installed by neighbours in the past few years. That means it might have been easier to do so a few years ago than it is now.

is there a place in the router settings where it lists all the clients and their RSSI, noise, etc?
i'm trying to perhaps configure my antennas and would need that info to do so.

Possible with my firmware but not with the stock one. I haven't released a version for the RT-AC68U yet, but it will eventually happen.

tomato's interface is so much simpler than this mess. really dont like this asus page.

Don't expect Tomato on this router any time soon. They are still troubleshooting RT-AC66 support, and haven't really tried supporting the AC56 or AC68U yet.

 

[geops]

Just picked up my first Asus router RT-AC68R at best buy today. I am replacing a LinkSys EA6500. The wireless range on that router was horrible. I have not been able to try any testing to this point. Can I use the 68U firmware on this R version? I heard the only difference is the R version is for retail.

Andy

No idea. Check what version it is running. If it's running 3.0.0.4.374.205 then it's probably the same firmware. It was just released straight with the first public firmware. There are no firmwares listed on the website.

 

[RMerlin]

Just picked up my first Asus router RT-AC68R at best buy today. I am replacing a LinkSys EA6500. The wireless range on that router was horrible. I have not been able to try any testing to this point. Can I use the 68U firmware on this R version? I heard the only difference is the R version is for retail.

Andy

That's correct. U and R are exactly the same hardware, and the same firmware.

 

[sm00thpapa]

On 2.4GHz I stay at a constant 40 MHz channel and it stays that way and over powers all of the other networks in my area which there are only 2 and they are weak coming in at -90 and -92 dbm. According to inSSIDer as long as you are -20 from any other network there shouldn't be an issue. So if you are at -40 and the closest network is at -60 I wouldn't worry about it.