AC86U reboots itself when using TM, 2.4GHz band disappears randomly

[Chris_J]

Hello all,

A couple of problems have developed with my AC86U, running 384.14_2.

Firstly, I have a USB pen drive plugged into the USB 2.0 port, which hosts the swap file and Entware packages. In the USB 3.0 port, I have a SSD drive in a drive enclosure that I was using to run Time Machine backups over the network. Recently, it seems that when a backup is running, it triggers the router to completely shutdown and reboot. I've tried formatting the drive and starting the backups again, but the problem persists.

The other issue I'm experiencing is with the 2.4GHz WiFi band. I've read that this router can suffer from a faulty 2.4 chip, but the symptoms of this appear to be a completely dead network, which is not the case for me. It seems to randomly have started to drop in and out. I use YazFi and have several 2.4 guest networks, which all disappear at once, then reappear. The system log will be flooded with deauth errors as the clients try to reconnect. Hard rebooting the router sorts it out for some time, then it starts dropping out again.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

 

[miroco]

Two things comes to mind.

1. Is the SSD bus powered or powered by a separate power brick?

2. Interference between USB3 and the 2.4 GHz spectrum.

https://uk.pcmag.com/networking-3/13179/wireless-witch-the-truth-about-usb-30-and-wi-fi-interference

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/ac86u-sometimes-powers-completely-off-during-reboot.48296/

 

[Chris_J]

The SSD is being powered by the bus. However, I have the option to power it via a separate source. I've tried this also and still get the reboots when thrashing the drive. I'm guessing that there must still be some sort of power problem here?

Regarding the interference issue, that's a shame. I've tried switching the port to 2.0 but it fails to detect the drive at all then.