AC-BE86U AIMesh poor performance back-haul link to RT-AC86U

[Matt Storr]

BE86U running 3006.102.5 connected to a AC86U 3004.386.14_2 using AIMesh and 5Ghz as the backhaul. They are situated almost above each other in the top bedroom (top of stairs) and my office (bottom of stairs office). Everything connected ok but I noticed that even though the backhaul link had a -58SNR/Great connection, the speed was only 14Mbits. Anyone connected to the AC86U would have really poor wifi performance whereas anyone on the BE86U it was over 600Mb. Tried optimising but no difference. Randomly I switched off the 2.4Ghz radio on the BE86U and after re-optimisation, the link PHY speed jumped to 1300Mbps and everyone was getting good speeds no matter what router you were connected to. However, it now means no one can connect on 2.4Ghz downstairs which isnt optimal. Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening?

Thanks.

 

[degrub]

Turn off your 2.4 GHz radio. Use an AP at low power if you have to have it downstairs. You likely have too much power on the 2.4 GHz band or too much interference from neighbors.
you may be better off dumping the AC unit to recycle and replacing it with the same BE unit as upstairs.

 

[Tech9]

Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening?

Test with latest available stock Asuswrt on both routers and see what happens.

 

[bbunge]

The AC86U will limit the BE86U to 80 MHz on the 5 GHz band. Use Dual Band SmartConnect, set the 5 GHz to 80 MHz, the 2.4 GHz to 20 MHz, flash the AC86U with Asus firmware and do not change any of the AiMesh settings. Or get another supported unit to replace the AC86U.

 

[Tech9]

The AC86U will limit the BE86U to 80 MHz on the 5 GHz band.

I have done tests with RT-AX86U set at 160MHz channel with wireless node RT-AC86U. Clients connected to RT-AX86U were using 160MHz bandwidth and clients connected to RT-AC86U were obviously limited to 80MHz. The limitation is for the node only, but not for the main router. Not sure why you always warn the users about limitation that doesn't actually exist.

 

[bbunge]

I have done tests with RT-AX86U set at 160MHz channel with wireless node RT-AC86U. Clients connected to RT-AX86U were using 160MHz bandwidth and clients connected to RT-AC86U were obviously limited to 80MHz. The limitation is for the node only, but not for the main router. Not sure why you always warn the users about limitation that doesn't actually exist.

Because my testing with an AX86U Pro and an AX86U with either an AC86U or AC66U B1 AiMesh node did set the router 5 GHz bandwidth to 80 MHz. Granted, I had the router set at 20-40-80-160 MHz but forcing the 5 GHz to 160 MHz is not. good idea anyway.

 

[Tech9]

Perhaps RT-AC66U B1 was playing a role since it doesn't support DFS channels. Not sure, old devices.

 

[Ripshod]

Asus would prefer us all to log in to the gui over https. They claim it's more secure, but in reality how much does Internal security matter to you?
You don't need to download the certificate as long as it's valid, it'll automatically be served to your browser if you login over https/8443