AC5300 - Bought the Beast - Anyone using Smart Connect ? No Merlin ?

[Curado Kev]

Well decided to upgrade from AC-68 to AC-5300. my first disappointment is that with the 3.0.0.4_380.3341 I cannot install Merlin .59 so that sucks ! Hopefully that gets fixed soon

Other then that, this router is nice and I get the build where the antennas are pretty solid, I setup settings using 3 SSID's and Password being the same as seen in another post. Which has resulted in alot of my AC devices on the 2.4 ghz channels. May have to make the 2.4 channels one SSID and keep AC on the another SSID but I bought this to use one SSID....so smart connect ?

Is anyone using Smart Connect ? and does anybody understand the "Smart Connect List" ? The manual is a joke on descriptions and how to adjust.

I like it but I know I have alot of testing and playing this weekend to optimize the beast !

 

[pete y testing]

May have to make the 2.4 channels one SSID and keep AC on the another SSID but I bought this to use one SSID....so smart connect ?

how i see it is the issue is how the wireless adapter report their status and how that effects how smart connect deals with them , i have a wireless AC tp link T8E that just connects to 2.4 gig in smart connect because its not reporting correctly

Is anyone using Smart Connect ? and does anybody understand the "Smart Connect List" ? The manual is a joke on descriptions and how to adjust.

there is a blog on the smb web site on how to setup smart connect

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...us-rt-ac3200-smart-connect-the-missing-manual

its for the 3200 but the theory is the same

reality i gave up on smart connect for now and just set different ssid names so i can manually point my adapter to the band i want

 

[Curado Kev]

I'll mess with for a few more days, but don't like the fact my devices: Ipad always ends up on 5 ghz, Iphone 6 always ends up on 2.4 ghz - so I may just end making separate channel SSID. Not thrilled about it but I may just rename the 5G-2 channel and use that for my 3 devices. Then leave 2.4 and 5G-1 channels for family - they don't care enough.

It will be nice when Merlin FW gets around the ASUS block, that may help too. Thanks for your help...

PS _ Thanks for Smart Connect post..I missed that

 

[yorgi]

I'll mess with for a few more days, but don't like the fact my devices: Ipad always ends up on 5 ghz, Iphone 6 always ends up on 2.4 ghz - so I may just end making separate channel SSID. Not thrilled about it but I may just rename the 5G-2 channel and use that for my 3 devices. Then leave 2.4 and 5G-1 channels for family - they don't care enough.

It will be nice when Merlin FW gets around the ASUS block, that may help too. Thanks for your help...

PS _ Thanks for Smart Connect post..I missed that

You should separate your SSID to be different names for 2.4 and for the 5ghz
this way you connect to the 2.4 or 5ghz once and then you forget about it.
You will end up in problems if you use the same SSID for both channels its not recommended.
Every device that you have should be on 5 ghz unless its a smart phone.
5 ghz is better performance even at weak signals and its full duplex where the router can handle more then one client at the same time in comparison to a 2.4 that can handle on one client at a time per antenna.

 

[Curado Kev]

Thanks Yorgi -- I will have to do that and your thoughts confirm it. I did find out that my 5G signal with my 68R-AC1900 Asus never went pass my garage. With the 5300, that range is 30 yards down my driveway to mailbox and another 60-70 yards on angle to corner of front yard. Range is increased by 2-4X and I took 5 laptops running all HD youtube streaming and 1st core hit 13% and 2nd core was 0. I need to buy new toys for my house because this router can handle a ton of wifi toys....Also have Comcast 80mb/12 mb upload.

Great router and will be better when I get Merlin on there....Thanks everyone...

 

[L&LD]

Thanks Yorgi -- I will have to do that and your thoughts confirm it. I did find out that my 5G signal with my 68R-AC1900 Asus never went pass my garage. With the 5300, that range is 30 yards down my driveway to mailbox and another 60-70 yards on angle to corner of front yard. Range is increased by 2-4X and I took 5 laptops running all HD youtube streaming and 1st core hit 13% and 2nd core was 0. I need to buy new toys for my house because this router can handle a ton of wifi toys....Also have Comcast 80mb/12 mb upload.

Great router and will be better when I get Merlin on there....Thanks everyone...

That is some impressive improvement over the RT-AC68 model.

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt...mware-fibre-and-ipv6-a-beautiful-combo.33007/


In the thread above, I was detailing my experience with certain upgrades over the past few months. In that thread, I stated that I wanted to test against an RT-AC3100 or an RT-AC5300, when I was able to.

Could you please do a few tests for me?

What is the cpu load when you are downloading at your maximum? And when you are uploading at your maximum?

Just want to get a feeling of how much I should expect if/when I am able to buy (or at least test) a newer router than an RT-AC68U (800MHz cpu, dual) to an RT-ACXXXX (1.4GHz cpu, dual) and double the ram.

Thanks for anything you may be able to provide.

The sites I used were:

http://www.speedtest.net/

and

http://speedtest.dslreports.com/


I had one browser window open on the router's main page and another window with one of the above. I could see both browser windows while the speed tests were running.

Looking forward to seeing your results if you are able to do so for me. Thanks again.

 

[Phoenix]

With Smart Connect, I am connected to the 2.4 GHz most of the time on my laptop which has a Killer-AC 1535 WLAN Card. Smart Connect was buggy since the AC3200 and it still is, but at least now it doesn't cause disconnections on my device but it doesn't connect to the 5 GHz band always