AC68U not operating at full WAN downlink speed

[GeckoCH]

Dear Forum

I own the AC68U since a couple of weeks and it gives me an annoying issue:

Once powered up, the router starts at it should, all services work, connections work, wired as well wireless. Hoewever, I encounter frequently (not always) the is issue with the connection speed to the Cablemodem. Once powered up the router will not operate with full downlink speed of to the internet of 70 Mbit/s, but only 1-2 Mbit/s. My uplink is 10 Mbit/s and always 10 Mbit/s. Only after a reboot, the AC68U does go up to 70 Mbit/s.

Coming from the AC66U where I never encountered this problem. I am running ASUS Merlin (as all the years before), but no matter if ASUS Vanilla or ASUS Merlin, the issue persists. Connecting my old Linksys will not result in this issue and also my previous AC66U does not have the problem.

Thanks for any hints. I am about to return this and order an AC86U as replacement, but first want to know, if it is an issue with the unit or maybe some other incompabilities.

Brdgs
Tim

 

[joegreat]

Make sure that you use a CAT 5e or CAT 6 compliant cable between the router and the modem - some routers have issues with older cable standards.

 

[GeckoCH]

Thanks Joe, cables are CAT 5e or CAT 6. Maybe cable has an issue, I wait for a replacement cable to come this week, however since the previous model had no issues I wonder if this just a "cable" thing...

 

[st3v3n]

GeckoCH, are you using openvpn tunnels, or is your traffic routed to WAN and your ISP? If your ISP is throttling your traffic, depending on what's going in/out of your router and machine, there are many settings in your router that could account for the slow down in your bandwidth. Your firewall can sometimes create such issues, as you're probably aware.

Even if all the settings in your firewall, router and/or openvpn configurations are set as they should be, you may have full speed for a while, but then gradually slows to a crawl as you describe. It's enough to have you pulling your hair, if you have hair

I agree with joegreat on having quality, new cables. We use Cat7 on our network, since it's not much more expensive than CAT6e in our area. CAT6-6e will work great with your router. Depending on your location, type of service (cable/DSL) and your ISP/VPN provider's servers and loads,you should have a fast connection.

Try to be sure that no one else has accessed your service from the outside, or inside. Beware, there is some extremely new and extremely nasty malware making the rounds. It's creating havoc around the globe. Try to be certain your firewall, A/V or other security software is configured to alert you if something happens that shouldn't, and update it daily if possible. If you aren't using your system overnight/when you're away, you may want to consider powering it down safely, in sequence, to prevent anything bad from going in or out. You'll save on electricity, too (just a suggestion).

Your description brought back a memory of what happened to a friend, 20 years ago. True story, not a pre-halloween joke.

My friend/neighbor had just purchased an an insanely expensive new system, new cable modem, graphic arts monitor, and a no-name router, that was more of a cheap hub, no firewall. The local cable TV company had just come out with broadband; a 20-megabit down plan which was quite expensive. Before that time, everyone in the area had dial-up service only. I'd recently moved back from an urban area where high-speed broadband had been in wide use for at least two years. Within a few days, my neighbor complained that his new PC was broken, that the 'little red blinking light' on the system was keeping him awake all night. My first thought was, "Uh-Oh." The ISP's tech was busy checking cables and the modem when I got there, so I watched and waited. The tech was clear that he wasn't there to work on the PC, then got up, shook his head and left with a strange look on his face.

Very few could afford the new broadband service and fewerknew what a firewall or anti-virus software was, much less how to configure it to be useful. The neighbor had been hacked; criminals had set up a heavily visited porn site on his computer. Even in those days, serious attention from authorities could've resulted. I advised my friend that it would be best to immediatly go offline and securely wipe the HDD, then contact his vendor for replacment under his full-service warranty, as there was no local service center. The received a new system, then his vendor allowed him to hire me to set up a firewall and security software. I advised hiim to ditch AOL and to invest in a better router that had a built-in firewall.

These days, we have good quality Asus routers and can choose RMerlin's firmware. The bad guys are worse now than they were, and it will always be so. Here's hoping nothing like that is going on with your router or system, and that your bandwidth returns when you replace your cables. Also hope I didn't bore you, and good luck!

 

[GeckoCH]

Hi Steven, thanks for this detailed report. I think this is some kind of hardware issue. There is no throtteling in the local network itself, data is copied at full speed of around 100 MB/s.

The issue is also replicable, after each powercycle this problem occurs. Download is low at 1-2 mbit/s, Upload is at 9 mbit/s. After reboot of the AC68U download is at 70 mbit/s and stable for the rest of the session (can be hours). It is not depending on device, laptop/desktop even iPhones/iPad will stuck at 1-2 mbit/s after powercycle, after reboot it is at full speed of 70 mbit/s.

Cables are about 1 year old, some CAT7 tagged cables from Amazon, these work on the previous WRT54GL without flaw as well as my old AC66U. I wait now for a replacement cable to arrive tomorrow. Still not sure, if probably the AC68U is broker or the ISP Cablemodem is about to resign duty. I also will reattached the AC66U tomorrow and check if issue persists. Fact is, that issues showed up some days after the AC68U took over the network.

Hardware: AC68U wired to Thomson THG571 to Cable Outlet.

 

[st3v3n]

GeckoCH, That's so frustrating; sorry for so much detail, it does sound like your router is at fault. I was convinced our AC3200 was dying, and kept after it for too long, until it finally resolved, but wouldn't do it again. If the modem was at fault, your other routers would crawl like the new unit, sorry I missed that. I never had a router exhibit such speed problems that cropped up on ours, after a year of flawless service, and now it's back to normal. If hardware doesn't fail in the first month or two, it will likely never give you any trouble until the day it fails. You probably caught a bad unit off from production line, and are right to return it immediately for a new replacement.

Our ISP had been having service related incidents a while back. You'd think they'd tell customers, but they didn't. Our speed/bandwidth was alternately good, then erratic/. At times it seemed backwards, ie, twice upload what should be download. Our system is powered down nightly, so starts fresh each day with nothing in memory. Hints from these forums and elsewhere always help me figure this and other trivial router issues. The last incident had me ready to replace the router under warranty. The things I list below helped me get ours where it should be, not counting the period of the ISP's issues. I'd never spend that kind of time on it again. The things we learn during the process is what help us move forward.

When the ISP service issues were finally resolved, I verified our backup router had no similar speed issues, and worked from one computer with a tablet to verify settings. A user who reported similar backwards speeds tried reversing their down/up settings, their router had somehow reversed the up to read as down, end of their problem. I used a variation of that, set the up/down speed to the same number, then doubled it to what it should be if there were no router after the modem. If the raw speed was 50 megabits down, I then set both up and down speed both to read 100 megabits. Since nothing else had worked to that point, I had nothing to lose, and didn't expect it to do anything. After I saved, removed power to the router, then refreshed my openvpn config, the speed returned to what it should've been normally. There's no reason at all that it should've worked, but it did.

Later problems involved time/date issues which severely impacted bandwidth and openvpn tunnel speed. I disabled anything that took up a spare cycle. No QoS, no Trend Micro; bandwidth was set to 100% up and down for the computer and tablet. Then, I turned off TSP, which I'd never done. I read an obscure article on it and since ours isn't a large or intricate LAN, figured it couldn't make things much worse. It wasn't a drastic change, but it made a difference. The time server wasn't reporting time lookups correctly, and DST dates were way off. The speed was still at a crawl before those were reset correctly Increasing requests in the log for time updates kept the tunnel failing, and got me thinking in a differnt direction. I changed from the pool to a single tier 1 server, in the same are where the openvpn tunnel exited and never had further time worries. Openvpn tunnel speed and bandwidth was right back to normal; no other problems have come up with the 3200. Please ignore if any of this has no bearing, and here's hoping you get a 100% good replacement for your unit.