ASUS RT-AC66U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.372

[DaveMishSr]

This makes logical sense.

But when I've changed the Tx power on the router, I haven't been able to create the "megaphone" effect at all. I've played with it pretty exhaustively, monitoring signal strength in various locations around my house with inSSIDer while changing Tx levels.

I have never seen ANY increase in signal strength when going higher than the default 80 mW on either 2.4 or 5 GHz. I do see signal strength fall when going below 80, though.

So, obviously, I've just left it at 80 mW on both radios.

Poor choice of words on my part. I meant that as the router yells out a loud signal the WiFi adapter whispers back in response. You have to be able to raise the Tx power of the adapter to coincide with Tx power increases with the router to have any real effect on signal strength or coverage.

 

[jonstatt]

Poor choice of words on my part. I meant that as the router yells out a loud signal the WiFi adapter whispers back in response. You have to be able to raise the Tx power of the adapter to coincide with Tx power increases with the router to have any real effect on signal strength or coverage.

I appreciate what you are saying but if you are streaming a Blu-ray over WiFi where the source is hard-wired to the router, the transmit from the router is far more important. Yes there are acks and other control signals from the receiving end, but they are much less critical.

 

[jejje]

Hi all!
sorry for stupid first time post from new user.
in a simple yes and no fashion. do you recommend upgrading to this FW (3.0.0.4.372)?
some posts talk about "slower" performance. are these isolated experiences?
is this a recommended firmware upgrade?

 

[jonstatt]

Hi all!
sorry for stupid first time post from new user.
in a simple yes and no fashion. do you recommend upgrading to this FW (3.0.0.4.372)?
some posts talk about "slower" performance. are these isolated experiences?
is this a recommended firmware upgrade?

You are not going to get a yes/no answer, because different people are having different experiences. It is a suck it and see right now. But don't forget this is not a one way journey. If you have the older firmware files downloaded, you can very easily revert back....no harm done!

 

[DaveMishSr]

I appreciate what you are saying but if you are streaming a Blu-ray over WiFi where the source is hard-wired to the router, the transmit from the router is far more important. Yes there are acks and other control signals from the receiving end, but they are much less critical.

That may very well be however when I played with the tx settings on my n66u and then ac66u not much happened. Yes, some poor indicators showed better reception on my laptop but when I measured throughput quantitatively no gains were seen. As a matter of fact, when I got past a certain point I actually saw throughput decrease. I can only hypothesize that increased noise and distortion, which always accompany signal power increases, were working against me. At any rate, that was my experience.

 

[RMerlin]

That may very well be however when I played with the tx settings on my n66u and then ac66u not much happened. Yes, some poor indicators showed better reception on my laptop but when I measured throughput quantitatively no gains were seen. As a matter of fact, when I got past a certain point I actually saw throughput decrease. I can only hypothesize that increased noise and distortion, which always accompany signal power increases, were working against me. At any rate, that was my experience.

Asus makde regular major changes to that part of the code, and I'm no longer sure I can understand that latest code correctly. But if I do, it *seems* that the router no longer apply any power value over 90 mW. Again, I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Bojamijams]

I have been having good success without wiping NVRam. Will give it a try...

there is never a good reason not to.. it can never hurt, can only help. so best to always do it. 2 extra minutes of downtime? not that big a deal

 

[Bojamijams]

Asus makde regular major changes to that part of the code, and I'm no longer sure I can understand that latest code correctly. But if I do, it *seems* that the router no longer apply any power value over 90 mW. Again, I'm not 100% sure.

What about that warning, is that not in play?

"The maximum value is 200mW and the real transmission power will be dynamically adjusted to meet regional regulations"

So based on where you're located in the world, your limit varies.

Merlin, what would be REALLY awesome is to be able to enable an over-ride in the firmware that forces it to do 200mW. Possible? Pretty please?

 

[RMerlin]

What about that warning, is that not in play?

"The maximum value is 200mW and the real transmission power will be dynamically adjusted to meet regional regulations"

So based on where you're located in the world, your limit varies.

Merlin, what would be REALLY awesome is to be able to enable an over-ride in the firmware that forces it to do 200mW. Possible? Pretty please?

Setting power isn't as simple as just entering a value and having everything magically work unfortunately. A lot of things are related to the inner workings of the wireless driver.

And I have no intention of allowing to override country-based regulations, due to legal reasons.

 

[Bojamijams]

Setting power isn't as simple as just entering a value and having everything magically work unfortunately. A lot of things are related to the inner workings of the wireless driver.

And I have no intention of allowing to override country-based regulations, due to legal reasons.

understood

 

[jonstatt]

How does the router know "where" it is? There is a longstanding UK bug where left on Auto at 5GHz it uses the channels above 100 which actually are not allowed. But although it selects it, it isn't really using it....you get no signal. So I have to force it to a channel like 48.

I have always been curious how the router knows its in the UK or the US or wherever. And before you suggest it does a reverse look-up on the assigned WAN IP address from the ISP, it locks down those frequencies even if you clear the NVRAM and have not actually connected to broadband.

 

[migueln]

Because of the ip adress your modem gives the router

 

[master wolfe]

How does the router know "where" it is? There is a longstanding UK bug where left on Auto at 5GHz it uses the channels above 100 which actually are not allowed. But although it selects it, it isn't really using it....you get no signal. So I have to force it to a channel like 48.

I have always been curious how the router knows its in the UK or the US or wherever. And before you suggest it does a reverse look-up on the assigned WAN IP address from the ISP, it locks down those frequencies even if you clear the NVRAM and have not actually connected to broadband.

Because of the ip adress your modem gives the router

I'm not sure that is accurate, migueln.

 

[Danish]

This fw worked perfectly on my iPhone 5 for about a week then it just stopped connecting or switching between connected and disconnected.

 

[KumquatOfPain]

This fw worked perfectly on my iPhone 5 for about a week then it just stopped connecting or switching between connected and disconnected.

So dumb question, but wasn't there an iOS update just recently? I know Apple has had issues with iPad/iPhone networking before.

 

[Danish]

iOS 7 comes out in the fall but even with it the issue still persists. It just might be the iphone though.

 

[FLA NL]

Wow, that's kind of interesting. I wonder if it's a clue for the cause.
Mine also drops to 175.5.

I don't want to use the RT-AC66U as an access point though.

Hmmm, do you use the ipv6 DHCP-PD option? In AP-Mode the ipv6 option in the router is disabled. I'm now testing it in router mode with ipv6 disabled and now my linkspeed also stays at 866.5.

Edit:
Nevermind... also with ipv6 disabled it dropped back to 175.5 after a while... the router is more stable though with ipv6 turned off with this firmware, with ipv6 DHCP-PD enabled the router restarts a lot, that doesn't happen with the .270 firmware, it does for all later firmwares including Merlins based on later firmwares.

 

[krum]

This fw worked perfectly on my iPhone 5 for about a week then it just stopped connecting or switching between connected and disconnected.

I ran into the same problem it just stopped after a week, Mine was parental controls just stopped working; I had to disable the parental controls; some reason it started to block the connections
Reverted back to Merlin .372

Chris

 

[migueln]

can anyone managed to do this?

My question is the following I have to asus router connected via openvpn, now one is in the us and the other one outside, the thing is there are some services like pandora I would like to use using my connection if I press the redirect al internet traffic I get the us ip but my speed get down a lot, is there a way for me to get the ip adress of us but not to have to get the low speeds? please tell me if I could in someway masquerade the outside router ip adress to use the us router ip adress. thanks in advance for replying to my question. I also have dual wan so mayber I could use one of them to redirect internet traffic but not both.

 

[Skripka]

My question is the following I have to asus router connected via openvpn, now one is in the us and the other one outside, the thing is there are some services like pandora I would like to use using my connection if I press the redirect al internet traffic I get the us ip but my speed get down a lot, is there a way for me to get the ip adress of us but not to have to get the low speeds? please tell me if I could in someway masquerade the outside router ip adress to use the us router ip adress. thanks in advance for replying to my question. I also have dual wan so mayber I could use one of them to redirect internet traffic but not both.

One of two things is likely happening:

A) Your VPN provider's gateway simply does not have enough bandwidth for your liking. Which is easily possible depending on what VPN provider you are using, and how little you're paying for the service. There are few good VPN providers and lots of bad ones....the cheap or free ones ones only give you a few megabit down, and are very skittish fessing up about what kind of logs they keep for how long and how happy they are to sell your info out.

2) The RT-AC66U simply does not have enough computing power to process the amount of throughput in VPN that you would like. IME, my RT-AC66U can usually do around 17-20megabit down/second in OpenVPN client. If you are paying for your ISP to get more than 20 down this is your problem.