2.4ghz speeds, tweaking merlin's fw settings?

[katana]

Hi guys,

I have the router in an inflexible location near front of my house, on the stand facing it towards rest of house with antennas, 45, 180, 45 degrees. laptop in same room using wireless n (2.4ghz only) does speedtest 15mbps down and about 2 up. However, moving that same laptop to kitchen back at house shows -70dbm signal which should be ok but same server test on speedtest shows only 2mbps down and 1.8 up.

I used to use a wrt610nv2 with dd-wrt, tweaked it ran pretty fast in wireless 2.4 N. is -70dbm really that bad for this router and what settings/tweaks can I do to make it better speeds? I already set the 2.4ghz on Merlin's latest firmware on least busy channel 1 (only 1 neighbour at -80dbm inside router room), 20mhz, wireless n only (with b/g protection checked, what is this for?)

Would toastman/shibby tomato be any better for speeds? My research on this forum, consensus is stock/merlin best for wireless

 

[katana]

Ok, tried it with QOS off and I got almost full 25mbps dl speeds but as soon as QOS is on, speeds drop back down to 2mbps. I even tried deleting all of the default asus rules with websurf and etc. I only need to prioritize by mac/ip address so my family gets higher priority than my tenants do.

Tried searching but it seems no one has posted qos settings in stock asus firmware or merlin's that is working for them. Is tomato the only choice for working qos?

 

[Dazman]

I just purchased mine and I used Firefox for Speedtest, but later found IE to be much faster.

Make sure your antennas are at 45, 90 and 45 degrees respectively. Also try moving the router a bit as the location may make a difference.

b/g protection is to allow for the use of b/g devices. I have g devices so I left this unchecked.

Ok, tried it with QOS off and I got almost full 25mbps dl speeds but as soon as QOS is on, speeds drop back down to 2mbps. I even tried deleting all of the default asus rules with websurf and etc. I only need to prioritize by mac/ip address so my family gets higher priority than my tenants do.

Tried searching but it seems no one has posted qos settings in stock asus firmware or merlin's that is working for them. Is tomato the only choice for working qos?

 

[katana]

Yea, I've already done the router and antenna dance. Signal shows fine over at the other computer 4/5 bars at -65-70dbm. Hopefully there's a working solution for QOS and maintaining speeds.

Thanks, I'll uncheck the b/g thing too then, just N and G devices here.

I just purchased mine and I used Firefox for Speedtest, but later found IE to be much faster.

Make sure your antennas are at 45, 90 and 45 degrees respectively. Also try moving the router a bit as the location may make a difference.

b/g protection is to allow for the use of b/g devices. I have g devices so I left this unchecked.

 

[DaveMishSr]

Hi guys,

I have the router in an inflexible location near front of my house, on the stand facing it towards rest of house with antennas, 45, 180, 45 degrees. laptop in same room using wireless n (2.4ghz only) does speedtest 15mbps down and about 2 up. However, moving that same laptop to kitchen back at house shows -70dbm signal which should be ok but same server test on speedtest shows only 2mbps down and 1.8 up.

I used to use a wrt610nv2 with dd-wrt, tweaked it ran pretty fast in wireless 2.4 N. is -70dbm really that bad for this router and what settings/tweaks can I do to make it better speeds? I already set the 2.4ghz on Merlin's latest firmware on least busy channel 1 (only 1 neighbour at -80dbm inside router room), 20mhz, wireless n only (with b/g protection checked, what is this for?)

Would toastman/shibby tomato be any better for speeds? My research on this forum, consensus is stock/merlin best for wireless

Why are you using 20MHz as your bandwith setting? That will lower your connection speed. Try using 40MHz but that may cause stability issues with your connection to each client. If stability should decrease as a result of increased bandwidth then either go back to 20MHz or try the 20/40MHz option. The b/g protection feature allows you to use N only as your wireless mode while still supporting B and G devices.

If you hover your cursor over each setting descriptor you may see a "?" appear. Simply left clicking will then bring up a support window that provides information about the setting (i.e.: what it does, what some or all of the setting option do and perhaps even issues that may arise in using certain settings). This should answer most of your questions.

As for TomatoUSB firmwares it has been my experience that connection speeds, range and stability are not as good as when using Asuswrt or Asuswrt-merlin. In all honesty though I haven't tried using TomatoUSB in months so perhaps the current versions from Shibby or Toastman will be better in that regard. Also, Toastman's builds usually provides faster connections speeds than Shibby's builds but that may have changed also.

I am also wondering why you are not using a guest network for your tenants. That allows them to access the Internet while isolating your LAN from being accessed, as long as you set your router to not allow the guest network(s) to be able to access it.

Good luck!

 

[Pierino]

If what he gets 15 down/2up fom his ISP his speed won't increase by setting the channel width to 40. 20mhz is capable of handling of 65Mbps if I'm not mistaken. So unless he is paying for more than that he is fine.
Of course file transfer from one unit to another is effected, that's assuming he has clients capable of receiving more than that.

Of course, I've been known to be wrong.

 

[DaveMishSr]

If what he gets 15 down/2up fom his ISP his speed won't increase by setting the channel width to 40. 20mhz is capable of handling of 65Mbps if I'm not mistaken. So unless he is paying for more than that he is fine.
Of course file transfer from one unit to another is effected, that's assuming he has clients capable of receiving more than that.

Of course, I've been known to be wrong.

I did not think of that and yes you are 100% correct. However, 65 Mbps will run out of steam very quickly in my house and its only natural to think of what applies to oneself in terms of context. We did just upgrade our DirecTV service to the new Genie system so the router no longer has to support three HD video receivers. It will be very interesting to see what impact that will have on our network traffic.

 

[KevTech]

Why are you using 20MHz as your bandwith setting?

If on the 2.4 band you really should not use 40Mhz (band too crowded) and if you use 20/40 the router will most likely downgrade to 20MHz automatically if enough other wireless traffic is around.

good neighbor policy