Asus AC86u & AC66u AiMesh Slow Speeds

[spectron2k]

Hi, first time poster here.

I currently have an AC86u as a main router, and an AC68u as a AiMesh node (wireless backhaul as wired is not possible). The AC86u is unfortunately in probably the worst place it could be, being downstairs in the extreme corner of a 1000 sq ft house, but there is nowhere else it can go without messing with wiring as that's where the modem is. This caused dead zones on the other side of the house upstairs, which is why the AC68u is a node for upstairs, more centrally. I just upgraded to virgin media gigabit speeds, and connecting directly to the virgin hub I'm getting almost 1000 Mbps. When connecting a playstation (wired) to the main hub I'm getting about 800-900 Mbps, which is perfectly fine for me. Most of the speed tests I've done upstairs, tested wirelessly through either hub, i’m only just getting 100 Mbps. Right now I'm on a laptop upstairs in the next room to the AC68u node about 10ft away from it on the other side of the wall, and I'm getting 102 Mbps on 2.4 ghz and about 37 Mbps on 5ghz. I know there will be a drop off, but didn’t think it would be that harsh. Is this normal or am i doing something wrong?

 

[bbunge]

First, is it an AC66U_B1?
What does the connection Quality in AiMesh tell you? What is the PHY Transmit and Receive rate?
You may need to connect the node with Ethernet or move it closer to the root router.
This is a case where you may need to turn off the Dual Band SmartConnect in the AC86U and use separate SSID's for 2.4 and 5 GHz. Make sure you upgrade the firmware on both the router and Node.
There is an Asus Beta firmware for the AC86U you may want to try.

F.Y.I. I have both an AC86U and an AC66U_B1 and I did a test a week ago like your setup. Worked quite well!

 

[Tech9]

First, is it an AC66U_B1?

It has to be, @bbunge. The original MIPS RT-AC66U doesn’t support AiMesh.

 

[L&LD]

Sounds like the laptop was connecting to the main router, not the node?

 

[spectron2k]

Thanks for the responses. I had an error in the original post which i’ve updated now. The node is a 68u, not a 66u. To answer some of the questions:

How do i check the PHY Transmit and Receive rate?
I’ve never had smart connect on so my SSID for 2.4 & 5 show seperately.

The connection quality between the nodes is showing great (solid green line).

I checked the laptop afterwards and it was connected to the upstairs node rather than the main router, which makes sense as it was closet one to the laptop.