5Ghz Stops Broadcasting on Merlin 380.68_2 and above - AC3100

[e38BimmerFN]

I'd give RTNs settings a try on your current FW and see if any thing helps.

puff my profesional settings are totally diferent like you

 

[DAVIZINHO]

Now i copy this professional settings and apply. I tell you the results
I cant flash now with other firmware because if i disconect the 2.4wifi my wife kill me

 

[e38BimmerFN]

Hope maybe new setting will help out.

 

[webgrease]

Are you hiding the SSID broadcast? I have a vague recollection of something similar when the SSID was hidden.

I did for many years, until it became apparent that the downsides of hiding the SSID outweigh the advantages from a security perspective. For the purposes of this issue, SSID is not hidden and hasn't been.

 

[RMerlin]

Hiding SSIDs just need to die, it's a completely useless feature that only leads to false sentiments of security. It does absolutely nothing for security, and the latest Windows 10 releases will even show them as "Hidden network" in the AP list.

 

[webgrease]

Been up and running with no issues for just under 24 hours now. While it is still too early to "call it", lets assume that the singular setting of changing from 20/40/80 to 40MHz is the "fix" for the issue where a router stops broadcasting the 5GHz signal on recent Merlin builds. If that is true, it leads to the following questions:

1) Why is this issue present on recent builds of Merlin? (i.e. 380.66_6 and above tested)
2) Why is the issue NOT present on official Asus firmware?
3) Why is the issue NOT present on Merlin 380.66_4? (needs to be retested to confirm)
4) Why does changing from the default setting of 20/40/80 to 40MHz fix the issue?
5) What do we lose by eliminating 20MHz and 80MHz bands?
6) What is the root cause of the issue?
7) How can it be fixed?

Hoping Merlin can provide some insight here.

For those of you that provided the tips on what settings to test, thank you! Also, it would be beneficial if you all could revert all but the forced 40MHz setting to rule out the impact of the other settings (Universal Beamforming and forcing a Control Channel).

 

[webgrease]

I'm using 380.68_2 on my AC3100 and it has been rock solid. It's the most stable version ever for AC3100 for me.

You've got some variables in play that are relevant to the issue at hand - forcing a Control Channel instead of Auto and completely disabling 2.4GHz (untested on this thread). If you enabled 2.4GHz and changed Control Channel back to the default setting of Auto, it would be interesting to see how long your 5GHz signal is being broadcast.

 

[eclp]

I have no dropouts in the 5Ghz (80MHz) band on the AC88U with 380.68_4.
However, the signal quality in the 2.4Ghz (40MHz) range fluctuates significantly, measured with WifiInfoView, 2.27.

 

[martywd]

Just stumbled upon this thread when reading ==> https://www.snbforums.com/threads/w...rks-being-disabled-something-is-broken.41557/

FWIW, last week and ~12 hours after updating from 380.68_2 to 380.68_4 on my RT-AC88U my 5 Ghz radio started 'dropping out', too.

At first I figured the upgrade to 380.68_4 was to blame. So I flashed back to 380.68_2. Still the issue persisted with the 5 Ghz radio intermittently 'dropping'. Power down the RT-AC88U, unplugged. Waited. Plugged the router back 'in', power on, after a short time 5 Ghz radio still 'dropping'. At that point I pondered doing a factory reset and starting anew...

But then as a last resort before doing a 'factory reset'... I clicked on the 5 Ghz Wireless-Professional tab, set the 'Enable Radio' _radio_button_ to 'Off', click 'Apply'. Then reset the 5 Ghz 'Enable Radio' to 'On' and 'Apply' again. Rebooted. After that the 5 Ghz radio seemed stable once again.

Finallly, flashed again to 380.68_4, reboot once more. As of today, the RT-AC88U has been 'up' now for '3 days 17 hours 55 minute(s)...' with _no_further_issues_ with the 5 Ghz radio (knocking on wood).

As already typed, fwiw.
.

 

[DAVIZINHO]

I'm using 380.68_2 on my AC3100 and it has been rock solid. It's the most stable version ever for AC3100 for me.

with this settings i drop de 5ghz again :-(

 

[bnhf]

Just thought I'd throw this out there for those of you having problems with 5GHz WiFi:

Several of us were having very similar problems on the RT-AC66U and RT-AC68U a month or more ago. Like many of you, I was convinced the problem was related to specific versions of AsusWRT-Merlin. I was going back and forth between Asus stock and Merlin, and my testing seemed to point to Merlin firmware. Only 5GHz would drop out, 2.4GHz was always rock-solid.

Ultimately, however, this turned out to be a power supply problem. The power supply I was using had a slightly loose fitting connector on the router side. Once I switched power supplies, the problem disappeared! Obviously, no guarantee that this is the issue for a few of you on the AC3100 -- but it's certainly worth eliminating as a possibility. I'm attaching a previous thread where you can see this problem was solved for people on the other Asus models I mentioned.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ac66u-5ghz-radio-death.41025/#post-347656

 

[DAVIZINHO]

Just stumbled upon this thread when reading ==> https://www.snbforums.com/threads/w...rks-being-disabled-something-is-broken.41557/

FWIW, last week and ~12 hours after updating from 380.68_2 to 380.68_4 on my RT-AC88U my 5 Ghz radio started 'dropping out', too.

At first I figured the upgrade to 380.68_4 was to blame. So I flashed back to 380.68_2. Still the issue persisted with the 5 Ghz radio intermittently 'dropping'. Power down the RT-AC88U, unplugged. Waited. Plugged the router back 'in', power on, after a short time 5 Ghz radio still 'dropping'. At that point I pondered doing a factory reset and starting anew...

But then as a last resort before doing a 'factory reset'... I clicked on the 5 Ghz Wireless-Professional tab, set the 'Enable Radio' _radio_button_ to 'Off', click 'Apply'. Then reset the 5 Ghz 'Enable Radio' to 'On' and 'Apply' again. Rebooted. After that the 5 Ghz radio seemed stable once again.

Finallly, flashed again to 380.68_4, reboot once more. As of today, the RT-AC88U has been 'up' now for '3 days 17 hours 55 minute(s)...' with _no_further_issues_ with the 5 Ghz radio (knocking on wood).

As already typed, fwiw.
.

not a solution for me. i try today and drops again the 5ghz

 

[e38BimmerFN]

Have you gone back to v380.66_4 yet?

not a solution for me. i try today and drops again the 5ghz

 

[RedBatman89]

I have noticed that randomly my 5ghz will drop too but only for a few secs.

 

[bsdsource]

I've had an RT-AC3100 since October 2016 and have been using asuswrt-merlin firmware without any issues. I build my own custom firmware from asuswrt-merlin source code and use the default wireless settings (build 380.66_4). I'm using a cooler with my router which droped my wireless and CPU temperatures considerably. Now it would seem that the issue is possibly RMerlin specific based on what I've read in this thread.

If you look t the source code changes RMerlin has made between build 380.68_2 and 380.68_4 there's really not much that's changed. Although, I think everyone should be using the 380.68_4 since it includes and updated dnsmasq which patched several exploits.

Anyways, I think there might be other processes that each of you might be running on whatever RMerlin build you are using that could potentially be causing this 5GHz loss phenomenon. Seems like Asus stock firmware doesn't have the issue. To narrow down the problem you might want to discuss which services you using such as QOS, VPN, Tor, SSH, etc.

Again, my router is rock solid but also I have eliminated a lot of unnecessary services from my build.

 

[DAVIZINHO]

Have you gone back to v380.66_4 yet?

i change to 80mhz yesterday, and its stable. I keep this configuration, and if drops again, i change the firmware to v380.66_4
Its dificult change the firmware because my wife use the 2.4ghz and i need stay alone at home to make the downgrade

@azdps I only use QOS and SSH, no more services

 

[webgrease]

Up and running now for 51+ hours with no issue. Since this uptime is twice as long as any previous time frame before 5GHz stopped broadcasting, I think I'm going to call it and state that the fix appears to be changing 20/40/80 to 40MHz. This matches the conclusion reached by @ScottW , @JMB64, @herrdude , @bandit8623 , and is one of the variables that fixed it for @Kruegs.

I didn't see any response to the issue in other threads from @RMerlin , so I'll shoot him a direct message.

 

[Kruegs]

That's awesome... good work narrowing it down to that specific item. Now the question becomes, why is 40MHz fixed the solution? We'll see if Merlin has any ideas.

 

[jim769]

Strange i have mine set to 80 mhz and have never had one single issue.

 

[webgrease]

Strange i have mine set to 80 mhz and have never had one single issue.

Your signature line indicates you're running the official Asus firmware. Is that the case?