Asus RT-AC56U - Very New to This

[Boonasty33]

Hi everybody! I just purchased a brand new ASUS RT-AC56U and I am loving it! After reading a lot of mixed reviews on this awesome site and forum, and hearing people had problems with the 2.4 GHz band, I was convinced of the device's value and decided to take the plunge.

I installed the router about an hour ago, and I'm receiving good speeds on both the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz all around my house, but I was wondering if it was as good as I possibly could be getting. That's why I am asking: are there any tweaks recommended for this router for either band? I am very new to the small net builder scene, my last router was an old Linksys 802.11 G router that was not nearly as feature-laden.

The only tweak I have currently made to the router is I set the 5 GHz band to channel 161, and the 2.4 GHz to channel 8. Both of these, especially the 5 GHz channel change, seemed to help the WiFi signal strength. Both bands have WPA2-Personal security enabled.

I am using a Mid-2009 Macbook Pro 15" 2.66 GHz, and for my speed tests I was using speedtest.net and the application iStumbler.

One oddity I've found is that even in the room next to where the router is, the 2.4 band is actually STRONGER than the 5. Is this normal??? I would have thought that the 5 GHz would have a stronger signal, maybe this is the hardware in the router? In speedtest.net challenge the speeds were about 5 mbps faster on the 5 GHz band.

Thank you guys!!

 

[Pierino]

The 2.4ghz is stronger. It can travel further and is impeded less by obstacles.

 

[theveterans]

2.4 Ghz is definitely stronger even if the RSSI is equal on 5 GHz especially through walls.

One of my tips is to increase the Tx power of the 5 GHz to 100 mw while reduce 2.4 GHz tx power to 40 mw if there's interference with 2.4 GHz at your location.

On my location with 2 walls between router and laptop, I get both 2.4 and 5 to have a RSSI of -51 dbm but the 2.4 GHz band gives 5 bars when connected while 5 GHz only gets 4 bars. This is definitely due to lower Tx power of my laptop on 5 GHz compared to the router as well as weaker wall penetration of 5 GHz band. Without connecting to the router at all, both 2.4 and 5 Ghz show 5 bars with 2 walls. In short, both clients and router need high Tx power to get long range.