5ghz Signal Dies

[abailey108]

Hey guys. I am very happy with my router. I have it on the third floor and get great 5g coverage throughout the entire house. One issue I have been noticing lately is that after several days of uptime, the 5g signal suddenly decreases tremendously and I have to reboot the router to fix it. I have signal strength at -120. All other setting are pretty standard. Has anyone else noticed anything like this? I am running .260 firmware. Thanks!

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
What is your 5GHz TX power level? I always run at 75mW.

 

[hail2030]

You should try updating to .266 and see if that helps your signal from dropping after a few days.

 

[mikeg]

I have this issue too , when I have the inSSIDer up I get a signal strength of about -20 dBm on a laptop with Asus USB-N53 adapter to 2 meters away from the unit and all of a sudden I get a signal strength of -30 dBm. I have Asus f/w .266 and have Tx power set to 80 mW so now I am waiting for the new Broadcom drivers which Asus has promised in the near future.

Hey guys. I am very happy with my router. I have it on the third floor and get great 5g coverage throughout the entire house. One issue I have been noticing lately is that after several days of uptime, the 5g signal suddenly decreases tremendously and I have to reboot the router to fix it. I have signal strength at -120. All other setting are pretty standard. Has anyone else noticed anything like this? I am running .260 firmware. Thanks!

 

[SCADAMON]

I too have this issue...
I purchased the RT-AC66U H/W Ver. A2 on 11-3-2012 and have been happy with the product for the most part. I have been experiencing an issue with the 5Ghz band, starting with the original Firmware 3.0.0.4.140 all the way through to the current version 3.0.0.4.266. The issue is that the 5Ghz band drops its power down by 20 to 25 dBm after being on the air for anywhere from 2 hours to 3 days. I use inSSIDer to monitor the routers power out in dBm from a fixed location. I have played with the “Tx Power adjustment” and have found that 90mW is the sweat spot, anything above or below this does not give me an increase in range or dBm. From my laptops location, approximately 5meters from the router through 2 walls, I get a -45dBm signal when set to 90mW. This gives me excellent coverage and data rates throughout my house. When I notice the signal level drop on my other devices (anywhere from 2 hours to 3 days) I go and check inSSIDer on my laptop and find that the signal level is down to -70 to -75dBm. I log into the routers “Professional 5Ghz” page and hit “APPLY” without making any other changes and boom the signal jumps back up to -45dBm.
I do not have any issues in the 2.4Ghz band, it is rock solid all of the time.
Current settings:
2.4Ghz mode: Auto, bandwidth: 40MHz, Control Chan: 11u, WPA2/AES, Tx Power 90 mW.
5Ghz mode: Auto, bandwidth: 80MHz, Control Chan: 44, WPA2/AES, Tx Power 90 mW.
Another thing I noticed when using “Asuswrt-Merlin - build 3.0.0.4.264.22 (15-Dec-2012)”, is that I saw no change in temperatures for either radio.

 

[njweb]

Has anyone tried the latest firmware that just came out to see if it helps?

I am about to finally try my RT-AC66U today (after I first record fresh throughput tests with 'LAN Speed Test' tool on my RT-N66U).
If the AC66U is not going to be reliable on 5 GHz, I may as well sell it (still boxed and shrink wrapped) and stick with my N66U since the 5 GHz 802.11ac feature is the only reason I upgraded to the AC66U in the first place (got a really nice deal which made it a no brainer).


Ironically I found another owner who prefers the AC66U for 5 GHz signal:

Returned my N66U today and picked up the AC66U instead. I could NEVER get the 5GHz to work w/ the N66U (lose connection when away from router by 15-20 feet) - but 5GHz is working great thus far on the AC66U. Not a single drop-out even in different rooms of the house.

Also I haven't lost connection between the router and modem when IP address renews (major issue w/ N66U). This is the reason WHY i ended up returning the N66U. Drove me crazy w/ daily connection loss.

Night and day difference for ME.

Interesting. Maybe it was a configuration change that helped, but who knows...

 

[mikeg]

No , the latest firmware .266 does not help with the 5 GHz problem so if you
are as unlucky as myself you will find problems too. If you have time and believe that Asus will solve the issue in the beginning of 2013 you could always keep it or you feel the opposite stick with the N66U.
I myself have a TP-Link dual-band as a backup so that I do not have to
be bothered when the rest of the family starts to yell that they have no internet connection.

Has anyone tried the latest firmware that just came out to see if it helps?

I am about to finally try my RT-AC66U today (after I first record fresh throughput tests with 'LAN Speed Test' tool on my RT-N66U).
If the AC66U is not going to be reliable on 5 GHz, I may as well sell it (still boxed and shrink wrapped) and stick with my N66U since the 5 GHz 802.11ac feature is the only reason I upgraded to the AC66U in the first place (got a really nice deal which made it a no brainer).


Ironically I found another owner who prefers the AC66U for 5 GHz signal:


Interesting. Maybe it was a configuration change that helped, but who knows...

 

[njweb]

No , the latest firmware .266 does not help with the 5 GHz problem so if you
are as unlucky as myself you will find problems too. If you have time and believe that Asus will solve the issue in the beginning of 2013 you could always keep it or you feel the opposite stick with the N66U.
I myself have a TP-Link dual-band as a backup so that I do not have to
be bothered when the rest of the family starts to yell that they have no internet connection.

Thanks! I assume they will address it with a firmware update, but now I am wondering whether to just sell the AC66U to be safe in case this 5Ghz signal dying issue is not
software-related / doesn't get resolved.

 

[SCADAMON]

I am hoping this can be solved with a firmware update also, otherwise there is always the warranty route. ASUS has always been good hardware (motherboard & Video Card) this is my first router of theirs i have purchased.
I have not lost total connectivity on the 5Ghz band just Signal strength and speed. Again the 2.4Ghz is rock solid as is the WAN connection. My old Linksys was always dropping the WAN link.

 

[mikeg]

I got an answer from Jeremy at Asus concerning when the new drivers will be included in the f/w. Sorry to say he could not give me a time table so it is not a guarantee that the next f/w will have this new drivers included.

Thanks! I assume they will address it with a firmware update, but now I am wondering whether to just sell the AC66U to be safe in case this 5Ghz signal dying issue is not
software-related / doesn't get resolved.

 

[njweb]

I got an answer from Jeremy at Asus concerning when the new drivers will be included in the f/w. Sorry to say he could not give me a time table so it is not a guarantee that the next f/w will have this new drivers included.

Thanks for the update!
Do you know whether the new drivers are supposed to address this particular issue?

 

[abailey108]

Wow. I'm glad I wasn't just imagining this problem. I had been running on ch 161 using 80mhz only because for whatever reason this seemed to give me the best connectivity and speed. After the last occurrence, I changed to 20/40/80 and auto channel. I know the 80mhz is for the AC but everything was working well so thats why I had it on that. I am on day 4 now without an incident as of this morning. I will see how its doing when I get home. It seems like this is something that could be fixed in FW updates but who knows. Very strange problem. Thanks for chiming in everyone!

 

[mikeg]

I do not know if the new drivers will fix this issue but I am hoping that it will...

Thanks for the update!
Do you know whether the new drivers are supposed to address this particular issue?

 

[njweb]

I do not know if the new drivers will fix this issue but I am hoping that it will...

What concerns me is that this issue has reportedly existed since the first firmware for the RT-AC66U according to SCADAMON and it is still not resolved!

I was hoping to prepare myself for google fiber by upgrading to 802.11ac (got a deal on the AC66U that I could not pass up, so it was a no brainer)...

 

[mikeg]

I understand your frustration and believe me I have had the same feeling but Asus looks like to have the priority to sell the routers and "promises" which are written on the outside of the box the unit is packaged in , BUT to deliver a firmware with all things functioning is not the top priority for them sadly.
I have time to wait and see if they will deliver or not but frankly if you do not want to wait for the promised solution from Asus RMA:a it.

What concerns me is that this issue has reportedly existed since the first firmware for the RT-AC66U according to SCADAMON and it is still not resolved!

I was hoping to prepare myself for google fiber by upgrading to 802.11ac (got a deal on the AC66U that I could not pass up, so it was a no brainer)...

 

[SCADAMON]

What concerns me is that this issue has reportedly existed since the first firmware for the RT-AC66U according to SCADAMON and it is still not resolved!

I was hoping to prepare myself for google fiber by upgrading to 802.11ac (got a deal on the AC66U that I could not pass up, so it was a no brainer)...

For myself the reason I purchased the RT-AC66u was to replace an old dyeing Linksys router and to set myself up for the future. I do not have any other "802.11ac devices" so i cannot take full advantage of the standard. As RMerlin said "Some are also worried that the fact the 802.11ac standard is still draft could potentially lead to compatibility issues a few years from now (personally, I doubt it).", I too doubt it.
I do have a large house and have seen great improvements with the range I get from the RT-AC66U. As far as total throughput to the internet I am limited to 10Meg DSL service so wireless speed exceeds that with the N standard. I wish I could get "Google Fiber" but I live in the tulies .
I posted my issue in hopes that others might see if they have the same issue and experiment with those of us that do. I hope that it can be resolved by firmware and is not a hardware issue but if others do not test and report we won't know. I also hope that veterans like RMirlin and CL-Jeremy are reading these posts and might have the answers, I know they are busy so I am patient.
P.S. I have been operating with steady dBm levels on the 5Ghz for the last 2 days, I leave town tomorrow and won't be able to check on it for a while.

 

[SCADAMON]

After doing a little more research I decided to make a couple of changes to my configuration as follows.
5Ghz mode: Auto, bandwidth: 40MHz, Control Chan: 44, WPA2/AES, Tx Power 90 mW. I also changed WMM/APSD to Enabled, I cant remember if I disabled it somewhere along the line or not but noticed it was Enabled on the 2.4Ghz. I figured since I did not have any AC clients no need for 80 MHz bandwidth.
I will report back when I return to town.

 

[mikeg]

I updated to Merlins f/w .23B and had a signal strength of -19 dBm. After a couple of hours the signal strength dropped to -25 dBm. I tried to Apply under Professional settings 5 GHz but instead of getting a stronger signal strength I got a lower signal , -27 dBm . Have Tx setting to 90 mW.

I too have this issue...
I purchased the RT-AC66U H/W Ver. A2 on 11-3-2012 and have been happy with the product for the most part. I have been experiencing an issue with the 5Ghz band, starting with the original Firmware 3.0.0.4.140 all the way through to the current version 3.0.0.4.266. The issue is that the 5Ghz band drops its power down by 20 to 25 dBm after being on the air for anywhere from 2 hours to 3 days. I use inSSIDer to monitor the routers power out in dBm from a fixed location. I have played with the “Tx Power adjustment” and have found that 90mW is the sweat spot, anything above or below this does not give me an increase in range or dBm. From my laptops location, approximately 5meters from the router through 2 walls, I get a -45dBm signal when set to 90mW. This gives me excellent coverage and data rates throughout my house. When I notice the signal level drop on my other devices (anywhere from 2 hours to 3 days) I go and check inSSIDer on my laptop and find that the signal level is down to -70 to -75dBm. I log into the routers “Professional 5Ghz” page and hit “APPLY” without making any other changes and boom the signal jumps back up to -45dBm.
I do not have any issues in the 2.4Ghz band, it is rock solid all of the time.
Current settings:
2.4Ghz mode: Auto, bandwidth: 40MHz, Control Chan: 11u, WPA2/AES, Tx Power 90 mW.
5Ghz mode: Auto, bandwidth: 80MHz, Control Chan: 44, WPA2/AES, Tx Power 90 mW.
Another thing I noticed when using “Asuswrt-Merlin - build 3.0.0.4.264.22 (15-Dec-2012)”, is that I saw no change in temperatures for either radio.

 

[mikeg]

I have drops in signal strength after a couple of hours and then suddenly my signal strength is stroner again , variation between -18 dBm up to - 29 dBm.
Now I have stable without this a stabile signal strength but yesterday when I just hit the Apply on the 5 GHz Proffesional web-ui , tx-power set to 90 mW, it was not a stable signal strength like today. The 2.4 Ghz band does not have this issue. Sometimes I have lost connection on the 5 GHz band and a frequent issue is the variation in connection speed from 300 Mpbs down to 108 Mbps.
I had issues with dropped WAN-link on my Asus NT66U so I tried to RMA and got it replaced 4 times before I switched to the AC66U where I have no problems with this.

I am hoping this can be solved with a firmware update also, otherwise there is always the warranty route. ASUS has always been good hardware (motherboard & Video Card) this is my first router of theirs i have purchased.
I have not lost total connectivity on the 5Ghz band just Signal strength and speed. Again the 2.4Ghz is rock solid as is the WAN connection. My old Linksys was always dropping the WAN link.

 

[njweb]

I am wondering if this 5 GHz drop issue is unique to certain wifi adapters, certain network environments (interference ir very stong signals), certain router settings or a combination of several of these factors since only 3 people are noting it.

I recall having an issue with my Linksys E4200 v1 router when I had it (before getting my N66U and AC66U): The 2.4 GHz signal would degrade and the unit would stop working within a day each time I reset it.
It turned out to be due to my Rosewill wifi LAN utility of all things (like SSIDer in terms of giving me network stats).
I disabled the utility (kept using the adapter) and the problem disappeared.

Just an example but I wanted to illustrate how a problem can affect some and not others and in certain cases have nothing to do with the product experiencing issues.

It may be worth experimenting with different wifi clients, trying wifi adapters in different locations of your residences, turning off some devices in the network, trying different adapter drivers *, disabling network utilities or some programs that access the net etc.
It could be the router but experimenting with other network components in an effort to rule out an issue not due to the router can't hurt (other than the time invested).

If I have the time (one arm is in a cast at the moment) I may unwrap my AC66U this weekend to try.
Part of me is considering holding off though in case this is a router issue and does not get resolved so I can still sell my AC66U as new and stick with my N66U.


* E.g. I experienced much lower wifi throughput after upgrading to Windows 8. I then looked for Windows 8 drivers, found some for my USB adapter's chipset (no package released officially for my actual device), installed the drivers and noticed a huge improvement in performance after going to the Ralink site and getting the latest wifi adapter drivers which Rosewill was not offering [yet]). It worked with the Rosewill drivers (just much slower) so you would not know to upgrade unless you ran speed tests.