ASUS RT-AC68U sluggish Inet connection after some hours running

[Almilcar]

Hello all,

I´ve been struggling for some weeks now with my RT-AC68U. Speed drops drastically after some hours, a maximum of a few days for wired and wireless devices connected. I´ve been swapping between official ASUS firmware versions and WRT-Merlin and the outcome is always the same: we end up rebooting manually every day or even more than once on the same day.

I´ve been trying to troubleshoot the issue for days but it has been today when after upgrading to version 386.10 that I noticed the following warning:

Your router is running low on free NVRAM, which might affect its stability.

I´ve read somewhere that I need to do a "hard reset" to clear the NVRAM. Do you suggest any other approach to solve this issue?

Thanks in advance.

 

[bennor]

I´ve been trying to troubleshoot the issue for days but it has been today when after upgrading to version 386.10 that I noticed the following warning:

Your router is running low on free NVRAM, which might affect its stability.

I´ve read somewhere that I need to do a "hard reset" to clear the NVRAM. Do you suggest any other approach to solve this issue?

Use the forum search feature to search through the Asus-Merlin subforum. There are a number of discussions on the Low NVRAM, and NVRAM in general, issue with the RT-AC68U. For example here and here and here. Do a hard factory reset first and manually reconfigure from scratch, do not import a saved router cfg file. For many that typically fixes the Low NVRAM message:
[Wireless Router] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset - Method 1

There are several other possible steps to take including not using manual DHCP IP reservations, or moving those reservations to a separate file (dnsmasq.conf.add) or use YazDHCP. There are other temporary commands that can be run that may reduce the NVRAM usage but they don't typically survive reboot and could potentially introduce other issues.

In the end the RT-AC68U is stuck with the reduced 64K NVRAM, unlike other Asus routers that typically have more NVRAM (128K). If you read through the other recent NVRAM threads you'll see RMerlin has talked about possible things he might do in future 386.x firmware to potentially free up a little bit of the NVRAM. But its just a stop gap measure to an aging 10 year old router. If the router is beginning to show it's age one may want to consider upgrading to a newer router.

 

[Almilcar]

After some research herein, I´ve followed some guidance to clear the NVRAM using SH scripts.

for line in `nvram show | grep ^[^=]*=$ `; do var=${line%*=}; nvram unset $var; done; nvram commit

Thank you for the prompt reply to my inquiry.

 

[Almilcar]

Use the forum search feature to search through the Asus-Merlin subforum. There are a number of discussions on the Low NVRAM, and NVRAM in general, issue with the RT-AC68U. For example here and here and here. Do a hard factory reset first and manually reconfigure from scratch, do not import a saved router cfg file. For many that typically fixes the Low NVRAM message:
[Wireless Router] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset - Method 1

There are several other possible steps to take including not using manual DHCP IP reservations, or moving those reservations to a separate file (dnsmasq.conf.add) or use YazDHCP. There are other temporary commands that can be run that may reduce the NVRAM usage but they don't typically survive reboot and could potentially introduce other issues.

In the end the RT-AC68U is stuck with the reduced 64K NVRAM, unlike other Asus routers that typically have more NVRAM (128K). If you read through the other recent NVRAM threads you'll see RMerlin has talked about possible things he might do in future 386.x firmware to potentially free up a little bit of the NVRAM. But its just a stop gap measure to an aging 10 year old router. If the router is beginning to show it's age one may want to consider upgrading to a newer router.

I managed to go down to 53K after running some NVRAM SH scripts. When I checked the warning, it was up to 65K, almost full.

Thank you. I really appreciate it.

 

[bennor]

After some research herein, I´ve followed some guidance to clear the NVRAM using SH scripts.

for line in `nvram show | grep ^[^=]*=$ `; do var=${line%*=}; nvram unset $var; done; nvram commit

Thank you for the prompt reply to my inquiry.

As indicated previously the various scripts used to reduce NVRAM may not survive a router reboot and could present other issues. You really should first do a hard factory reset and then manually configure the router. Then check the NVRAM usage. If it is still an issue then look at moving or removing the DHCP manual IP reservations. If NVRAM is still an issue then use the script(ing) mentioned in numerous other posts about NVRAM.

 

[Almilcar]

Thanks again.

Proceeding as we speak to a Hard Reset and then a manual configuration with no CFG file restoration. Weird thing is that I have no DCHP manual IP reservations. I'm gonna check that in case there is some junk data left on the NVRAM.

Cheers again.

 

[Rob Q]

Since my RT-AC1900P using the same firmware as the AC68U, would that script be any benefit to me as well? I never reboot the router, only if required or the main power goes out.

​

Internal Storage
NVRAM usage	59498 / 65536 bytes
JFFS	3.50 / 62.75 MB

 

[Tech9]

Since my RT-AC1900P using the same firmware as the AC68U

Your router is fine, no need to run any scripts on it.

RT-AC1900P was a BestBuy exclusive variant of RT-AC68U with faster CPU and updated antennas.