asus 3100 going bad, whats a good replacement for less than $200

[sparks]

a while back it locked up and only a full reset and flash of original bios fixed it. Now about every 2 or 3 minutes it looses connection on all ports, it last about 4 or 5 seconds. I switched to an old netgear and no problems so it must be the router. I guess its time to find a replacement.

 

[wouterv]

RT-AC68U or one of it's variants.

 

[dosborne]

Assuming you have followed the "nuclear reset" posted elsewhere in the forum's to rule out the possibility of recovering the router, I'd say go for the RT-AC86U. If you get a deal it should be just at, or slightly above your $200 limit (depends on if that is U.S. currency or other of course). The performance will be superior to the RT-AC68U, which is probably your best bet if the 86 is out of your price range.

Ultimately it also depends on any features you may require, performance, services (VPN, etc) that you may run, etc

 

[L&LD]

Nuclear Reset? What to try before buying a new router or doing an RMA.

Nuclear Reset https://www.snbforums.com/threads/major-issues-w-rt-ac86u.56342/page-4#post-495710

 

[sparks]

I noticed something else, every few seconds the router was checking for a firmware update.
I followed your suggestion, reset it and flashed with newest merlin.
Seems to be working again. Will watch it and see if I get the same problems again.

Thank you all very much for your help and suggestions.
And it didn't cost a thing to try.

 

[OzarkEdge]

a while back it locked up and only a full reset and flash of original bios fixed it. Now about every 2 or 3 minutes it looses connection on all ports, it last about 4 or 5 seconds. I switched to an old netgear and no problems so it must be the router. I guess its time to find a replacement.

Amazon US is selling the 86U for $155 today:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0752FD3XJ/?tag=snbforums-20

OE

 

[CaptnDanLKW]

I saw that deal and purchased one a couple days ago. One day shipping means I'm about 24 hours into using it. Running Merlin 384.13.
I took my older AC68U and set up AI Mesh, with Ethernet backhaul. So far so good.

HW Stats: Rev 1.5
MFG: China, Year:2019

From what I've read I'm glad I got a 2019 version, since there's anecdotal evidence that 2018 built models tend to have a slightly higher failure rate of the 2.4GHz radio.

I have already experienced the failed to reboot twice - where you have to power it off with the button for it to come back on. It does surprise me Asus has not bumped the Rev and fixed it.

 

[CaptainSTX]

I saw that deal and purchased one a couple days ago. One day shipping means I'm about 24 hours into using it. Running Merlin 384.13.
I took my older AC68U and set up AI Mesh, with Ethernet backhaul. So far so good.

HW Stats: Rev 1.5
MFG: China, Year:2019

From what I've read I'm glad I got a 2019 version, since there's anecdotal evidence that 2018 built models tend to have a slightly higher failure rate of the 2.4GHz radio.

I have already experienced the failed to reboot twice - where you have to power it off with the button for it to come back on. It does surprise me Asus has not bumped the Rev and fixed it.

Any router and particularly the AC86 be sure to set up the ability to SSH into the router. It can be handy to have the option to command line reboot the router and if necessary as well as restart the Web GUI.

 

[CaptnDanLKW]

The failed reboot I'm referring to is the one where the shutdown (appears) is complete, power LED goes dark and never comes back. I agree enabling SSH is part of the core to-dos when configuring, but in this case that wont work.

For me this is not that big a deal, I never reboot unless I have physical access to the device, but for others it could be an issue rolling the remote reboot dice.