JGrana
Very Senior Member
While waiting for Asus to come out with an updated AX88U router supporting at least one 2.5Gb Ethernet port, I saw this article:
I was using Bonding/Link Aggregation between my AX88U and Qnap TS-453D. The TS-453D supports 2.5Gb Ethernet and/or Link Aggregation.
I decided to give it a go.
Picked up one of the RTL8156B USB 3 dongles (must be B version) from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088N74HBY/?tag=snbforums-20
Renjie makes it pretty easy. He does great in describing each step and, even better, has the required r8152 driver module already compiled for the AX88U's kernel. Also has some tools (iperf3 and ethtool) compiled. I installed the Entware versions (ethtool-full).
I did have some race issues with his init-start and services-start scripts. I created a hybrid and added it to services-start. Seems to work on reboot reliably (now).
The performance increase has been dramatic. Here is the output from iperf3 and a "dd" test. One bonded, the other using the USB RTL8156B device:
Roughly 2.5X faster. Well worth the $30 and hours work!
Towards 2.5GbE (NBASE-T) on ASUS RT-AX88U with RTL8156B and Asuswrt-Merlin 384.19
The lack of integrated 2.5GbE port makes ASUS RT-AX88U less powerful in my mind, especially when taking its processor BCM49408, which natively supports 2.5GbE, into account. The game however has changed, after I managed to finally reveal the full potential of AX88U with Realtek’s USB-based...
wu.renjie.im
I was using Bonding/Link Aggregation between my AX88U and Qnap TS-453D. The TS-453D supports 2.5Gb Ethernet and/or Link Aggregation.
I decided to give it a go.
Picked up one of the RTL8156B USB 3 dongles (must be B version) from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088N74HBY/?tag=snbforums-20
Renjie makes it pretty easy. He does great in describing each step and, even better, has the required r8152 driver module already compiled for the AX88U's kernel. Also has some tools (iperf3 and ethtool) compiled. I installed the Entware versions (ethtool-full).
I did have some race issues with his init-start and services-start scripts. I created a hybrid and added it to services-start. Seems to work on reboot reliably (now).
The performance increase has been dramatic. Here is the output from iperf3 and a "dd" test. One bonded, the other using the USB RTL8156B device:
Roughly 2.5X faster. Well worth the $30 and hours work!