USB-AC56 or USB-AC55

[SwampKracker]

I am shopping for AC compatible clients by ASUS and can not find reviews for the USB-AC55. Has anyone out there ever used one? I can always go with the USB-AC56, but am not a big fan of Realtek.

 

[Seanatis]

I am shopping for AC compatible clients by ASUS and can not find reviews for the USB-AC55. Has anyone out there ever used one? I can always go with the USB-AC56, but am not a big fan of Realtek.

I use the AC56 and seems to work pretty good. I do have issues where my Windows 8.1 box will lock-up and it only started doing this after using this new USB adapter. I installed the most up-to-date drivers and am still having this issue.

 

[SwampKracker]

Let's hope the USB drivers are not the problem, although the coincidence is concerning. Maybe someone else will reply with their experience to confirm or deny the drivers as being the cause of your lock-ups.

No one on these forums has ever tried the USB-AC55? Not even Tim?

 

[RogerSC]

I've got the USB-AC56, and it works well for me. No problems with the driver that Windows 8.1 finds for it on my end, no system lockups. The obvious difference is the USB-AC56 has an external antenna for optional use (as well as 2 internal antennas), and the USB-AC55 has just the two internal antennas. Haven't come across what the chipset is in the USB-AC55 yet, but maybe Tim will include it in one of his wireless adapter round-up reviews.

 

[SwampKracker]

Good to know about Windows 8.1. Hopefully, support for Linux is as good since that is what I use daily.

Maybe I will just go with the USB-AC56. It has been out longer and people know about it.

 

[Nullity]

Good to know about Windows 8.1. Hopefully, support for Linux is as good since that is what I use daily.

Maybe I will just go with the USB-AC56. It has been out longer and people know about it.

With Linux, I think it is important to really know what you are getting. Head over to WikiDevi.com and see what Chipset the device has has and find out if the Linux-supplied drivers are good or not. Atheros is my preference. They usually have good drivers. TP-Link is good too, but make sure that the drivers are good.

I have the Asus USB-N53, which uses the RT3572 chip (MediaTek). Considering that I could have paid 60% less with the TP-Link and had the same chip and same crappy Linux support...

 

[sfx2000]

Good to know about Windows 8.1. Hopefully, support for Linux is as good since that is what I use daily.

Maybe I will just go with the USB-AC56. It has been out longer and people know about it.

Linux install is non-trivial, but doable... need to be comfortable with building kernal modules and what not..

Windows 7/8.1 - my experience with the USB-56AC has been good - decent performance and good range, and it's USB3 to boot...

(latest drivers also support TurboQAM in 2.4GHz, which may or may not work on some Ap's)

 

[SwampKracker]

@Nullity - Nothing has been posted to WikiDevi.com yet for the USB-AC55, so guess that is more reason to not buy it due to questionable Linux support. Also, good drivers are hard to find these days from anyone. Even Intel has dropped the ball with their wireless drivers from what I hear on the forums.

@sfx2000 - Kernel modules? Challenge accepted. What fun is Linux without having to compile something

All signs are pointing to the USB-AC56.

 

[sfx2000]

@Nullity - Nothing has been posted to WikiDevi.com yet for the USB-AC55, so guess that is more reason to not buy it due to questionable Linux support. Also, good drivers are hard to find these days from anyone. Even Intel has dropped the ball with their wireless drivers from what I hear on the forums.

@sfx2000 - Kernel modules? Challenge accepted. What fun is Linux without having to compile something

All signs are pointing to the USB-AC56.

Like I said - non-trivial - but well documented - they support kernel's 2.6.18 thru 3.10, which can be a challenge perhaps with newer Linux distro's like Ubuntu 14.04LTS (and later), Fedora, Centos, RHEL, etc... but basically ASUS is providing the chipset vendor drivers will little to no modification except for the USB ID numbers... so porting it forward might be ok...

 

[SwampKracker]

@sfx2000 - I guess I will find out. I am running Mint 17.1 with the mainline 3.17.8 kernel. Time to do some research on making it work. My fall-back is using the USB-N66 which works very well with the 3.17.x kernels until support for the USB-AC56 improves.

 

[SwampKracker]

The USB-AC55 uses the Mediatek MT7612U chipset. If you are patient, it may eventually work very well for all operating systems. My USB-N66 (another Ralink/Mediatek chipset) started out great with Windows 7 and terrible Linux support. The 5GHz radio did not work in Windows 8 for quite some time. After months of waiting, the USB-N66 is awesome for both Windows and Linux.

In summary, the USB-AC56 uses Realtek and the USB-AC55 uses Mediatek. Maybe I should look for option C.......

 

[sfx2000]

The USB-AC55 uses the Mediatek MT7612U chipset. If you are patient, it may eventually work very well for all operating systems. My USB-N66 (another Ralink/Mediatek chipset) started out great with Windows 7 and terrible Linux support. The 5GHz radio did not work in Windows 8 for quite some time. After months of waiting, the USB-N66 is awesome for both Windows and Linux.

In summary, the USB-AC56 uses Realtek and the USB-AC55 uses Mediatek. Maybe I should look for option C.......

Out of the 3 adapters that Asus has that are AC1200 - the USB-53AC, USB-56AC, and the USB-55AC - the 56AC has perhaps the best driver support at the moment - in any event, it's the only one that Asus actually supports for any flavor other than Windows - so that's perhaps a consideration.

sfx