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AC86U bad WiFi performance

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Fuze

Occasional Visitor
Hi there,

I'm having a AC86U router which is flashed with the latest AsusWRT firmware and the WiFi performance is pretty bad. I'm not able to watch any fullhd movie/series over WiFi although I've been connected via n-draft with 866MBit/s right 1.5m away from the router! Do you know what causes this bad performance, do I have to customized the settings to get a good WiFi connection or what's the problem - Thank you guys.
 
It's a known issue on the AC86U, the wifi is crippled.
Edit: Turns out, it was Merlin's 384.17 firmware which was buggy, and dropped the speeds drastically.

Which region are you located?
Use 80 mhz for 5 Ghz & select higher channels to see if it improves the speed.

If you're in US or a region where channels 149-165 are available try them.

If you're in Europe try DFS channels.

Also, make sure adaptive Qos is disabled.
Disable IPV6

Under firewall disable ipv6 firewall.


Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
It's a known issue on the AC86U, the wifi is crippled.

This is nonsense. The WiFi is not crippled on an 86U.

OE
 
Hi there,

I'm having a AC86U router which is flashed with the latest AsusWRT firmware and the WiFi performance is pretty bad. I'm not able to watch any fullhd movie/series over WiFi although I've been connected via n-draft with 866MBit/s right 1.5m away from the router! Do you know what causes this bad performance, do I have to customized the settings to get a good WiFi connection or what's the problem - Thank you guys.

You have a good connection... 866 Mbps is a max connection for 2 stream AC.

Something else is affecting your performance. You will have to investigate and narrow it down.

Have you performed speed tests from a wired PC to know what your router and ISP are doing? What ISP speeds is your service provisioned for? What is n-draft? Where are your HD movies stored?

Did you reset the firmware after upgrading it and before configuring it from scratch?

OE
 
Bad wifi performance, bah!
Make sure you are on Asus 384_81858
Use Dual Band SmartConnect
Set 2.4 GHZ to 20 Mhz channel 1, 6 or 11
Set 5 GHZ to 20, 40, 80 MHZ and a fixed channel. I use 36
Do not change any other wifi settings!
I do run QOS, AiProtect and DDNS. I turn off WPS, Samba and Media Server.
The three of us can all watch online streaming at the same time on wifi devices with no issues.
 
This is nonsense. The WiFi is not crippled on an 86U.

OE

Look at this then: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ac86u-awful-router-netgear-wins.44224/#post-376946

Just because you're having good performance doesn't mean that it'll be the same for all. There are lots of threads created here of people complaining about mediocre wireless performance on the AC86U.

Not only on 5 Ghz, but the 2.4 Ghz is slighly effected too. I'm using Merlin's 384.17 firmware and have noticed that my link speed is slightly lower at around 144 mbps on channel 1 (40 mhz), while both my Netgear R7800 & the D-link Dir 882 get me 173 mbps Link speeds on 2.4 Ghz 40 mhz.
 
Last edited:
This is more nonsense. You should stop posting.

OE
You pretty much seem to be biased towards Asus. I don't blame you, cause it works for you.
 
It's a known issue on the AC86U, the wifi is crippled.

Which region are you located?
Use 80 mhz for 5 Ghz & select higher channels to see if it improves the speed.

If you're in US or a region where channels 149-165 are available try them.

If you're in Europe try DFS channels.

Also, make sure adaptive Qos is disabled.
Disable IPV6

Under firewall disable ipv6 firewall.


Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk

I never had a problem with my 86U.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You pretty much seem to be biased towards Asus. I don't blame you, cause it works for you.

There is no reason to tell someone to disable their firewall to fix alleged "crippled WiFi". No one gives that advice here.

OE
 
Not only on 5 Ghz, but the 2.4 Ghz is slighly effected too. I'm using Merlin's 384.17 firmware and have noticed that my link speed is slightly lower at around 144 mbps on channel 1 (40 mhz), while both my Netgear R7800 & the D-link Dir 882 get me 173 mbps Link speeds on 2.4 Ghz 40 mhz.
144 Mbps and 173 Mbps are not valid link speeds for 40 MHz. Those link speeds are only possible at 20 MHz bandwidth.
 
I never had a problem with my 86U.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Which version do you have? Mine is the newer 2019 model.
144 Mbps and 173 Mbps are not valid link speeds for 40 MHz. Those link speeds are only possible at 20 MHz bandwidth.

Ok, what actually worked was changing the wireless mode to auto but keeping the channel to 1 & setting 40 mhz. If I select N only then it's 144 mbps, if I set auto it's 173 mbps. Strange
 
Last edited:
This is nonsense. The WiFi is not crippled on an 86U.

OE

It turns out Merlin's 384.17 is buggy. Using the stock Asus firmware I got the speeds that I wanted.
 
It turns out Merlin's 384.17 is buggy. Using the stock Asus firmware I got the speeds that I wanted.

Well, that is the 2nd confession today that the Asus firmware on the AC86U works well. Don't say 384.17 is buggy. Just not as good as 384.81858. Merlin 384.18 alpha 1 has been reported as better than 384.17.
 
Well, that is the 2nd confession today that the Asus firmware on the AC86U works well. Don't say 384.17 is buggy. Just not as good as 384.81858. Merlin 384.18 alpha 1 has been reported as better than 384.17.
My main goal is to achieve close to 532 mbps which I doubt I'll ever get on wifi.

But today it was much better, after loading the Asus 384.81858.

Do you think 384.18 alpha is going to be any better than original 384.8158 firmware in performance especially on wifi?

Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk
 
My main goal is to achieve close to 532 mbps which I doubt I'll ever get on wifi.

But today it was much better, after loading the Asus 384.81858.

Do you think 384.18 alpha is going to be any better than original 384.8158 firmware in performance especially on wifi?

Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk
No, as for now the 384.18 Alpha is based on two versions prior to 384_81858
 
Now the speeds are much better, seems like the culprit was a setting known as " T x Bursting" , after disabling it, wifi speeds are much faster, It might benefit OP too. In fact, I would say it is perfect now.

Found few suggestions from here: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/wireless-professional-settings.24251/page-2

Might help most of the people having wifi issues.

After Disabling Tx Bursting the speeds are maxing out my connection, here are some screenshots:

Asus AC86U wifi speedtest-1.png
Asus AC86U wifi speedtest-2.png
Nighthawk router built-in speedtest.png


The "Speed test Powered" is my main router's speed which is what my Isp gives me, and the other speed tests are of AC86U. Tests were performed through LG G7+.
 
OP,
1. Sounds like an interference issue of some sort.
2. You are less than 10 feet from the router. Why not do a hard line?
3. If the distance from the router was increased, is the problem still there?
 

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